ACLU sues woman for asking FOIA request re numbers of trans prisoners

[KeepPrisonsSingleSex]

At the weekend, I received an email from a woman in the USA who had submitted a FOIA request to Washington Department of Corrections asking for numbers of transgender prisoners, numbers of transfer requests from male estate to female estate, numbers of actual transfers. She is legally entitled to ask for and to receive this information if it is judged to be in the public interest. If it is not judged to be in the public interest, and hence outside the scope of a FOIA, her request can be declined following a standard process.

What happened?

Well, she didn't get an answer. But more than that the American Civil Liberties Union took legal action against Washington Corrections Department AND AGAINST HER PERSONALLY to prevent this information from being released.

As you can imagine, I was shocked. Not as shocked as she was. But still....

Thankfully, WoLF have taken this on and will be fighting this on behalf of the woman.

It is chilling that ACLU have done this. What does it say for Freedom of Information?

thepostmillennial.com/aclu-blocks-womans-request-for-data-on-numbers-of-transgender-inmates-in-womens-prisons
www.womensliberationfront.org/aclu-lawsuit-public-records

How do ACLU even know? Do they trawl the FOI system?

WoLF
14/04/21 'ACLU SUES TO PREVENT PRIVATE CITIZEN FROM RECEIVING PUBLIC RECORDS IN WASHINGTON STATE'
(extract)
"On April 8, the citizen received email notification that the ACLU of Washington Foundation and Disability Rights Washington, along with their clients “who are current and former transgender, non-binary, and intersex inmates and in the custody of Washington Department of Corrections,” are naming her personally as an interested party in a lawsuit to prevent the information from being released. The email stated, “We have filed for an emergency Temporary Restraining Order and a Motion for Preliminary Injunction to prevent the disclosure of documents you have requested from the Department of Corrections.”

The ACLU also named members of the press, including The News Tribune, a Tacoma-based paper, as interested parties in the lawsuit.

The ACLU has regularly used Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and their state equivalents to access information relevant to the public interest. The ACLU of Washington has specifically advocated for the expansion of the Public Records Act in the past, stating, “Transparency is at the heart of democracy and today’s decision affirms the right of the public to know about the work of the legislators that represent them.” It is troubling both that the ACLU is seeking to silence an individual who is petitioning their government, as well as attacking the free press." (continues)
www.womensliberationfront.org/news/aclu-sues-private-citizen-to-suppress-public-records-request-in-washington-state

I wouldn't be surprised if they do. I suspect they were anticipating something like this. Regardless, their being notified is not illegal. The focus needs to be on the reasons why this information should be released.

I read the link in the OP which contains the letter to the person who made the FOIA request, and it didn't look to me as though she was being sued.

Screenshot of the letter sent to her by the ACLU. It says "We have filed for an emergency Temporary Restraining Order and a Motion for Preliminary Injunction to prevent the disclosure of documents you have requested from the Department of Corrections. You or your employers are listed as 'Interested Parties'."

@OldCrone

I read the link in the OP which contains the letter to the person who made the FOIA request, and it didn't look to me as though she was being sued.

Screenshot of the letter sent to her by the ACLU. It says "We have filed for an emergency Temporary Restraining Order and a Motion for Preliminary Injunction to prevent the disclosure of documents you have requested from the Department of Corrections. You or your employers are listed as 'Interested Parties'."

Thanks for posting. This looks like I would expect it to.

Can they win the suppression of the information ?

Thanks for that link R0wantrees. At the end of that piece it says:

To clarify, being sued means that our client is named as a party by the ACLU in their lawsuit, along with others such as members of the News Tribune and the Washington Dept. of Corrections. She must now fight the lawsuit if she wants to have her lawful PRA request completed.

Wtaf!

the buckling to donor demands at the expense of long-held principles

ACLU and the Arcus Foundation have been working together (with funding from the latter) on Trans prisoners rights for some time. This document from 2014 contains advice for transwomen prisoners on requesting transfer to women's jails and for only female members of staff to conduct searches on them. It's an area of interest to a major donor certainly.

www.arcusfoundation.org/publications/adult-transgender-prisoners-navigate-precarious-judicial-system/

www.arcusfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Know-Your-Rights-Guide-to-Protect-Transgender-Prisoners.pdf

@BrandineDelRoy

I think she's being named as an "interested party," as in she has an interest in the case. It's not a lawsuit as people generally understand the term to mean appearing in court, being subject to damages, etc. In my state, if a party filed this kind of injunction, it is required to provide notice to the person making the request, but this person is named named in the suit.

My point is that I think there's a potential bright side to this. It's getting publicity for the issue and will have a judge rather than a state worker in charge of FOIA requests considering the arguments.

I have in my possession a copy of the document which states that a lawsuit has been issued against her. Will you please stop 'correcting' me and telling me that I don't know what I am talking about. I very much wish you were right and I was wrong (although the situation would still be bad enough). But you are wrong and I am right.

Sure. I'll stop contributing. I was never trying to correct you. It's just that I'm an American lawyer who really supports the information she requested getting released. I'm just trying to get this focused on the merits and not the process. I've lurked here forever but usually only posted after a few glasses overcame my introversion. This was something I actually knew something about.

It's not what you expect if you submit a FOI either way

Shocking

@BrandineDelRoy

I wouldn't be surprised if they do. I suspect they were anticipating something like this. Regardless, their being notified is not illegal. The focus needs to be on the reasons why this information should be released.

I understand that the reasons need publicity because of the women prisons being subjected to the violations. But, purely in terms of acquiring the information, no-one needs to justify why they want it, do they?

@BrandineDelRoy

Sure. I'll stop contributing. I was never trying to correct you. It's just that I'm an American lawyer who really supports the information she requested getting released. I'm just trying to get this focused on the merits and not the process. I've lurked here forever but usually only posted after a few glasses overcame my introversion. This was something I actually knew something about.

I apologise. I shouldn't have been snippy with you.

This fits with everything I’ve read about the ACLU in recent years. Totally in thrall to gender identity, actively opposing women’s rights. A sad travesty of what it once was.

This stance by ACLU seems to be more and more common among groups that say they are about equality or human rights. They never approach the issue with equality. It is always from the position of presuming one side is right and they have decided in advance that is right.

Surely their position should be that in this case it should maybe go before a judge or jury or ... to work out how the conflicting rights of trans women and women can be equally resolved.

This whole despressing scenario we have here in the UK and in North America that women dont have rights, and certainly shouldn't be so uppity as to assume they have rights and ask for them.

KeepPrisons. Thank you for the apology. I accept it wholeheartedly. I have to go do children and dinner stuff now. WOLF will have more and better lawyers than me. I just think this might be an opportunity in disguise.

BrandineDelRoy I am sorry your useful and insightful contributions have been met with such rudeness. I am also a lawyer, and concur with everything you have said. She is not being sued. She is not a defendant. An "interested party" is someone who will have an interest/will be directly affected in the outcome of a proceeding, and therefore has to be named by the party seeking relief, in this case, the ACLU. I also agree that the ACLU pulling this sort of dick move just brings more sunlight down on the whole corrupt lot of them. Much like Maya's case has in the UK.

Datum-- I can't speak for every state, but in mine, no one needs to justify a request. When I spoke of rivals, I was referring to my experience when a state agency put out a request for bids for a product or service and received numerous bids. Once the contract is granted, the "losers" scramble to request their competitors' bids to get a leg up. Then all the companies get their lawyers out.

@SpaceBatAngelDragon

BrandineDelRoy I am sorry your useful and insightful contributions have been met with such rudeness. I am also a lawyer, and concur with everything you have said. She is not being sued. She is not a defendant. An "interested party" is someone who will have an interest/will be directly affected in the outcome of a proceeding, and therefore has to be named by the party seeking relief, in this case, the ACLU. I also agree that the ACLU pulling this sort of dick move just brings more sunlight down on the whole corrupt lot of them. Much like Maya's case has in the UK.

Thank you.

@SpaceBatAngelDragon

BrandineDelRoy I am sorry your useful and insightful contributions have been met with such rudeness. I am also a lawyer, and concur with everything you have said. She is not being sued. She is not a defendant. An "interested party" is someone who will have an interest/will be directly affected in the outcome of a proceeding, and therefore has to be named by the party seeking relief, in this case, the ACLU. I also agree that the ACLU pulling this sort of dick move just brings more sunlight down on the whole corrupt lot of them. Much like Maya's case has in the UK.

I agree that I was snippy and rude and I have apologised. It was inappropriate, unnecessary and uncalled for.

KeepPrisons. It really is no problem. None at all.

I'm sorry. I don't know how to respond in bold without quoting.

@stumbledin

This stance by ACLU seems to be more and more common among groups that say they are about equality or human rights. They never approach the issue with equality. It is always from the position of presuming one side is right and they have decided in advance that is right.

Surely their position should be that in this case it should maybe go before a judge or jury or ... to work out how the conflicting rights of trans women and women can be equally resolved.

This whole despressing scenario we have here in the UK and in North America that women dont have rights, and certainly shouldn't be so uppity as to assume they have rights and ask for them.

I think the underlying problem may be that they have taken sides on issues that are not at the heart of civil liberties.

It's something where people often don't want to draw a line, but the strength of civil liberties groups, ACLU, or AI, was alway that their remit was in a certain sense quite narrow. What are the most fundamental preconditions for a democracy, often these are the things that we see underpinning the law in a constitution or at the heart of the justice system. It includes things like freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of association.

Possibly even laws around communications mediums like newspapers or social media platforms or to what extent employers can demand that workers refrain from making political statements outside of work.

But unless they refrain from getting in deeply with, or advocating for, other things, no matter how good their members may believe them to be, they will inevitably end up compromised in this most basic mission.

In part this seems to be related to this tendency among liberal progressives to be unable to separate out separate issues, and see that there can often be a need for a dialectical or even adversarial approach to get to the appropriate balance.

I would suggest the issue with the ACLU is that claims can be made about "human rights" without actual evidence; there isn't too much need today to robustly defend your claims, and it's all a bit of an elitist process that can successfully subvert democracy.

Left-wing NGOs and political leaders somehow decide X, or reach enough of a consensus on X, then push for X as a "human right"; because it's supposed to be a "human right" it then doesn't matter whether there is democratic majority support for the principle or not, as you can't allow human rights violations just because the general public thinks the wrong thing.

Left-wing activism should then be pushed through regardless of what the people think. You maybe don't even need to go through politicians if you can get sympathetic judges to endorse your activism as being "constitutional law".