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California Failing to Track Police Database Abuse

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By Dave Maass / Electronic Frontier Foundation

Police in California have your data literally at their fingertips.

They can sit at a computer terminal or in their squad car and check your DMV records, your criminal records, your parking citations, any restraining orders you’ve filed or have been filed against you. They can search other state databases and even tap into the FBI’s trove. If you’ve got a snowmobile, they can look up that registration too. Much of this personal data they can access through a smartphone app.   [Read more…]

ACLU on Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ First 100 Days

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The following is a statement from Faiz Shakir, national political director of the ACLU:

Today marks the 100 day since Jeff Sessions took the helm of the Justice Department as attorney general.

In just 100 days, Attorney General Sessions has already rolled back the clock on decades of progress for civil rights. The Justice Department’s lowlights include opposition to consent decrees that aim to correct systemic bias in policing, its revival of mass incarceration policies that destroy communities, and multiple failures in the court of law as it has tried to implement Donald Trump’s unconstitutional policies.   [Read more…]

“Frickin’ Illegal”: Congressman Says Trump Has No Authority for Latest Bombing

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“Trump does not have Congressional authorization to attack Syria, a country that has not attacked US,” says Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif)

By Jon Queally / Common Dreams

In the wake of news that the U.S. military bombed forces allied with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, at least one member of Congress is voicing dissent by saying President Donald Trump has no legal authority to order such attacks.

“For the second time in as many months, the U.S. military has conducted airstrikes against pro-Assad forces in Syria,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “The Trump Administration does not have congressional authorization to carry out military strikes against the Assad regime. Furthermore, the situation that led to today’s strike is precisely why I warned against getting further entangled in the Syrian civil war without a clear strategy.”   [Read more…]

New Hampshire Republican Who Founded Woman-Hating Site Makes Outrageous Statements Validating Rape

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The state’s Republican governor calls for his resignation

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

Robert Fisher is the founder of the Red Pill, an online subreddit for men who are sick of women complaining about rape, harassment and sexism. As a vocal participant in the group, he’s written at length about how feminism makes life hard for nice guys like him who see women as sex objects and make rape jokes.

Fisher is also a Republican lawmaker representing Belknap County District 9 in the New Hampshire state legislature. For years, no one knew the two were one and the same, until an investigation by the Daily Beast’s Bonnie Bacarisse uncovered the truth. Now the state is considering whether or not to oust Fisher, and he has promised to fight removal every step of the way.   [Read more…]

Just So We’re Clear: Black Mothers Aren’t to Blame for High Infant Mortality

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When famous midwife Ina May Gaskin suggested that Black mothers should make better lifestyle choices to have healthier babies, the Black birth world decided they’d had enough

By Ambreia Meadows-Fernandez / Yes! Magazine

Ina May Gaskin is often referred to as the “mother of modern midwifery.” But when Gaskin was asked at an April 22 birth seminar in Forth Worth, Texas, about the effects of systemic racism on high infant and maternal mortality, her response left many in the Black birthing community questioning her competence.   [Read more…]

Paying Homage to Single Mothers

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When many economic supports for already-vulnerable women and children are under assault, it is time to reject the false “family breakdown” narrative

By Julie Kohler, Nicole Rodgers / Common Dreams

Mothers have it hard in this country. We pay lip service to support for working moms, but don’t back up our words with deeds, through critical public policies like paid family leave or high quality affordable child care. Mothers ― especially Black and Latina mothers ― earn less than fathers, as well as women without children. Single mothers face additional challenges, earning 58 cents to every dollar earned by fathers.   [Read more…]

Inequality Makes Us Sad

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The Great Recession, a new study shows, has driven the sharpest decline in reported happiness since researchers started collecting consistent data.

By Josh Hoxie / Inequality.Org

On average, our economy tanks every seven years or so. By now we should have a pretty good idea of why that tanking happens, how we can protect ourselves, and what the impact will be. Unfortunately, we don’t.   [Read more…]

Secrets of the Fire: A Reflection On George Winne Jr.’s Self-Immolation And Other Nonviolent Gestures

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By Niall Twohig / The Triton (UCSD)

Let’s begin with the bare facts: On May 10, 1970, George Winne Jr. stepped into Revelle Plaza. He held a sign that read “In God’s Name End the War.” Winne doused himself with gasoline, lit a match, and burst into flames. Students saw the burning man from a nearby building. They ran to him, beat out the flames. Winne was badly burnt. He died the next day.

Such facts can be deceiving. They only show the surface of reality. When we focus on the surface, we risk losing sight of the historical context surrounding Winne’s self-immolation. We also miss more profound secrets. I write now to whisper some of these secrets to you, so that you may whisper them to others.   [Read more…]

Sessions Doubles Down on the War on Drugs

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By Udi Ofer / ACLU Blog

Attorney General Jeff Sessions knows that the United States is the world’s leading incarcerator. We imprison more people than any other nation in the world. But apparently he likes that distinction because he just doubled down on it, guaranteeing that more people will be locked up for drug offenses in America’s federal prisons.

Last week Sessions issued a new policy reversing the work done by former Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. to reduce long mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses.   [Read more…]

NSA Tools, Built Despite Warnings, Used in Global Cyber Attack

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Disruptions reported in at least 74 countries, including Russia, Spain, Turkey, and Japan, with some reports of U.S. infiltration as well.

By Nadia Pupris / Common Dreams

Apparent National Security Agency (NSA) malware has been used in a global cyber-attack, including on British hospitals, in what whistleblower Edward Snowden described as the repercussion of the NSA’s reckless decision to build the tools.

“Despite warnings, @NSAGov built dangerous attack tools that could target Western software. Today we see the cost,” Snowden tweeted Friday.

At least two hospitals in London were forced to shut down and stop admitting patients after being attacked by the malware, which operates by locking out the user, encrypting data, and demanding a ransom to release it. The attacks hit dozens of other hospitals, ambulance operators, and doctors’ offices as well.   [Read more…]

The Death of George Winne, Jr., and the Fight for a More Peaceful World

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By Curtis Yee / The Triton (UCSD)

May 10, 1970: M*A*S*H was still on TV, The Guess Who was at the top of the Billboard charts, and a little after 4 p.m., George Winne Jr., a UCSD graduate student, set himself on fire in the middle of Revelle Plaza.

Winne was standing in the the northeast corner of the plaza by Ridge Walk, covered in towels and holding a sign that read, “In the name of God, end the war.” A physics graduate student named Ralph J. Archuleta passed by Winne while he was dousing himself in gasoline. “I thought it was water and that he was just trying to cool himself off,” Archuleta said. He kept walking.

Then Winne set himself on fire.   [Read more…]

Anti-Vax Propaganda Helps Measles—Once Eradicated—Spread Across the Twin Cities

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Health officials expect the number of diagnoses to rise

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

The anti-vaxxer misinformation campaign has led to yet another outbreak of a wholly preventable disease. Minnesota’s Department of Health has announced that 44 people in the state have been diagnosed with measles, a disease once eradicated in the United States. Forty-two of those cases are in children, most of them Somali-American, who were never vaccinated. According to numerous sources, the outbreak is the result of a sustained anti-vaccination campaign that convinced an immigrant community to be wary of life-saving science.

The largest Somali-American population in the country resides in Minnesota, mostly in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Those who arrived as refugees beginning in the late 1990s left behind a country where measles still kills 10,000 children annually.   [Read more…]

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