Week 5-Tues-Laws and Constitution

n  Reading U.S. Laws and Constitutional Amendments

n  Upcoming ban of religious and other forms of profiling

n  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (outgoing):

n  In a broad new policy, the Department of Justice is set to ban religious and other forms of profiling by federal law-enforcement officers, according to the Los Angeles Times.

n  To be issued in about three weeks.

n  Upcoming ban of religious and other forms of profiling

n  The new guidelines, which are still being finalized, would bar “federal agents from conducting undercover surveillance of a mosque, for example, without some information that criminal activity is under way,” the report says.

n  Under current policy, promulgated in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, law-enforcement agencies were given broad latitude to monitor specific religious groups, the LA Times writes.

n  Bill of Rights (First 10 Amendments)

n  Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, the right to a fair and speedy trial–the ringing phrases that inventory some of Americans' most treasured personal freedoms–were not initially part of the U.S. Constitution.

n  At the Constitutional Convention, the proposal to include a bill of rights was considered and defeated. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution as the first ten amendments on December 15, 1791.

n  The fact that the Constitution did not include a bill of rights to specifically protect Americans' hard-won rights sparked the most heated debates during the ratification process.

n  Amendments-Aided Blacks

n  The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the entire United States.

n  The 14th Amendment ensured that all freed slaves would become U.S. citizens and that all citizens of all states would enjoy not only rights on the federal level, but on the state level, too. It removed the three-fifths counting of slaves in the census. It ensured that the United States would not pay the debts of rebellious states.

n  The 15th Amendment ensured that race could not be used as a criteria for voting. Black MEN got right to vote. Ratified February 3, 1870.

n  Amendments

n  The 18th Amendment abolished the sale or manufacture of alcohol in the United States (“Prohibition”). This amendment was later repealed (erased).

n  The 19th Amendment ensures that sex could not be used as a criteria for voting. (Women got right to vote.) Ratified on August 18, 1920.

n  50 years after African American men got right to vote.

n  Amendments Aid Blacks

n  The 24th Amendment ensured that no poll tax or other tax could be charged to vote for any federal office.

n  Blacks had been kept from voting in southern states by being charged a “poll tax” to vote, which they could not afford to pay.

n  DVD Lincoln, start with protest in Congress to postpone vote.