News & Commentary

For more than seven years, the government has collected the phone records of every American under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, without ever having to justify the program's legality in a public and adversarial court hearing — that is, until this week. Tomorrow, the ACLU will appear in a federal courtroom in New York City to argue that the mass call-tracking program violates Americans' constitutional rights of privacy, free speech, and association, and that it goes far beyond what Section 215 authorizes. And the government will have to publicly defend the program to a judge, with the nation watching.

With the latest release of documents about the NSA and the FISA Court (this one in response to an ACLU/EFF Freedom of Information Act request) we now have yet more evidence that the NSA’s compliance with the court’s orders has been poor. We learn, for example, that, according to the court, “the NSA exceeded the scope of authorized [metadata] acquisition continuously during the more than [redacted] years of acquisition under these orders.” And, “NSA’s record of compliance with these rules has been poor.”

With all the talk about immigration reform that goes on behind closed doors in Washington DC, it's rare to hear from the people who actually live on the US-Mexico border, and who will be profoundly affected by what Congress does or doesn't do regarding immigration.

This was originally posted at The Guardian.

Everyone knows that our immigration system is broken. But one of its worst features remains shrouded in secrecy: Our massive immigration lock-up system.

Last night the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision refusing to block a Texas law that has forced more than one third of the women's health centers to stop providing abortion. The Court reached its decision despite the fact that the law is having devastating effects on women in the three weeks that it's been in place. Women have been turned away from clinics. They are frustrated, angry, and in tears. In large parts of the state, including the Rio Grande Valley, there is no abortion provider. One woman whose appointment at a Harlingen health center was cancelled said that she did not have the money to travel north, and she would likely be forced to carry to term.

Growing up in Iran I know too well the impact of unchecked government surveillance. Even as a small child, I had to worry about what I said and asked over the phone because the government could be listening and might use what I said against my family.
So when I found out that AT&T and Verizon have been handing over information about

Yesterday, voters in Albuquerque, New Mexico stood up for women and families, turning out in force to defeat a proposed ban on abortion after 20 weeks by a 10 point margin. Time and again, we've seen women and families raise their voices to oppose harmful restrictions on a woman's ability to make her own decisions about whether to continue a pregnancy. In Texas, the people's veto (when thousands of activists in the Senate gallery yelled that they didn't want abortion restrictions and) temporarily halted the harmful abortion ban that we continue to fight in court. In Mississippi, voters decisively defeated a so-called personhood measure that would have banned abortion. The people have voted down abortion bans and restrictions around the country from Colorado to South Dakota to Florida. It's clear that a majority of Americans agree that the decision to end a pregnancy belongs with a woman, her family, and her doctor.

This piece originally appeared at Defense One.