Tag Archives: Police State

Nebraska Teen Sentenced to 90 Days in Jail After Self-Managed Abortion

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The case of Celeste Burgess illustrates “the real, human cost of mass surveillance of everyone’s private digital communications,” said one digital rights advocate.

By Julia Conley. Published 7-21-2023 by Common Dreams

Protestors in front of the Supreme Court on June 24, the day of Roe v. Wade’s overturn.. Photo: Ted Eytan/CC

Advocates for digital privacy rights and reproductive rights alike were outraged Thursday over the jail sentence of a 19-year-old in Nebraska who self-managed her abortion last year—a case which one campaigner said highlights how prosecutors will “stretch laws far beyond their intended scope” to penalize people who end or attempt to end their pregnancies in the post-Roe v. Wade legal landscape.

Self-managed abortion is only banned in two states—Nevada and South Carolina—but prosecutors charged Celeste Burgess with one felony and two misdemeanors last year, several months after she had a stillbirth at 29 weeks of pregnancy. Burgess, who was 17 at the time, had procured pills for a medication abortion shortly before the stillbirth, and had discussed the outcome of the pregnancy on Facebook Messenger with her mother, Jessica Burgess.

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US Bill to Protect Reporters From Exploitative State Spying Heads to House Floor

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“Journalists must be able to freely report on government actions without fear the government will compel them to reveal their sources,” said one campaigner.

By Julia Conley. Published 7-19-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Roger H. Goun/CC

Privacy and First Amendment advocates on Wednesday urged the U.S. House to pass legislation that would protect the United States’ bedrock freedoms and a core tenet of journalism: the right of reporters to guard the identities of their sources.

The House Judiciary Committee advanced the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act with bipartisan support, despite claims in recent months by Republican lawmakers such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that the legislation would “immunize journalists and leakers alike from scrutiny and consequences for their actions.”

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State Spying Poses ‘Roadblock’ for Interstate Seekers of Abortion, Transgender Care: Report

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“Digital surveillance data makes profiling easy and suggests that travel data will be weaponized to identify new targets for healthcare prosecutions and investigations.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 7-18-2023 by Common Dreams

Automated license plate reader (ALPR/LPR) cameras scan license plates of cars crossing into Pensacola Beach, Florida. Photo: Tony Webster/flickr/CC

A report published Tuesday details how digital surveillance can be used by police and prosecutors to criminalize patients seeking abortion and gender-affirming healthcare outside their home states.

The report—entitled Roadblock to Care: Barriers to Out-of-State Travel for Abortion and Gender-Affirming Care—was authored by the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), a New York-based privacy and civil rights group. The publication comes as Republican-controlled state legislatures pass a wave of abortion and gender-affirming healthcare bans, forcing people seeking such care to travel out of state.

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‘Day of Disruption’: Tens of Thousands of Israelis Protest Imminent ‘Judicial Coup’

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“We are going to show them that the power of the people is stronger than that of the people in power,” said one demonstrator.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 7-11-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Alissa Pavia/Twitter

At least tens of thousands of Israelis on Tuesday took to the streets, shutting down highways, and marching through the country’s main international airport in a “day of disruption” after the nation’s far-right governing coalition advanced a deeply controversial overhaul of the legal system critics condemn as a “judicial coup.”

Demonstrators thronged the highways leading to cities including Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, pitching tents, blocking roadways, and hanging banners from overpasses.

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‘Catastrophic’: Israeli Forces Unleash Humanitarian Disaster in Jenin

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Israeli bulldozers, said one eyewitness in the occupied West Bank refugee camp, “turned our streets into crumbs” as thousands flee amid destruction of critical infrastructure.

By Jon Queally. Published 7-4-2023 by Common Dreams

Innocent people who were taken out of the camp where they were exiled, regardless of children, the old, the sick or women. Photo: Vildan Ergün/Twitter

Thousands of people who live in Jenin in the occupied West Bank are reportedly fleeing the poverty-stricken refugee camp as Israeli military forces Tuesday continued to batter the city’s water, power, and healthcare infrastructure.

Muhammad Abu Talal, a resident of the camp, told Middle East Eye on Tuesday—a day after a large-scale assault by the IDF left at least 10 Palestinians dead and scores more wounded—that the refugee camp’s “streets are all dug up and uprooted” by bulldozers used by the Israeli forces.

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Human Rights Defenders Appalled by DeSantis Call for ‘Deadly Force’ on U.S.-Mexico Border

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The 2024 GOP presidential candidate’s proposals “wouldn’t advance any real solutions for our broken immigration system,” said one advocate. “Instead, they are all just ugly and unworkable anti-immigrant red meat to keep the MAGA base inflamed.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 6-27-2023 by Common Dreams

Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference near the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass, Texas on June 26, 2023.. Photo; Ron DeSantis/Twitter

The xenophobic immigration plan that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled Monday as part of his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination was quickly condemned as “dangerous” and “irresponsible” by human rights defenders.

Central to DeSantis’ plan, said America’s Voice, is “white nationalist messaging” that has already proven deadly. Last week, teasing the first formal policy rollout of DeSantis’ 2024 campaign, a spokesperson said, “He will stop the invasion and secure the border once and for all, and there will be no excuses.” Over the weekend, DeSantis’ campaign shared a fear-mongering video and stated that he will “secure the border,” “stop the cartels,” “build the wall,” and “stop the invasion.”

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DeSantis Anti-Immigrant Law Sparks Mass Worker Exodus in Florida

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“How can one man pass one law and destroy all these businesses in Florida?” asked a lifelong Republican who owns a tomato packing company.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 6-20-2023 by Common Dreams.

As a new Florida immigration law is set to take effect in July, some migrants have already left the state. Screenshot: MSNBC

A new Florida law cracking down on undocumented immigrants, signed last month by far-right Gov. Ron DeSantis and set to take effect on July 1, has pushed thousands of workers to flee the state.

Now even some capitalists who otherwise support DeSantis and the state’s GOP-controlled House and Senate are beginning to speak out about how the law is likely to hurt their bottom lines.

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How big tech and AI are putting trafficking survivors at risk

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The tech industry’s privileging of ‘safety over privacy’ could get the most vulnerable killed

By Sabra Boyd. Published 6-14-2023 by openDemocracy

Ring spotlight camera’ Photo: Trusted Reviews/CC

High above the homeless camps of Seattle, in September 2022, Amazon hosted the first Tech Against Trafficking Summit. It was an elite affair. Project managers and executives from Amazon, Google, Facebook (Meta), Instagram, and Microsoft were present, as were ministers of labour from around the globe. Panellists included government leaders, law enforcement, tech executives, and NGO directors. Only two trafficking survivors made the speakers’ list.

The summit was above all a show of force. Most of the tools presented were built for law enforcement, and safety over privacy appeared to be the mantra. Only the two survivors highlighted the dangers of haphazardly collecting any and all data, a view that was generally scoffed at. Stopping traffickers by any means necessary, the non-survivors said, was more important.

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Hundreds of Thousands Rally Against Poland’s Authoritarian Right-Wing Government

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“We are now at a crossroads between being an authoritarian and a democratic country,” said one activist.

By Jake Johnson. Published 6-5-2023 by Common Dreams

People take part in a march against Poland’s right-wing government in Warsaw on June 4, 2023. Photo: Germany Today/Twitter

An estimated 500,000 people took to the streets of the capital Warsaw and other Polish cities on Sunday to protest the nation’s far-right government, which has assailed reproductive freedoms, attacked the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and cracked down on critical civil society groups and media outlets.

Sunday’s march against the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party—which has held power since 2015—was called by former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, who is leading the Civic Platform opposition party into an expected October general election.

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Millions of US Women at Risk After ‘Regressive’ Attack on Abortion Rights by Supreme Court: UN Experts

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Abortion bans in 14 U.S. states since the 2022 Dobbs decision “have made abortion services largely inaccessible and denied women and girls their fundamental human rights to comprehensive healthcare including sexual and reproductive health.”

By Jon Queally. Published 6-4-2023 by Common Dreams

Abortion Rights Rally in response to Supreme Court Roe vs Wade Reversal Decision at Washington Square Park in NYC on Friday evening, 24 June 2022. Photo: Elvert Barnes/flickr/CC

High-level experts with the United Nations have issued a joint statement condemning the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that reversed decades of legal precedent protecting abortion rights for women.

“The regressive position taken by the US Supreme Court in June 2022, by essentially dismantling 50 years of precedent protecting the right to abortion in the country, puts millions of women and girls at serious risk,” said the 13 experts, all appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, on Friday.

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