News & Commentary

A new report from the Government Accountability Office shows that the government is going easy on itself when it comes to aviation security screening, and in the process it is stretching the concept of watchlisting to the breaking point. Not only has the Transportation Security Administration expanded its use of blacklists for security screening to identify passengers who may be "unknown threats," but it also has compiled vast whitelists of individuals—including members of Congress, federal judges, and millions of Department of Defense personnel—who are automatically eligible for expedited screening at airports. These changes have made a broken watchlisting system even more arbitrary, unfair, and discriminatory.

"Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants." "Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman." "Captain Underpants and the Farty Fight for Free Speech." Okay fine, I made up the last one.

Earlier this month, a judge sentenced a Pennsylvania mother to up to a year and a half in prison for helping her 16-year-old daughter end a pregnancy by purchasing abortion medication online. The mother, who has a low-paying job, ordered the medication online because there was no health center that provides abortions nearby, and she lacked health insurance to pay for an abortion at a hospital. She was sentenced after pleading guilty to performing an illegal abortion.

It used to be that the idea of gay people raising kids spooked lots of people, who thought of us only as pedophiles, not as parents. In fact, we lost a long series of court cases about the freedom to marry based on judges saying that straight folks were better for children, and therefore it made sense to exclude same-sex couples from marriage (huh?).

Apple made big news today by announcing that they are no longer able to extract data from iOS devices for law enforcement agencies. The company had, for several years, offered a popular service for police in which it would extract data from seized PIN- or password-protected devices (if you don't have a PIN or password, then the government doesn't need Apple's help to get your data). The message from Apple is clear: they don't like being in the surveillance business, and are doing everything they can to get out of it, while still offering usable products to the general public.

This originally appeared in a Politico feature collecting responses to President Obama's recently announced military plan against ISIS.

Do they think we're stupid?

Is the United States Constitution as important as the Declaration of Independence?

New documents obtained by the ACLU of Northern California appear to show the Florida-based Harris Corporation misleading the Federal Communications Commission while seeking authorization to sell its line of Stingray cell phone surveillance gear to state and local police. The documents raise the possibility that federal regulatory approval of the technology was based on bad information. The ACLU today wrote a letter to the FCC asking for an investigation.