discount drugs from canada/generic viagra ABQ Regulation Banning Sex Offenders from Libraries Overturned
ALBUQUERQUE, NM – In a case brought by the ACLU of New Mexico (ACLU-NM), U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo ruled today that Albuquerque’s regulation banning sex offenders from public libraries is unconstitutional. The court determined that the ban infringed too broadly upon the First Amendment right to receive information and creates “an unacceptable risk of the suppression of ideas.”
“No one questions the City’s purpose of ensuring public safety, but this regulation sacrificed library access for too many people who present no threat to library goers,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “A regulation like this must be narrowly tailored if it is going to infringe on a right as fundamental as the public’s ability to receive information. For many people, public libraries are, as one court put it, ‘the quintessential locus of the receipt of information.’”
In the decision handed down today, the court reached this conclusion:
“This Court has struggled in this case to strike the proper legal balance between competing interests… On one side of the equation here is the City, which no reasonable person could or would contend does not have a legitimate and compelling interest in…protecting children from harm, danger and crime, especially crimes of a sexual nature. On the other side of the equation is a group of individuals that, no matter how reviled, nevertheless possesses certain constitutional rights. When those rights are burdened or, in this case, wholly extinguished by an action of government, this Court has an obligation to scrutinize the facts and the law closely, carefully, and objectively to ensure that, whatever the end result, it is just. In this case, having done just this, the Court concludes that the City’s regulation, as currently written and in its present form, cannot stand.”
The court’s order enjoins the City of Albuquerque from enforcing the regulation as currently written.
UPDATE (5/7/10): Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry has reinstated the ban for all libraries except the main branch on Thursdays and Saturdays. Read more about the new ordinance and ACLU-NM’s response.
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The mission of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico is to maintain and advance the cause of civil liberties within the state of New Mexico, with particular emphasis on the freedom of religion, speech, press, association, and assemblage, and the right to vote, due process of law and equal protection of law, and to take any legitimate action in the furtherance and defense of such purposes. These objectives shall be sought wholly without political partisanship.
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If I’ve said it once before, will say it again; kindly drop the A from ACLU. The A represents American and I can’t see that anyone of you are Americans. You have never really supported the Americans. You’re for the outsiders/foreigners/illegal aliens, etc. So cut the crap, please. You think like an organization of communists and seem to do more harm than good.
As for the borders, well sorry, but you will find that the majority of Americans want our borders protected and secure. What we need is a great Wall of China. People that aren’t invited here, don’t belong here. I suggest if you so strongly believe in and support the rights of the illegals, well then how about going over across the border and give their citizens and government a fight. These people have the unmitigated nerve to break our laws by coming into this country illegally and then to add insult to injury, they protest and make demands on our government. I’ve never ever heard anything so stupid and ridiculous in all my life. If they want to enter this country then let them do like so many immigrants who came years ago, come in legally and go through the process. If not, then tough tamales!!!!! We don’t need unskilled, uneducated, uninsured, and unable to speak the language people coming into this country. What your organization is doing is building up real resentment and animosity towards these illegals; you’re not helping the situation at all. You’re adding more fuel to the fire as the saying goes. So please crawl back into your caves and stay there until the time comes when you’ll support the American people.
We don’t need the United States of America to become a Third World Country. Try to look beyond your noses, please.
Thank you.