Tag Archives: civil liberties

The Best Lines From Ginsburg’s Dissent on the Voting Rights Act Decision

by Aaron Duff Posted on June 25, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Best Lines From Ginsburg’s Dissent on the Voting Rights Act Decision

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a fiery dissent to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision Tuesday striking down the part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that determines which cities, counties, and states need to seek approval from the Department of Justice before changing their voting laws. The provision was designed to focus attention on areas with a history of discrimination. “Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA,” Ginsburg wrote.

Here are five key excerpts from her dissent:

“When confronting the most constitutionally invidious form of discrimination, and the most fundamental right in our democratic system, Congress’ power to act is at its height.”

“Demand for a record of violations equivalent to the one earlier made would expose Congress to a catch-22. If the statute was working, there would be less evidence of discrimination, so opponents might argue that Congress should not be allowed to renew the statute. In contrast, if the statute was not working, there would be plenty of evidence of discrimination, but scant reason to renew a failed regulatory regime.”

“Just as buildings in California have a greater need to be earthquake­ proofed, places where there is greater racial polarization in voting have a greater need for prophylactic measures to prevent purposeful race discrimination.”

“Congress approached the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA with great care and seriousness. The same cannot be said of the Court’s opinion today. The Court makes no genuine attempt to engage with the massive legislative record that Congress assembled. Instead, it relies on increases in voter registration and turnout as if that were the whole story. See supra, at 18–19. Without even identifying a standard of review, the Court dismissively brushes off arguments based on “data from the record,” and declines to enter the “debate about what the record shows”…One would expect more from an opinion striking at the heart of the Nation’s signal piece of civil-rights legislation.”

“Given a record replete with examples of denial or abridgment of a paramount federal right, the Court should have left the matter where it belongs: in Congress’ bailiwick.”

Ginsburg’s dissent also rattled off these eight examples of race-based voter discrimination in recent history:

“In 1995, Mississippi sought to reenact a dual voter registration system, ‘which was initially enacted in 1892 to disenfranchise Black voters,’ and for that reason was struck down by a federal court in 1987.”

“Following the 2000 Census, the City of Albany, Georgia, proposed a redistricting plan that DOJ found to be ‘designed with the purpose to limit and retrogress the increased black voting strength…in the city as a whole.'”

“In 2001, the mayor and all-white five-member Board of Aldermen of Kilmichael, Mississippi, abruptly canceled the town’s election after ‘an unprecedented number’ of AfricanAmerican candidates announced they were running for office. DOJ required an election, and the town elected its first black mayor and three black aldermen.”

“In 2006, the court found that Texas’ attempt to redraw a congressional district to reduce the strength of Latino voters bore ‘the mark of intentional discrimination that could give rise to an equal protection violation,’ and ordered the district redrawn in compliance with the VRA…In response, Texas sought to undermine this Court’s order by curtailing early voting in the district, but was blocked by an action to enforce the §5 pre-clearance requirement.”

“In 2003, after African-Americans won a majority of the seats on the school board for the first time in history, Charleston County, South Carolina, proposed an at-large voting mechanism for the board. The proposal, made without consulting any of the African-American members of the school board, was found to be an ‘exact replica’ of an earlier voting scheme that, a federal court had determined, violated the VRA…DOJ invoked §5 to block the proposal.”

“In 1993, the City of Millen, Georgia, proposed to delay the election in a majority-black district by two years, leaving that district without representation on the city council while the neighboring majority white district would have three representatives…DOJ blocked the proposal. The county then sought to move a polling place from a predominantly black neighborhood in the city to an inaccessible location in a predominantly white neighborhood outside city limits.”

“In 2004, Waller County, Texas, threatened to prosecute two black students after they announced their intention to run for office. The county then attempted to reduce the avail ability of early voting in that election at polling places near a historically black university.”

“In 1990, Dallas County, Alabama, whose county seat is the City of Selma, sought to purge its voter rolls of many black voters. DOJ rejected the purge as discriminatory, noting that it would have disqualified many citizens from voting ‘simply because they failed to pick up or return a voter update form, when there was no valid requirement that they do so.'”

Read the full dissent here.

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The Best Lines From Ginsburg’s Dissent on the Voting Rights Act Decision

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Ecuador’s Edward Snowden Problem

by jackman0022 Posted on June 24, 2013

Mother Jones

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As of Monday afternoon (Eastern time), the whereabouts of on-the-run NSA leaker Edward Snowden remained unknown. But it seemed the onetime contractor might be headed to Ecuador. There’s little doubt that the country’s president, Rafael Correa, would relish the chance to welcome Snowden and irritate Washington. Correa has been a leading purveyor of anti-United States rhetoric in Latin America, reviving the down-with-gringos banner-waving once so popular in the region. But Correa’s embrace of Snowden—if it comes to be—could produce blowback for the heavy-handed Ecuadorean leader by focusing global attention on his own, far-from-laudable policies regarding transparency, press freedoms, and refugees.

Just two weeks ago, his party passed a law in the National Assembly that, according to Human Rights Watch, “undermines free speech.” HRW official José Miguel Vivanco notes, “This law is yet another effort by President Correa to go after the independent media. The provisions for censorship and criminal prosecutions of journalists are clear attempts to silence criticism.”

Here’s how HRW describes the law:

It prohibits so called “media lynching” which is defined as “the dissemination of concerted and reiterative information, either directly or by third parties, through media outlets, with the purpose of undermining the prestige” of a person or legal entity or “reducing their credibility.” The provision would allow the authorities to order the media outlet to issue a public apology and states that they are also subject to criminal and civil sanctions, imposed by the courts.

It requires media outlets to issue their own codes of conduct to “improve their internal practices and their communications work” based on a series of requirements such as to “respect people’s honor and reputation.” Although self-regulation of this nature is not in itself problematic, the law provides that any citizen or organization can report that a media outlet violated the requirements, and government authorities can issue a written warning, or impose sanctions.

It says that journalists must “assume the subsequent administrative consequences of disseminating content through the media that undermines constitutional rights, in particular the right to communication, and the public security of the State.” Journalists deemed to violate this responsibility could be subject to civil, criminal or other sanctions.

The law would essentially allow Correa’s government to criminalize journalism that inconveniences the president and his allies. HRW points out that human rights advocates generally oppose granting government the power to charge journalists with a crime for publishing derogatory information about public figures: “International bodies from the Inter-American, European, and United Nations human rights systems have long criticized the use of criminal charges to respond to media allegations made against public officials, as contrary to the interest of promoting vibrant public debate necessary in a democratic society.” But that’s what Correa’s party has sought to do. Vivanco puts it this way: “Giving the government the power to decide whether or not information is ‘truthful’ will open the door to unlawful censorship. This is an especially alarming provision in a country where the president has a track record of using his powers to target critics in the press.”

This is not Correa’s first stab at media intimidation. In July 2011, an Ecuadorean court sentenced a reporter for El Universo, a newspaper based in Guayaquil, and three members of the paper’s board to three years in prison for defamation because the paper criticized Correa. The reporter, Emilio Palacio, had written an opinion piece that referred to the president as a “dictator” for having considered pardoning people involved in a police rebellion that included an attack on a hospital. The criminal case was triggered by a defamation suit filed by Correa.

With the suit and the recent law, Correa has shown he’s no fan of a free media and a vibrant national debate—at least not when he and his actions might be the focus. In its most recent ranking of international press freedoms, Reporters Without Borders scored Ecuador toward the bottom: “Ecuador fell 15 places to 119th after a year of extreme tension between the government and leading privately-owned media.” In its annual report on Ecuador, Amnesty International notes that “there were concerns that laws dealing with the crime of insult were being used against journalists in violation of the right to freedom of expression and could deter other critics of government authorities from speaking out” and that “indigenous and community leaders faced spurious criminal charges aimed at restricting their freedom of assembly.” And HRW has also assailed Correa for not respecting the due process rights of asylum seekers. (Snowden’s standing as a persecuted refugee is far from certain.)

Correa might boost his anti-Yankee creed by sheltering Snowden and seek to portray himself as a protector of the persecuted. “Human rights will take precedence over any other interests or pressure that some might want to exert,” Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño said on Monday regarding the possibility Snowden would find asylum in Ecuador. But by bear-hugging Snowden, Correa would draw attention to his own history of opposing a robust press that dares to challenge the powers that be.

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Ecuador’s Edward Snowden Problem

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WikiLeaks: We Know Where Snowden Is, But We’re Not Telling You

by NatishaFe Posted on June 24, 2013

Mother Jones

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Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has been officially indicted by the United States under the Espionage Act, is en route to Ecuador, one of at least two countries in which he is seeking asylum, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said today on a call with reporters. Assange would not provide further details on Snowden’s current whereabouts. The whistleblower arrived in Moscow on Sunday, fleeing Hong Kong after China urged his departure in order to avoid a messy extradition battle with the United States, according to Reuters. Snowden was scheduled to fly to Havana early Monday morning, but he never boarded the plane.

Assange blasted the Obama administration for seeking Snowden’s extradition and interfering with his quest for asylum, which WikiLeaks is assisting with. He said that focusing on Snowden distracts from the sweeping surveillance program that he exposed.

“Snowden has issued an asylum application to Ecuador and possibly other countries,” Assange said from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he is himself avoiding extradition by Sweden and potentially the United States. “We are aware where Mr. Snowden is. He is in a safe place and his spirits are high, but due to the bellicose threats coming from the US administration, we cannot go into further details at this time.” Kristinn Hrafnsson, a WikiLeaks spokesman, added that Snowden is also formally seeking asylum in Iceland, but wouldn’t name other potential countries that he is petitioning for safe haven.

After Snowden arrived in Moscow on Sunday, Ecuador’s foreign minister, Ricardo Patino Aroca, tweeted that Ecuador had received an asylum request from Snowden. Assange says that the application is being carefully considered.

National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden issued a statement Monday morning urging Russia to send Snowden back to the United States: “Given our intensified cooperation after the Boston marathon bombings and our history of working with Russia on law enforcement matters—including returning numerous high level criminals back to Russia at the request of the Russian government—we expect the Russian Government to look at all options available to expel Mr. Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged.”

Michael Ratner, an attorney for WikiLeaks and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said on the call that it’s troubling to see the United States trying to block asylum for someone who is a “clear whistleblower.” He added, however, that “maybe it’s not so surprising,” given the Obama administration’s history of cracking down on whistleblowers.

Questions have been raised about Snowden’s whistleblower status, particularly since, after disclosing the NSA’s domestic surveillance efforts, he revealed sensitive national security information about US cyberattacks in China, alleging that the NSA hacked the text messages of Chinese mobile phone users. In an online chat with the Guardian, Snowden claimed: “I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets.” According to CNN, Snowden told Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa in a letter that he fears that if he is sent back to the United States, it is “unlikely that I will have a fair trial or humane treatment.”

“The Obama administration was not given a mandate by the people of the United States to hack and spy upon the entire world,” Assange said. “To now attempt to violate international asylum law by calling for the rendition of Edward Snowden further demonstrates the breakdown in the rule of law by the Obama administration, which sadly has become familiar to so many.”

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WikiLeaks: We Know Where Snowden Is, But We’re Not Telling You

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The Surveillance-Marketing Complex, Coming Soon to a Computer Near You

by Louise6qy Posted on June 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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Here’s a quote that should probably scare you:

“We are all in these Big Data business models.”

Why scary? Because the “we” in this case is Silicon Valley and the American intelligence community. As James Risen and Nick Wingfield reported yesterday in the New York Times, the interests of tech companies and the NSA have been converging over the past decade in two ways. The first way is fairly prosaic: Lots of Silicon Valley companies are in the business of selling stuff to the NSA: storage hardware, sophisticated communications equipment, data analytics software, and more. But while this may have increased recently, it’s not fundamentally new. It’s just the latest high-tech twist on the good old military-industrial complex.

But there’s a second way that the interests of Fort Meade and Santa Clara County have converged: These days, they’re fundamentally in the same business. The NSA calls it surveillance, and all the rest of us just call it spying. Silicon Valley, conversely, wouldn’t be caught dead calling it that. They call it “targeted advertising” or “monetizing the social network.” But it’s pretty much the same thing.

When your local grocery chain gives you a loyalty card, do you think they’re doing it in order to make you a loyal customer? Of course not. After all, every other supermarket offers loyalty cards too. So why are they willing to offer such eye-watering discounts if you use one? Because it allows them to track every single purchase you make and dump the information into a gigantic database. That’s useful to them, and, more importantly, it’s valuable data to sell to others. That’s why they want it so badly.

Online, of course, similar things are happening. High-tech marketing firms are busily figuring out ways to merge data from lots of different sources to build a profile of you that would probably put your own mother to shame. Why? Because it’s worth a lot of money. Advertisers are willing to pay huge amounts of money to be able to target the 1 percent of prospects who are actually likely to buy their wares, instead of simply blasting their message out to everyone. Target, for example, figured out the shopping habits of pregnant women and used that to create highly effective marketing campaigns aimed at expectant mothers. That’s a lucrative market.

Combine that with Facebook likes, Google searches, phone records, pharmacy records, and every other digital trail that all of us leave behind us, and what can’t you predict? We don’t know yet, but there are sure plenty of people beavering away to find out.

Needless to say, spy agencies have exactly the same goals. They might not be interested in whether you’re pregnant—though, then again, they might be—but they’re keenly interested in trying to predict future actions based on past events. So when Risen and Wingfield report that Facebook’s chief security officer decamped for a job with the NSA a couple of years ago, should we be surprised? Not a bit. They’re both in the same business, after all.

We can all decide for ourselves whether we think the NSA should have access to all our phone records. But the surveillance state doesn’t end there. Keep in mind that DARPA’s first crack at this stuff in the wake of 9/11 was called Total Information Awareness, and its goal was precisely what the name implied: a wide-ranging database that included personal emails, social networks, credit card records, phone calls, medical records, shopping records, travel data, and anything else that the marriage of high tech and modern marketing made possible. TIA got killed after public outcry, but it never really went away. How could it? The merger of public and private spying is just too powerful to ignore.

So even if you’re not too worried about NSA’s collection of phone records, you’d do well to think about where this is likely to go. There will be other terrorist attacks, and in their aftermath the public will be less likely to object to things like TIA than they were the first time around. After all, we’re all used to Facebook spying on us these days. (There’s no need to mince words about what they do, is there?) So as scary as a surveillance state may be, it’s not the worst thing that could happen. That’s because the private sector spies on us too, and they do it so charmingly that not only don’t we object, we practically beg them to do more. Instead of a military-industrial complex, we’re rapidly moving toward a marriage so perfect that eHarmony could only dream of it: the surveillance-marketing complex.

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The Surveillance-Marketing Complex, Coming Soon to a Computer Near You

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The GOP Tries to Redefine Rape Exemptions—Again

by tf942pe Posted on June 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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The House debated and passed a bill on Tuesday that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks across the country. The bill, passed by a nearly party-line vote of 228 to 196, replicates laws passed in a dozen states in the past three years limiting the time period during which women can obtain a legal abortion.

HR 1797, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), is not expected to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate, and President Barack Obama has already threatened to veto it. But it does contain a provision that redefines rape exemptions, significantly limiting the number of women who would qualify. In order to obtain an abortion after 20 weeks under this law, a woman who was raped must be able to prove that she reported the rape to authorities—a requirement not present in other rape exceptions to federal abortion laws.

Republicans added this provision to the bill, which originally included no exceptions for rape or incest, after the House Judiciary committee approved it last week. But the alternative language Republicans inserted creates its own problems. It is more restrictive than the Hyde Amendment, the law barring federal funds from being used to pay for abortions. Hyde specifically exempts cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake—with no requirement that women have documentation from police that they reported the crime.

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The GOP Tries to Redefine Rape Exemptions—Again

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5 New Revelations About NSA Surveillance

by p9zyztu Posted on June 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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In the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks, National Security Agency and Justice Department officials testified today before the House intelligence committee about the government’s controversial surveillance programs. Here are the five most interesting revelations to emerge from the hearing:

1. Surveillance has contributed to thwarting more than 50 terror plots since 9/11, according to the NSA.
NSA Director Keith Alexander testified that NSA surveillance has played a role in preventing more than 50 terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001. FBI deputy director Sean Joyce provided an outline of four of those cases:

The 2009 arrest of Najibullah Zazi for plotting to bomb the New York City subway system came after the NSA intercepted an email in which he discussed perfecting a bomb recipe. The agency executed search warrants with New York Police Department and found bomb-making components. (Serious questions have been raised about whether the FBI actually needed NSA surveillance in order to obtain this information, since the FBI wouldn’t have had trouble getting a warrant to monitor the email account of a terrorist suspect.)
Using its authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the NSA discovered Khalid Ouzzani’s nascent plans to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. Ouzzani pleaded guilty in 2010 to providing support to Al Qaeda.
NSA surveillance derailed David Headley’s 2009 plan to bomb the offices of a Danish newspaper. At the time, he was considered a suspect in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. He later confessed to conducting surveillance for the Mumbai attacks.
Joyce only provided vague details about a fourth plot: After 9/11, the NSA monitored an individual who had indirect contact with a known foreign terrorist organization overseas. Doing so, he said, allowed the FBI to reopen an investigation and disrupt terrorist activity.

2. The NSA doesn’t need court approval each time it searches Americans’ phone records.
NSA Deputy Director John Inglis said that 22 NSA officials are authorized to approve requests to query an agency database that contains the cellphone metadata of American citizens. (Metadata includes the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls, the date and time the calls took place, and their duration.) Deputy AG Cole also said that all queries of this database must be documented and can be subject to audits. Cole also said that the the NSA does not have to get separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) approval for each query; instead, the agency merely has to file a monthly report with the court on how many times the database was queried, and how many of those searches targeted the phone records of Americans.

3. 10 NSA officials have permission to give information about US citizens to the FBI
There are 10 NSA officials—including Inglis and Alexander—involved in determining whether information collected about US citizens can be provided to the FBI. It can only be shared if there’s independent evidence that the target has connections to a terrorist organization. Inglis said that if the information is found to be irrelevant, it must be destroyed. If the NSA mistakenly targets an American citizen, it must report this to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

4. Other countries are less transparent than the US, officials say.
Cole said that the FISA Amendments Act provides more due process than is afforded to citizens of European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. Alexander added that “virtually all” countries have laws that compel telecommunications firms to turn over information on suspects.

5) Fewer than 300 phone numbers were targeted in 2012.
NSA officials say that even though the agency has access to Americans’ phone records, it investigated fewer than 300 phone numbers connected to US citizens in 2012. The officials did not provide any detail on the number of email addresses targeted.

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5 New Revelations About NSA Surveillance

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Supreme Court: Arizona Law Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Register to Vote Is Unconstitutional

by Billy Jobs Posted on June 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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The US Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that required people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The case, Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, concerned Arizona’s Proposition 200, which was passed by voters in 2004 during the fight over President George W. Bush’s immigration reform proposal. The now-defunct law required new voters to prove that they’re citizens during the voter registration process. That proof could be in the form of a driver’s license number, a copy of a birth certificate, a copy of a passport, copies of naturalization documents, a Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, a tribal treaty card number, or a tribal enrollment number.

Unfortunately, millions of US citizens—mostly poor and elderly people—lack documentary evidence of their citizenship. Because of that, thousands of US citizens who should otherwise have been able to vote—31,000, according to the American Civil Liberties Union—were denied access to the ballot box under Proposition 200.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires only that potential voters check a box on a form attesting that they are citizens and eligible to vote. During oral arguments before the high court in March, the groups challenging Proposition 200 said that the federal voter registration law and the stricter Arizona law were incompatible, and the federal statute should take precedence. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, defending Proposition 200, said the federal requirement was “essentially an honor system” and that the two laws should be allowed to coexist. The Supreme Court decided the anti-Proposition 200 forces were right, and the federal law trumped Arizona’s.

But voting rights advocates aren’t out of the woods yet. At SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston notes that although the justices ruled that the state’s requirements were out of line with federal election law, states that want to require potential voters to provide proof of citizenship may still be able to convince the Election Assistance Commission or Congress to implement such a requirement. The court also said that states could claim they had a constitutional right to require proof of citizenship for voter registration—an argument Arizona did not make in this particular case. In other words, there’s a strong chance that Arizona or any other state that wants to could eventually get strict proof-of-citizenship requirements into law.

“The opinion seemed to leave little doubt that, if Arizona or another state went to court to try to establish such a constitutional power, it might well get a very sympathetic hearing, because that part of Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion laid a very heavy stress on the power of states under the Constitution to decide who gets to vote,” Denniston wrote.

Arizona voting rights advocates will also have to deal with a batch of election-reform bills sitting on Republican Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk right now that could derail mail-ballot collection drives and purge the state’s permanent early voting list.

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Supreme Court: Arizona Law Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Register to Vote Is Unconstitutional

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The 5 Uncontrollable Urges of the US Security State

by gorso6 Posted on June 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

As happens with so much news these days, the Edward Snowden revelations about National Security Agency (NSA) spying and just how far we’ve come in the building of a surveillance state have swept over us 24/7—waves of leaks, videos, charges, claims, counterclaims, skullduggery, and government threats. When a flood sweeps you away, it’s always hard to find a little dry land to survey the extent and nature of the damage. Here’s my attempt to look beyond the daily drumbeat of this developing story (which, it is promised, will go on for weeks, if not months) and identify five urges essential to understanding the world Edward Snowden has helped us glimpse.

1. The Urge to be Global

Corporately speaking, globalization has been ballyhooed since at least the 1990s, but in governmental terms only in the twenty-first century has that globalizing urge fully infected the workings of the American state itself. It’s become common since 9/11 to speak of a “national security state.” But if a week of ongoing revelations about NSA surveillance practices has revealed anything, it’s that the term is already grossly outdated. Based on what we now know, we should be talking about an American global security state.

Much attention has, understandably enough, been lavished on the phone and other metadata about American citizens that the NSA is now sweeping up and about the ways in which such activities may be abrogating the First and Fourth Amendments of the US Constitution. Far less attention has been paid to the ways in which the NSA (and other US intelligence outfits) are sweeping up global data in part via the just-revealed Prism and other surveillance programs.

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The 5 Uncontrollable Urges of the US Security State

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7 New Revelations From Edward Snowden

by dfu815a3x Posted on June 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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Today, the Guardian hosted a live chat with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who disclosed classified information about top-secret NSA surveillance programs. Readers and journalists asked the 29-year-old, who was reportedly chatting over a secure internet connection, about his departure to Hong Kong, his new disclosures on the US hacking foreign countries, and his thoughts on the Obama administration. Here are the seven most significant revelations:

1. Snowden denies having any contact with the Chinese government…in colorful language.

Because Snowden is allegedly taking refuge in Hong Kong and recently disclosed information about US cyberattacks on China, he was asked whether he’s prepared to make a deal with the Chinese government in exchange for amnesty. Snowden insists that he has not had any contact with the Chinese government. He adds, “I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous.” He also says that “the US media has a knee-jerk ‘RED CHINA!’ reaction…If I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn’t I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.” Snowden did not address the close relationship between the Chinese government and its military, business, and civilian institutions.

2. Snowden suggests that the NSA reviews the email and phone calls of Americans on a daily basis, without a warrant. But then he says there are some protections against this, even if the security measures are weak.

Addressing a question on whether the NSA can listen to domestic phone calls without a warrant, Snowden says, “Americans’ communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as ‘incidental’ collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications.” Snowden adds that the only thing protecting Americans’ email is changing policy protections—which he says he doesn’t trust—and a filter that “is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the ‘widest allowable aperture,’ and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border.”

3. When the NSA taps into email, it collects content (not just metadata).

“If I target for example an email address…and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time—and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants.”

4. He doesn’t say whether the NSA listens in to calls without an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

Asked what advice he would give whistleblowers and “what evidence do you have that refutes the assertion that the NSA is unable to listen to the content of telephone calls without an explicit and defined court order from FISC?” Snowden simply said, “this country is worth dying for.”

5. He claims that NSA warrants aren’t real.

“Even in the event of ‘warranted’ intercept, it’s important to understand the intelligence community doesn’t always deal with what you would consider a ‘real’ warrant like a Police department would have to, the ‘warrant’ is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp.”

6. He explains why he decided not to go to Iceland.

“I had to travel with no advance booking to a country with the cultural and legal framework to allow me to work without being immediately detained. Hong Kong provided that. Iceland could be pushed harder, quicker, before the public could have a chance to make their feelings known, and I would not put that past the current US administration.”

7. He says there’s more information about “direct access” coming.

Tech companies deny that the NSA has “direct access” to their servers, but Snowden claims that “more detail on how direct NSA’s accesses are is coming.”

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7 New Revelations From Edward Snowden

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Republicans Want to Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks. Here’s How One Group Is Fighting Back

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on June 14, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based nonprofit, is at the center of the key legal battles over abortion and contraception.

CRR filed the lawsuit that forced the Obama administration to drop its effort to restrict access to Plan B One-Step—a brand of what is popularly known as the morning-after pill—this week, making emergency contraception available over-the-counter to everyone. The group is also leading the legal fight against bans on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, which a dozen states have passed in the last three years. And next week, the Supreme Court is expected to announce whether or not it will hear Oklahoma’s appeal of court decisions CRR won blocking both a mandatory sonogram law and a ban on medication abortion in that state.

CRR’s president and CEO, Nancy Northup, was in Washington this week to talk to legislators about what’s happening in the states and to promote her group’s proposal for a Bill of Reproductive Rights. Launched last year, the effort calls on federal legislators to pass protections for abortion and other reproductive health care at the federal level. The GOP-led House, however, was moving in the opposite direction this week, with the judiciary committee debating Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-Ariz.) bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks nationwide. Mother Jones spoke to Northup during her visit.

Mother Jones: The DOJ’s latest offer is that the FDA will make Plan B One-Step available over-the-counter for everyone, but the appeals court’s ruling last week said that it needed to make all types of two-pill EC available. So the administration’s response didn’t actually answer the court’s ruling. What’s next?

Northup: We’re going to back to the court saying, “Enough with the gamesmanship.” It’s safe and effective. All these pills are safe and effective for use by all ages and they should all be over the counter. And that the generic option, which is less expensive, should be available. They’re $10-20 cheaper.

Mother Jones: Another issue CRR has been involved in is the 20-week abortion bans in the states. You recently won a lawsuit against Arizona’s in court. But at this point, 12 states have passed this type of law. What’s next on that front?

Northup: There are some states with no providers who offer abortions up to 20 weeks. So we’re not challenging those, because we have no standing to challenge them. That again shows how much of a political and messaging campaign this is by people who want to restrict access. Why are they are passing 20 week bans in states where doctors don’t even provide those services? Everywhere that they have been challenged, they have been, to date, enjoined. In Georgia there’s a preliminary injunction in place. Arizona has an injunction after the 9th Circuit decision. Idaho’s decision came down that it was unconstitutional. What we’re now looking at is fighting the 12-week ban in Arkansas, and we will be filing in North Dakota against the six-week ban. We challenge them where it’s meaningful to challenge them.

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Republicans Want to Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks. Here’s How One Group Is Fighting Back

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