Mapping Police Violence
Police have killed 268 people in 2021. “Black people were 28% of those killed by police in 2020 despite being only 13% of the population. Database updated as of 3/31/2021” – Download Full Database
Category «Civil Liberties»
Swelling Anti-Asian Violence: Who Is Being Attacked Where
The New York Times report and visualization: “Over the last year, in an unrelenting series of episodes with clear racial animus, people of Asian descent have been pushed, beaten, kicked, spit on and called slurs. Homes and businesses have been vandalized. The violence has known no boundaries, spanning generations, income brackets and regions. The New …
How to Protest Without Sacrificing Your Digital Privacy
Vice: “Thousands of protesters are filling the streets of American cities to protest the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, and police brutality writ large. Police officers have shown they’re more than willing to escalate violence with pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, vehicles, and other dangerous crowd suppression measures. In addition, …
Columbia Launched Democracy Reform and Voting Rights in the United States Web Archive
“Columbia University Libraries is pleased to announce the launch of the Democracy Reform and Voting Rights in the United States Web Archive. The ongoing struggle in the United States between advocates for voting rights and official proponents of voter suppression measures intensified in 2020 during a bitter presidential election campaign conducted amidst the substantial additional …
RIGHTS! Civil and Human Rights Law Portal
Documents to the People [DttP] Dominique Hallett – “On September 1, 2020, LLMC, a non-profit Minnesota-based consortium of law libraries, launched the open-access portal RIGHTS! (http://www.llmc.com/rights/home.aspx). If you are looking for primary materials such as current constitutions, human/civil rights acts, Non-Governmental Organizations’ websites, advocacy organizations, and other resources specifically dealing with injustices regarding marginalized parties, …
Corporate America Bankrolls Voter Suppression
“Some of the biggest names in corporate America are backing state lawmakers who are pushing bills to make it more difficult to vote, a new Public Citizen report shows. Corporations have contributed $50 million since 2015 to state legislators supporting anti-voter bills, including $22 million over the past two years, according to the report, “The …
A Computer Scientist Who Tackles Inequality Through Algorithms
Qanta Magazine: “When Rediet Abebe arrived at Harvard University as an undergraduate in 2009, she planned to study mathematics. But her experiences with the Cambridge public schools soon changed her plans. Abebe, 29, is from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and largest city. When residents there didn’t have the resources they needed, she attributed it to community-level scarcity. …
Report – The Problem with Partisan Primaries
Via Unite America – a movement of Democrats, Republicans, and independents working to bridge the growing partisan divide and foster a more representative and functional government. Report – “Despite a record turnout in the 2020 general election, only 10% of eligible Americans nationwide cast ballots in primary elections that effectively decided the winners in a …
Location data is the new growth market
TechDirt: “Location data is the new growth market. Data harvested from apps is sold to data brokers who, in turn, sell this to whoever’s buying. Lately, the buyers have been a number of government agencies, including the CBP, ICE, DEA, Secret Service, IRS, and — a bit more worryingly — the Defense Department. The mileage …
US sinks to new low in rankings of world’s democracies
Freedom House Special Report 2021 – From Crisis to Reform: A Call to Strengthen America’s Battered Democracy: “The events of the past several months amounted to an acute crisis for democracy in the United States. An incumbent president attempted to overturn election results, a violent mob assaulted the Capitol as Congress met to formalize his …
Federal Data on Hate Crimes in the United States
CRS – Federal Data on Hate Crimes in the United States, March 22, 2021: “A number of recent and high-profile crimes where the offenders’ actions appeared to be motivated by their bias or animosity towards a particular race, ethnicity,religion, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity has contributed to a perception that hate crimes are on …
Massive camera hack exposes the growing reach and intimacy of American surveillance
Washington Post – A breach of the camera start-up Verkada ‘should be a wake-up call to the dangers of self-surveillance,’ one expert said: “‘Our desire for some fake sense of security is its own security threat.” In one video, a woman in a hospital room watches over someone sleeping in an intensive-care-unit bed. In another, …
