Attached is the testimony of Clare Garvie, Fourth Amendment Center Training and Resource Counsel, for the U.S. Commission on Human Rights' hearing on Civil Rights Implications of the Federal Use of Facial Recognition Technology. Her testimony highlights how the use of facial recognition technology in the criminal legal system intersects with the Commission’s mandate to inform civil rights policy, enhance enforcement of federal civil rights laws, and investigate discrimination in the administration of justice. 

NACDL welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Drug Enforcement Agency’s proposed rule on the status of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. NACDL urges the DEA to reconsider its proposed rule and issue a new rule to deschedule marijuana. Rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III will not end federal marijuana arrests, even for possession and use, it will not release anyone from prison, and it will not expunge previous marijuana arrests from individuals’ criminal records. NACDL contends that rescheduling marijuana is simply not enough, and marijuana should be federally descheduled.

This comment from the Fourth Amendment Center addresses the National Institute of Standards and Technology's report "Digital Investigation Techniques: A Scientific Foundation Review."

NACDL comments to the Executive Office of the President Office of Science and Technology Policy responding to a request for information regarding the use of biometric technology.

We advocate for immediate commutation of sentences, compassionate release, and second chances for persons convicted of non-violent marijuana offenses. The continued prosecution of marijuana crimes continues to cause irreparable harm on real people and their families. Men and women languish in federal prisons across this country for conduct today that has been legalized in many states and under statues that have been rewritten to reflect the evolving landscape in the field of marijuana.

As a criminal defense organization, we do not profess to possess expertise in policing practices insofar as those practices do not directly intersect with the criminal justice system. But many police practices do have a direct impact on the treatment of accused persons, the degree to which their cases are litigated justly, and case outcomes. Accordingly, we offer a few key insights, which we hope will find their way into the Commission’s recommendations.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, a professional society, offers the following comments for the White House’s consideration. … NACDL has particular expertise in the collection of law enforcement data. Since 2020, NACDL’s Full Disclosure Project has managed an open-source web application to track, aggregate, and analyze law enforcement misconduct data. NACDL also collaborates with advanced computing and data science partners to develop tools and processes that automate collecting and digesting police data.

Comments on rules & regulations and letters submitted to various federal agencies on behalf of NACDL

We submit this letter in support of many of the Department’s proposed amendments to 34 CFR 685. … NACDL supports amendments to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that will provide greater flexibility for qualifying payments and establishing a process for reconsideration when an application for forgiveness is denied. We also strongly support additional changes contemplated by the Department that would allow more lawyers providing full-time public defense services (a job function explicitly listed in the Higher Education Act as qualifying employment) access to PSLF.

Letter to the Securities Exchange Commission regarding proposed whistleblower provisions to the Securities Exchange Act.

Coalition letter to Department of Justice Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and Securities and Exchange Commission Director of Enforcement Robert Khuzami regarding enforcement of and forthcoming guidance for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Coalition letter to the President of the United States in support of federal ban the box for government agencies and contractors; NACDL is a signatory.

As a new round of military commission trials takes shape at Guantanamo Bay, an important piece of unfinished business is revision of the Manual for Military Commissions. The 2010 Manual will spell out the specifics of proceedings under the Military Commissions Act of 2009. The Department of Defense has been working on this revision for some time but has not made a draft available for public comment, even though doing so is the norm for both federal court and court-martial rule making. An opportunity for public comment may produce improvements in the final text.

NACDL urges the National Institute of Standards and Technology to form Guidance Groups dominated by scientists who are independent of law enforcement and inclusive of statisticians, researchers, and quality control experts. Since the National Research Council issued its clarion call for reform of forensic science, NACDL has consistently advocated for implementation of the NRC’s overarching recommendation – that the validity of forensic disciplines be examined and standards be set by an entity independent of law enforcement and dominated by a culture of science.

... NACDL proposes that each subcommittee include a balanced, multidisciplinary combination of experts reflecting the fact that each subcommittee will be tasked with developing a wide range of standards that require input from different fields of expertise. As part and parcel of its functional analysis of subcommittee composition, NACDL also addresses the related issues of the systematic review of scientific literature that must precede development of scientifically-supported standards, and the leadership of the subcommittees and their governing Scientific Area Committees.