News & Commentary

I’m writing from Guantánamo Bay, where I’ve been observing pre-trial proceedings in the military commissions prosecution of the 9/11 defendants. Earlier this week, other NGO observers and I had the opportunity to meet for a general discussion with Brigadier General Mark Martins, the Chief Prosecutor of the military commissions. During our meeting, General Martins stated that as many detainees as possible should be tried in military commissions, even as he observed that that Article III federal courts are one of this country’s “crown jewels.” That prompts the question: Why military commissions, and why not federal courts?      

The New Mexico Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the state must allow same-sex couples the freedom to marry. The case that got us here (brought by the ACLU and the National Center for Lesbian Rights), involved six plaintiff couples, including Jen Roper and Angelique Neuman. The lawsuit allowed Jen and Angelique to get married last August, just a few months before Jen died of a brain tumor, and I have no doubt that Jen and Angelique's story helped the court see the humanity of gay people and the principles of fairness enshrined in the state constitution.

Last month, the ACLU and the Service Women's Action Network, with support from the Yale Law School Veterans Legal Clinic, released a report documenting the discrimination experienced by military veterans who file disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by military sexual violence. Battle for Benefits: VA Discrimination Against Survivors of Military Sexual Violence analyzes new data obtained from the VA by SWAN, the ACLU, and the ACLU of Connecticut as a result of Freedom of Information Act litigation we filed three years ago.

UPDATE: AT&T announced today that it will also release a transparency report! We are very pleased that both AT&T and Verizon are finally going to break their silence. We all deserve to know when and why our personal information is being handed over to the government and it was time for these companies to release transparency reports. We will be carefully reviewing the information that the two companies intend to include in their transparency reports and work to ensure that forthcoming reports provide the transparency expected by shareholders and customers.

The President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies just issued a report that unequivocally rejected the notion that privacy and civil liberties must be sacrificed in order to achieve a balance with national security. Liberty and Security in a Changing World includes 46 recommendations for how to reform Intelligence Community programs and practices, several of which would go a long way toward protecting Americans' rights. Here are the nine most important things you need to know about those recommendations.

The phone records program doesn't work, invades Americans' privacy, and threatens our freedoms.
The Review Group was unable to

This was originally posted on America's Voice.

"Whatever you do, if anything happens, don't take me to St. Vincent's." Those were the words my friend uttered to her husband regularly throughout her pregnancy years ago, when St. Vincent's, a Catholic hospital serving lower Manhattan, was still open. Even though St. Vincent's was the hospital closest to her home, she knew the risks of going to a Catholic hospital with a pregnancy complication. She knew that her care could be compromised – that Catholic hospitals adhere to religious directives issued by the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops governing Catholic health services.

Yesterday, the world marked International Migrants Day, providing an opportunity to reflect on global efforts to respect and protect migrants' human rights. It is particularly appropriate for us to call attention to U.S. government failure to protect the human and civil rights of communities and migrants along the U.S.'s border with Mexico.

Earlier this week in “The Flawed Logic of Secret Mass Surveillance” I presented some thinking about the dynamics of mass surveillance and what that suggests about how things are likely to play out in the future with regards to the NSA’s spying. It seems to me that there’s an essential structure to privacy that is reminiscent of game theory. And this could provide additional hints about how things are likely to play out over the long term—especially with regards to spying among nations. As I wrote in the earlier piece, spying confers power over others, and it is in my interest to secretly observe you, and for you not to secretly observe me.