News & Commentary

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.

Whatever you may think of the harms carried out by the group referred to as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the fear of ISIS is now creating a double threat to our system of checks and balances. We now have a Congress so anxious to avoid tough votes that it is ducking any decision on whether to go to war in Iraq and Syria, and a president who is grabbing unprecedented power to take the country to war all on his own.

Why does the state of Wisconsin want voter ID for voters? It's not to prevent voter fraud--- there have been ZERO instances of in-person voter fraud, which the state's 2011 voter ID law purports to address. Instead, it disenfranchises voters who aren't able to get IDs. That's why a court found that the state's voter ID requirement imposes an undue – and unconstitutional – burden on Wisconsin voters.

Peggy Young worked for UPS delivering letters and packages. When she became pregnant, she requested but was denied less strenuous work. She was then forced off her job.

We know almost nothing about how Earl Ringo Jr. was executed in the early hours of the morning by the State of Missouri. Missouri deliberately hid crucial facts about its lethal injection drugs and their administration, blocking the public from understanding how capital punishment is carried out in our name. This state government took the secrecy one step further, its officials telling outright lies under oath about what could happen to Mr. Ringo and others scheduled for execution. We need our courts to care enough to demand the truth. We need other states' governors to put a halt to executions until we have answers to the most basic questions about lethal injection.