ACLU praises Taunton decision to cancel “Lunch Bytes” program

The decision by the Taunton School Committee to cancel plans for its controversial “Lunch Bytes” program, which would have used fingerprint scans to identify students in school lunch lines, drew kudos last week from the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In February, ACLU Staff Attorney Sarah Wunsch wrote Taunton Superintendent of Schools Dr. Arthur Stellar urging the school district to reconsider its plans for the $40,000 program.

“While I appreciate the school system’s desire to speed up the lunch line and to avoid stigma for students receiving free or reduced lunches … there are legitimate and serious privacy concerns created by this system,” Wunsch wrote.

While the Lunch Bytes system would not have stored students’ actual fingerprints, it translates distinguishing points on the prints into a digital code. Security experts have expressed concern that stolen codes could be misused in new forms of biometric identity theft.

“Used properly, biometric data might help to improve security — but the last thing we should do is teach parents and their children, starting from a young age, to be casual about turning over biometric data for the sake of convenience,” said Wunsch.

Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said that recent episodes of identity theft — such as the massive consumer data security breach reported by retail chain TJX Companies in January — make plain the dangers of playing fast and loose with people’s personal information.

“We should carefully examine programs that could further erode people’s privacy, whether that is through fingerprinting, surveillance systems, or collections of personal data,” said Rose. ”The data captured and stored by these systems can be an attractive target for theft and misuse, and once security has been breached, it may be impossible to go back.

“We should proceed with caution.”

“Crimes of the Civil Rights Era” conference to bring together scholars, prosecutors, activists, kin of victims

Family members of some of the highest-profile victims of the civil rights era — the widow of Medgar Evers, the wife of Michael Schwerner and the brothers of James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, the three civil rights workers murdered by the KKK in 1964 — will participate in a conference tomorrow and Saturday at Northeastern University’s School of Law.

The “Crimes of the Civil Rights Era” conference, co-sponsored by The Project on Civil Rights and Restorative Justice at Northeastern University’s School of Law and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute on Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, will bring together key players involved in the current movement to investigate and re-open “cold cases” of past civil rights crimes. Participants will include prosecutors, criminal justice professionals, legislators, legal scholars, researchers, journalists and families of some of the victims.

The conference will cover a host of topics, including the February announcement of a civil rights-era cold case initiative jointly pursued by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Southern Poverty Law Center; the re-examination of challenges to re-opening past cases, such as the murder of black World War II veteran Maceo Snipes; alternative remedies for past wrongs extending beyond the courtroom; and the role of community engagement in the search for justice.

Among the leaders who will be present as speakers, roundtable participants and moderators are Myrlie Evers-Williams, civil rights activist and widow of Medgar Evers; Rita Schwerner Bender, lawyer, activist and widow of Michael Schwerner; Ben Chaney and David Goodman, brothers to slain civil rights workers James Chaney and Andrew Goodman; U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., a 39-year veteran of Congress; Northeastern law professor Margaret Burnham, a veteran of the civil rights movement and former member of an international commission that investigated human rights violations; and Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree Jr., who has written extensively on the subject of discrimination in the criminal justice system.

Admission is $75 for the general public and $40 for students. Registration and program information is available at www.irj.neu.edu or by calling 617-373-2023.

Suffolk County victim advocate wins statewide award

Jacquelyn Lamont, a 10-year veteran of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, will be recognized today by the Commonwealth’s leading victim advocacy group for her outstanding work on behalf of those whose lives have been touched by crime.

Lamont, who has served as the deputy chief of Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s Victim Witness Assistance Program since 2003, will be one of two recipients of this year’s Victim Witness Advocate Award, presented annually by the Massachusetts Office of Victim Assistance, Conley announced last Friday.

She will officially receive the award at the State House today as part of the 2007 Victims Rights Conference. Middlesex County advocate Shawn McMaster will also receive an award.

Lamont began her career in 1996 as a victim-witness advocate in the Central Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department, working with crime victims and witnesses in one of Suffolk County’s busiest district courts. She was soon promoted to the Superior Court Major Felony Unit, where she guided victims of violent crime through the court system and aided them through the duration of numerous jury trials.

When the Suffolk district attorney’s office formed in 2001 the Elders and Persons with Disabilities Unit — a unit devoted specifically to prosecuting crimes against older adults and those with physical or developmental disabilities — Lamont was tapped to be its chief victim advocate. In that role, she developed new practices for responding to crimes against those vulnerable populations, provided community outreach and crime prevention seminars for senior citizens and organized trainings for service providers of persons with disabilities.

Early on in that assignment, Lamont recognized that the interviewing process for both elders and persons with mental retardation and mental illness could often be traumatic, and that a more specialized approach would benefit the victims of crime while strengthening prosecutions. She also saw a need to improve the response to crimes against hearing-impaired persons, and enrolled in Northeastern University’s American Sign Language and Deaf Culture Program to better communicate with those victims and their families.

Lamont is currently a forensic interviewer for the district attorney’s Child Abuse Team and the Children’s Advocacy Center of Suffolk County. Prior to working in this role, she underwent the extensive training necessary to become a Sexual Abuse Investigative Network interview specialist.

“Jacquelyn Lamont is a role model to her colleagues and a pillar of support to her clients,” Conley said. “Her tireless commitment to the community and her supportive presence has made the difference to countless victims, witnesses and families.”

Federal grant enables Whittier Street to expand services to public housing residents

Thanks to a recent $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Whittier Street Health Center is now looking to expand its services to residents of Boston’s public housing facilities.

The grant, awarded by the HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration, will be distributed to Whittier Street over two years. The funds will allow the health center to launch initiatives targeting men’s health, geriatrics and pediatrics, emphasizing education, prevention and comprehensive treatment while simultaneously addressing health disparities. Whittier expects to serve an additional 1,000 public housing residents with the grant funds, dramatically increasing the number of medical encounters for this population.

“We are pleased to receive this important support from federal health authorities to expand our services for residents of public housing,” said Frederica Williams, president and CEO of Whittier Street Health Center. “They understand the challenges faced by community health centers and recognize the importance of investing in a comprehensive health care network for all citizens. Whittier will utilize these funds to expand its primary care service at the center and in the public housing developments with a special focus on geriatrics, pediatric obesity and asthma and men’s health.”

PBS looking for participants for upcoming broadcast “African American Lives 2”

When it aired in February of 2006, the critically acclaimed PBS series “African American Lives,” hosted by Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., brought to the forefront of national consciousness the powerful process of discovering one’s family history.

Envisioned as a “Roots” for the 21st century, the series used DNA analysis, genealogical research and family oral tradition to trace the lineages of prominent African Americans through U.S. history all the way back to Africa.

One year later, “Oprah’s Roots” further plumbed the depths of the nation’s interest in family tree research, using the powerful stories of television icon Oprah Winfrey’s ancestors and their accomplishments.

Now, the producers of those two watershed series are extending an open invitation for you — yes, you — to get the same treatment.

The producers of “African American Lives 2” are seeking an African American to join Gates and an all-new group of distinguished African Americans on what they call “an extraordinary journey of discovery.”

“What we find in doing this research is that even a regular person has extraordinary stories within his or her family,” said Gates. “In ‘African American Lives 2,’ we’ll work with one such person to show that the technology and resources for discovering these stories are available to all Americans, especially those of African descent.”

Under Gates’ supervision, the series’ research will be conducted by genealogists Tony Burroughs, Johni Cerny, Jane Ailes and Megan Smolenyak together with Ancestry.com, one of the world’s leading online resources for family history information. They’ll research the selected individual’s family history, while a DNA testing service will provide a genetic analysis. The results will be revealed, along with that of the other series participants, by Gates on the PBS broadcast of “African American Lives 2,” tentatively scheduled for February 2008.

The application period began April 18. Those interested in being considered must apply online at www.pbs.org/ aalives, and online applications must be received by 6 p.m. on Friday, May 4. Finalists will receive a one-year subscription to Ancestry.com. The winning applicant will be notified and announced the week of May 28.