FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:

William Hudson

HC 71 Box 765

San Lorenzo, NM 88041

(575) 536 3092

[email protected]

SILVER CITY, NM - The Southwestern Chapter of the ACLU of New Mexico is sponsoring a singer/songwriter competition in connection with its Annual Meeting, to be held on October 25, 2013.  The speakers and all accepted song entries will center on one theme.  This year’s focus will be on any aspect of our rights of privacy.

Right to Privacy

Since 9/11 there has been an increasing erosion of many of our rights.  With the passage and subsequent renewals of the National Security Act, agencies have been able to listen to phone conversations, read emails, intercept mail, access financial accounts, even track library activity without warrants. Agencies are employing GPS tracking devices and there is increased possibility of drone aircraft following anyone’s movement.
What are our privacy rights?  Who can know what goes on in our lives, our finances, our thoughts?  How much are you willing to share?  Share your talent and send your entries.

Competition Details

• This competition is open to all musicians in the “Border Regions” of West Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, who write and perform in any musical genre.  The prize will be a 4 hour recording session, provided at a state-of-the-art, digital recording studio and production house.   All submissions must be original compositions of the Artist/Performer (maximum of 2 entries per Artist/Performer).
• All entries are free, there are no entry fees.
• Entry will be made on an official entry form (contact William Hudson, at [email protected]).
• Entrants will submit a CD recording of their entry (It need not be a professional recording, but should be clean enough that the listener can hear the melody and musical interpretation).
• Entrants will submit a written copy of the lyrics (so that the appropriate theme and poetic quality can be evaluated).

All entries must be mailed to: ACLU/Competition

C/o Peter Falley

521 E. Lance Dr.

Silver City, NM 88061

Evaluation Criteria

Entries will be evaluated by the judging panel on;

• How appropriate the song is relative to the theme (Our general right to privacy within our family and our home, to be free of “unwarranted search and seizure”, to be assured due process, etc.)
• Artistic lyrical styling, poetic interpretation
• Musical originality, styling

All entries must arrive no later than September 14, 2013.  Finalists will be notified no later than September 28, 2013.  Finalists need to be present at The Annual Meeting of the ACLU of New Mexico, Southwestern Chapter, in Silver City, NM, on Friday October 25, 2013.  On that evening, the finalists will perform their entry live for our audience and judges for final selection of the winner.

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Tomorrow, the House Voters & Elections Committee will hear House Bill 103, introduced by Representative Cathrynn Brown. If this name sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because Cathrynn Brown recently gained political infamy for a misguided attempt to criminalize abortion after rape as “tampering with evidence.” Her newest piece of legislation, HB103, is a voter ID bill that “requires all voters to present identification before voting.” While this m   ay seem innocuous at first glance, mandatory Voter ID laws cause real harm to our democracy. As Representative Ken Martinez said in the Alamogordo Daily News, ID requirements disproportionately affect certain demographics. He says that seniors and low-income citizens are the least likely to have identification. They may also be unable to obtain ID’s because they often lack proper transportation. By adding this requirement, we would potentially deny a large segment of the population their right to vote.

Let’s not forget that the City of Albuquerque has already implemented mandatory voter ID for municipal elections. In 2007, the ACLU successfully challenged this ordinance in federal court, but the ruling was short lived. The New Mexico Court of Appeals court reinstated the original decision in 2008. This was bad news for some citizens, like as Katy Sheridan. Ms. Sheridan is an Albuquerque senior citizen who does not own a vehicle. In October of 2011, she walked to the polls through the rain, only to discover her voter registration card wasn’t considered acceptable identification because it didn’t have a picture. She was unable to vote that day, and she had to walk back home without accomplishing anything. Voter ID requirements hurt American citizens like Ms. Sheridan who only want to exercise their civic duty. Our representatives should be doing everything possible to make the voting process easier, not more difficult.

Mandatory voter I.D. laws are ostensibly designed to eliminate voter fraud, but despite all the scare tactics, there is no evidence that New Mexico has a significant voter fraud problem. Our citizens are responsible and respectful in exercising their democratic right. The real fraud is perpetrated by politicians who attempt to rig the system for their own personal gain by making it harder for certain groups of legitimate voters to cast their ballots. Mandatory voter ID laws essentially give legislatures the power to make it harder for citizens to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. By rigging the system this way, entire segments of the population don’t have a voice in our government. We have to wonder why some legislators are pushing so hard for these wrongheaded barriers at the polls. It can only be because it works to their advantage and against the interests of our democracy.
Wathc Katy Sheridan's story here:

 

ALBUQUERQUE, NM—Today, the New Mexico State Medical Board ruled that Dr. Shelley Sella, a doctor with Southwestern Women’s Options and target of anti-abortion extremists, committed no negligence or wrongdoing in a case where a patient experienced complications during her abortion.
 
The complaint against Dr. Sella was originally filed in 2011 by Operation Rescue (OR) Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger, a convicted federal felon who served two years in prison for conspiring to bomb an abortion clinic in 1987. Operation Rescue is a Wichita, Kansas-based anti-abortion organization known for their extreme tactics that often involve harassment and intimidation of doctors and patients.
 
“This is a familiar tactic Operation Rescue has used in other states,” said ACLU-NM Legal Director Laura Schauer Ives. “When an abortion clinic calls 911, Operation Rescue files a complaint with the state medical board in an attempt to bully and harass doctors. It’s a shame that out-of-state extremists feel that they can abuse and politicize our system of medical oversight to satisfy their political agendas.”
 
After an anti-abortion radical assassinated Wichita, Kansas physician Dr. George Tiller in 2009, Operation Rescue sent two interns, Bud and Tara Shaver, as “missionaries” to Albuquerque where two of Dr. Tiller’s colleagues had relocated to continue providing abortion care to their patients. Soon after the Shavers began working with local anti-abortion organization Project Defending Life (PDL), they began coordinating with Operation Rescue to file numerous frivolous complaints against abortion providers with the New Mexico State Medical Board.
 
To date, the medical board has only investigated one complaint filed by OR/PDL, which was cleared by today’s ruling.
 
“This is really about harassment of doctors and abuse of the medical oversight system,” said ACLU-NM Staff Attorney Alexandra Freedman Smith. “Extremists like Operation Rescue and Project Defending Life aren’t concerned about the health and safety of women; their only goal is to ensure that no New Mexican woman can access a safe and legal abortion.”
 
New Mexico has experienced an influx of anti-abortion extremism and legislation in recent years, including bills that would criminalize rape victims for seeking abortions, ban abortion after 20 weeks, force a woman to view or listen to an ultrasound before terminating their pregnancy, enforce waiting periods to have an abortion and force young women to notify their parents before seeking abortion care. PDL reports they sought and received a private audience with Governor Susanna Martinez and recently acted as Rep. Nora Espinoza’s “expert witness” in hearings over the forced view/listen ultrasound bill during the current legislative session.
 
To learn more about Operation Rescue/Project Defending Life’s campaign of harassment against New Mexico doctors, see the Progress Now New Mexico report on OR/PDL methodology, Rhetoric Over Fact: Inside Project Defending Life and Operation Rescue's Exploitation of 911 Calls.
 

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