• McCain has expressed concerns regarding the implementation of
affirmative action programs. 

• McCain voted YES on extending the Patriot Act's wiretap provision
extending the authority of the FBI to conduct "roving wiretaps" and
access business records.

• As a young comminity activist Obama helped 150,000 African Americans
register to vote.

• Obama worked as a civil rights attorney for more than a decade
litigating employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and
voting rights cases.

• His record in the Illinois State Senate focused heavily on civil
liberty and rights.  He passed one of the country's first racial
profiling laws and helped reform a broken death penalty system. 

• In the U.S. Senate, Obama has been a leading advocate for
protecting the right to vote, helping to reauthorize the Voting
Rights Act and leading the opposition against discriminatory barriers
to voting.

• He would expand Hate Crimes Statutes by passing the Matthew
Shepherd Act,  strengthening federal hate crime legislation, and
stengthening enforcement at the Department of Justice. 

• Obama would combat employment discrimination by working to overturn
the Supreme Court's recent ruling that curtails racial minorities' and
women's ability to challenge pay discrimination. He would also pass
the ‘Fair Pay Act’ to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal
work and the ‘Employment Non-Discrimination Act’ to prohibit
discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or
expression. 

• Obama will provide job training, substance abuse and mental health
counseling to ex-offenders, so that they are successfully
re-integrated into society. He will also create a prison-to-work
incentive program to improve ex-offender employment and job retention
rates. 

• He would ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies
and provide federal incentives to state and local police departments
to prohibit the practice. 

• Obama would end deceptive voting practices by signing into law his
legislation that establishes harsh penalties for those who have
engaged in voter fraud and provides voters who have been misinformed
with accurate and full information so they can vote.  

• Obama voted YES on extending the Patriot Act's wiretap provision
extending the authority of the FBI to conduct "roving wiretaps" and
access business records.