Posted: sspnj@exit109.com ACLU News 05-23-96: *House Votes to Keep Intelligence Budget Secret* In a blow to open government, the House of Representatives has rejected a move by the Clinton Administration to -- for the first time -- make public the overall national intelligence budget, The Washington Post reported today. The rejection came on a vote of 248 to 176 on an amendment to a bill that would fund the CIA and 11 other, mostly Pentagon-based, intelligence agencies. The ACLU had supported the amendment, saying that "taxpayers have a right to know what their tax dollars support." But the Post said that House Intelligence Chairman Larry Combest, R-TX, opposed disclosure in committee and led the opposition on the floor yesterday. He said making the overall figure public inevitably would lead to disclosure of individual intelligence accounts, which, he said, could harm clandestine sources and methods. ACLU Legislative Counsel Gregory T. Nojeim disagreed. "Disclosure of the bottom-line figure is the absolute minimum that Congress should do to make the intelligence agencies accountable to the American public," he said. "All of these intelligence agencies have acknowledged that any Cold War justification for keeping the total budget secret has passed." -------------------------------------- -------------------------- *State Police Search Blacks More Than Whites* PERRYVILLE, Md. -- Black drivers are being stopped and searched for drugs at least four times more often than whites by a special Maryland state police squad that patrols stretches of Interstate 95, the East Coast's main north-south artery, the Associated Press reports today. This finding from an Associated Press computer analysis of car searches raises questions of whether troopers are following their own written training procedures and complying with a court ruling that specifically bars them from using racial profiles to determine likely drug couriers. More than 75 percent of all drivers whose cars were searched by the special drug squad through the first nine months of last year were black, the AP said. State police steadfastly denied using racial profiles, which in the past typically targeted young minority men driving late-model cars and carrying pagers or wearing gold jewelry. The Maryland police maintained that black motorists were searched for reasons other than race and that the preponderance of blacks searched amounted to coincidence. Maryland state police are forbidden to use racial profiles in traffic stops under terms of a legal settlement reached in 1994 with Robert Wilkins, a black Washington lawyer searched for drugs as he drove home from a funeral in 1992. The settlement also requires troopers to provide records on all 1995-97 highway searches to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. The AP examined the records for January through September 1995. The AP said that it asked the ACLU for the early reports after a Philadelphia couple filed a discrimination suit in January against three troopers. Charles Carter, now 66, and his wife, Etta, 65, were driving north on I-95 in a rented minivan on July 12, 1994, their 40th wedding anniversary, when troopers pulled them over and searched the van for drugs. The couple claim they were searched because they are black. ``This entire incident was and continues to be deeply humiliating for my wife and myself,'' Carter said in an affidavit. ``It is inconceivable to us that, as American citizens of the late twentieth century, we would be treated in this manner by officers of the law.'' The ACLU said the data may eventually prove a pattern of discrimination. If the organization can show in court that blacks are being searched in inappropriately high numbers, it may consider a class-action lawsuit, said Debbie Jeon, an ACLU attorney. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ONLINE RESOURCES FROM THE ACLU NATIONAL OFFICE ---------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Freedom Network Web Page: http://www.aclu.org. America Online users should check out our live chats, auditorium events, *very* active message boards, and complete news on civil liberties, at keyword ACLU. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Newsfeed American Civil Liberties Union National Office 132 West 43rd Street New York, New York 10036 To subscribe to the ACLU Newsfeed, send a message to majordomo@aclu.org with "subscribe News" in the body of the message. To terminate your subscription, send a message to majordomo@aclu.org with "unsubscribe News" in the body of the message. For general information about the ACLU, write to info@aclu.org. - ---------------------------------------------------------------This message was sent to the news