News & Commentary

Newly sworn in FBI Director James Comey has ordered all new FBI agent trainees to visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC, so they can reflect on the FBI's infamous history of hounding the civil rights leader and recognize "the dangers in becoming untethered to oversight and accountability."

This piece was originally published on The Nation's website.
Leon and M

Over the last several months, members of Congress have introduced at least two dozen spying reform and transparency bills. Today, a new proposal called the USA FREEDOM Act from Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) was introduced to significantly limit the collection and use of Americans' information under our nation's spying laws. The ACLU strongly supports the legislation.

My five-year-old son Zander has had two brain surgeries. During each, doctors removed portions of his brain. The second surgery had a long recovery time because of the muscle loss that he suffered after being bedridden for weeks. It caused an infection that caused him to be on IV antibiotics at home. It took months before he could walk again.

Last week the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to preliminarily block the federal contraceptive rule in a case brought by a health food company, Eden Foods. The company argued that the federal rule that requires the inclusion of contraceptive coverage in health plans violates its religious liberty.

Few things captivate Washington like a scandal, and this past week the "scandal" has been the dysfunction of the Obamacare website and anger among our allies about NSA spying.

Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing has generated much debate within the United States over whether his leaking of NSA documents was a heroic act or something deserving of punishment. And the NSA activities that he has revealed have similarly generated controversy. I know some very thoughtful people who I see eye-to-eye with on the vast majority of political issues, who nonetheless see this story completely differently from me. They think that the NSA scandal is overblown, and view Snowden with an extremely dubious eye.

Which government whistleblower responsible for revealing the NSA's massive spying program released a statement encouraging Americans to rally against pervasive surveillance?

On The Daily Show Wednesday, we had the misfortune of hearing from North Carolina GOP executive committee member Don Yelton, whose despicable comments on North Carolina's new voter suppression law included "if it hurts a bunch of lazy Blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it."