Category «Civil Liberties»

Federal and State Wiretaps Skyrocket in Trump’s First Year

DCReport.com: Law Enforcement Sought 3,800 Taps—Not One Request Rejected—And It’s Not All Drug Dealers, David Cay Johnston: “The number of court-approved federal wiretaps rose 30% during Donald Trump’s first year in office, the latest indicator sign of how his administration is shifting our government from facilitating a healthy society into something closer to a police …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, E-Records, Privacy

NYT – How conservatives weaponized the First Amendment

How conservatives weaponized the First Amendment: “…The Citizens United campaign finance case, for instance, was decided on free-speech grounds, with the five-justice conservative majority ruling that the First Amendment protects unlimited campaign spending by corporations. The government, the majority said, has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters responded that the First Amendment did not …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Free Speech, Legal Research

A Twitter Bot Has Joined the Immigration Battle to Fight ICE With Facts

Gizmodo: “A bot on Twitter is sharing images of all 212 immigration detention centers along with the address and demographic information of each location, tossing cold, hard facts into the heated online debate over immigration in America. Artist Everest Pipkin created the bot, @Abolish_ICE_Now, on Friday, about two months after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research

Pew Survey – Public Attitudes Toward Technology Companies

“A majority of Republicans say technology firms support the views of liberals over conservatives and that social media platforms censor political viewpoints. Still, Americans tend to feel that these firms benefit them and – to a lesser degree – society In the midst of an ongoing debate over the power of digital technology companies and …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Social Media

Free Law Project Trump’s Supreme Court List

“On June 27, 2018, Associate Justice Kennedy informed President Trump that he would be retiring from the Supreme Court effective July 31st. In response to this announcement, President Trump stated that his next Supreme Court nomination would come from his existing list of potential Supreme Court justices. In our Judge and Appointment database, we have compiled …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Courts, Legal Research

Torn Apart – visualize the geography of Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy in 2018

Digital Humanities Now – Torn Apart / Separados by Manan Ahmed, Alex Gil, Moacir P. de Sá Pereira, Roopika Risam, Maira E. Álvarez, Sylvia A. Fernández, Linda Rodriguez, and Merisa Martinez – June 26, 2018 “Torn Apart aggregates and cross-references publicly available data to visualize the geography of Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy in …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Supreme Court in 5-4 ruling backs Trumps travel ban

AP: “A sharply divided Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries. The majority opinion rejected the notion that the ban discriminates against Muslims or exceeds presidential authority. In writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “We express no view on the soundness of the …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Legal Research

Digital Searches, the Fourth Amendment, and the Magistrates’ Revolt

Berman, Emily, Digital Searches, the Fourth Amendment, and the Magistrates’ Revolt (May 30, 2018). Emory Law Journal, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3187612 “Searches of electronically stored information present a Fourth Amendment challenge. It is often impossible for investigators to identify and collect, at the time a warrant is executed, only the specific data whose seizure …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Legal Research, Privacy

Supreme Court Says Fourth Amendment Applies to Cell Phone Tracking

EFF: “The Supreme Court handed down a landmark opinion today in Carpenter v. United States, ruling 5-4 that the Fourth Amendment protects cell phone location information. In an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court recognized that location information, collected by cell providers like Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon, creates a “detailed chronicle of a person’s …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

The Facts – DHS Data – Illegal border crossings small share of otherwise legal entries

Washington Post: “President Trump this weekend lamented what he characterized as an invasion of undocumented immigrants that is “very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years.” But illegal border crossings represent a relatively small share of the number of people who enter …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Defense, Government Documents, Legal Research

The Intercept reports – The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

The Wiretap Rooms: “The secrets are hidden behind fortified walls in cities across the United States, inside towering, windowless skyscrapers and fortress-like concrete structures that were built to withstand earthquakes and even nuclear attack. Thousands of people pass by the buildings each day and rarely give them a second glance, because their function is not …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Records, Internet, Privacy