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Category Archives: Civil Liberties

Growing Racial Disparities in Voter Turnout, 2008–2022

Fact sheet for the report Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law Growing Racial Disparities in Voter Turnout, 2008–2022, published March 13, 2024: “A Brennan Center study of nearly 1 billion voter file data points finds the following:

  • The nationwide racial turnout gap — the difference in voting rates between white voters and voters of color — has grown consistently since 2012.
  • That gap has grown faster in the places that, until the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, had been covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which provided for federal oversight to ensure that voting changes were not discriminatory (a process called preclearance).

A Growing Racial Turnout Gap

  • In 2020, the racial turnout gap was more than 12 percentage points. For Black voters, it was almost
    15 percentage points. Had voters of color voted at the same rate as white voters, 9 million more ballots
    would have been cast. In 2022, the racial turnout gap was 18 percentage points, meaning 14 million
    more ballots would have been cast. Between 2010 and 2022,
  • the gap between white Americans and Americans of color grew by 5 percentage points to 18 points.
  • the gap between white Americans and Black Americans grew by 8 percentage points to 16 points.
  • the gap between white Americans and Latino Americans grew by 4 percentage points to almost 22 points.

Public Libraries Saw 92 Percent Increase In Number of Titles Targeted for Censorship Over 2022

“The number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65 percent in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented by the American Library Association (ALA). The new numbers released today show efforts to censor 4,240 unique book titles* in schools and libraries. This tops the previous high from 2022, when 2,571 unique titles… Continue Reading

Gendered disinformation and social networks

Revisión Crítica de Jurisprudencia y Gobernanza. Oxford University Press and New York University School of Law. Gendered disinformation and social networks. Argelia Queralt Jiménez. March 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moad094, “The subject of this article is gender-based disinformation on social networks. This type of disinformation is identified with those contents that circulate on networks with the aim of… Continue Reading

Privacy First and Competition

EFF- Cory Doctorow: “Privacy First” is a simple, powerful idea: seeing as so many of today’s technological problems are also privacy problems, why don’t we fix privacy first? Whether you’re worried about kids’ mental health, or tech’s relationship to journalism, or spying by foreign adversaries, or reproductive rights, or AI deepfakes, or nonconsensual pornography, you’re… Continue Reading

Fetal personhood laws, explained

Vox: “The Alabama Supreme Court touched off a nationwide furor in February when it ruled that frozen, fertilized embryos legally count as “children.” The ruling upended the lives of patients undergoing IVF in Alabama and opened up a new front in the post-Dobbs battle over abortion rights. It also revived interest in — and concern… Continue Reading

Supreme Court Inadvertently Reveals Confounding Late Change in Trump Ballot Ruling

Slate: “The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to keep Donald Trump on Colorado’s ballot was styled as a unanimous one without any dissents. But the metadata tells a different story. On the page, a separate opinion by the liberal justices is styled as a concurrence in the judgment, authored jointly by the trio. In the… Continue Reading

U.N. report: ‘Convincing’ information Hamas raped, tortured hostages

Follow up to Violence Against Women and International Law – Updated February 2024 – identifying and documenting pertinent sources for researchers on the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack and violence against women and girls, on March 4, 2024 the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict issued a report.… Continue Reading

LLRX February 2024 Issue

Articles and Columns for February 2024 Scam Baiting: An Innovative Approach to Combating Online Fraud – Kyra Strick AI in Banking and Finance, February 29, 2024 – Sabrina I. Pacifici Toward a durable, dictator-proof Washington Post – David H. Rothman What Happens to Your Sensitive Data When a Data Broker Goes Bankrupt? – Jon Keegan Publishing… Continue Reading

Biden Issues Executive Order to Protect Americans’ Sensitive Personal Data

“President Biden issued an Executive Order to protect Americans’ sensitive personal data from exploitation by countries of concern. The Executive Order on Preventing Access to Americans’ Bulk Sensitive Personal Data and United States Government-Related Data by Countries of Concern, marks the most significant executive action any President has ever taken to protect Americans’ data security, authorizes the… Continue Reading

Their States Banned Abortion

ProPublica – Doctors Now Say They Can’t Give Women Potential Lifesaving Care. “…Most medical exceptions in abortion bans only allow the procedure to “save the life of the mother.” But there is a wide spectrum of health risks patients can face during pregnancy, and even those that are potentially fatal could fall outside of the… Continue Reading

Violence Against Women and International Law – Updated February 2024

Violence Against Women and International Law – Updated February 2024 – Sabrina I. Pacifici is identifying and documenting pertinent sources for researchers on the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack and violence against women and girls. The guide was originally published on November 23, 2023 – link here, and had 8 pertinent sources on this topic comprising… Continue Reading

The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech

The Verge: “Social media companies have long made their own rules about the content they allow on their sites. But a pair of cases set to be argued before the Supreme Court on Monday will test the limits of that freedom, examining whether they can be legally required to host users’ speech. The cases, Moody… Continue Reading