Category: Civil Liberties

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics

Department of Justice won’t sue to overturn I‑502, Washington’s law legalizing marijuana

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Jus­tice has decid­ed not to seek to over­turn Ini­tia­tive 502, the law approved by vot­ers last year that makes pos­ses­sion of small amounts of mar­i­jua­na in Wash­ing­ton legal. Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee announced the news this morn­ing in a joint state­ment with Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son: Today we received con­fir­ma­tion Washington’s […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Litigation, Policy Topics

A HUGE morning for mariage equality: DOMA is unconstitutional, Proposition 8 is history

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Pro­gres­sives have a lot to cel­e­brate this morn­ing. In a pair of much-antic­i­­pat­ed deci­sions, the Unit­ed States Supreme Court struck down a key pro­vi­sion of the so-called “Defense of Mar­riage Act” and let stand a low­er court deci­sion inval­i­dat­ing Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Propo­si­tion 8, a 2008 attempt to amend Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Con­sti­tu­tion to out­law civ­il mar­riages by same-sex […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Economic Security, Education, Healthcare, Live Coverage, Open Government, Our Environment, Policy Topics, Public Planning, Technology, World Commmunity

LIVE from San Jose: Ask the Leader!

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Good after­noon from San Jose! Our morn­ing ses­sions are now over, and it’s on to our lunchtime keynote: Ask the Leader with House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Nan­cy Pelosi. This is for­mer (and hope­ful­ly future) Speak­er Pelosi’s third appear­ance at Net­roots Nation. She pre­vi­ous­ly took ques­tions at NN ’08 in Austin and NN ’10 in Las Vegas. I’m […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Public Planning

The anatomy of a headline: Some stories on Federal Way tragedy imply it’s part of Seattle

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Last night’s dead­ly ram­page in Fed­er­al Way — which result­ed in the deaths of five indi­vid­u­als at the Pinewood Vil­lage apart­ments com­plex just off Pacif­ic High­way South — has focused nation­al and inter­na­tion­al atten­tion on our region. Although the tragedy occurred in Fed­er­al Way and author­i­ties there are han­dling the inves­ti­ga­tion, sev­er­al nation­al and international […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Technology

U.S. House endangers digital freedom by passing CISPA for the second year in a row

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Ignor­ing a veto threat from Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed today to pass Repub­li­can Con­gress­man Mike Rogers’ Cyber Intel­li­gence Shar­ing and Pro­tec­tion Act, bet­ter known as CISPA, for the sec­ond year in a row. The vote on final pas­sage, which hap­pened this morn­ing, was two hun­dred and eighty-eight to one hundred […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning

U.S. Senate’s NRA caucus blocks legislation to require background checks on more gun sales

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A bipar­ti­san pro­pos­al to require back­ground checks on the sale of firearms at gun shows and over the Inter­net has failed to advance in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate after being suc­cess­ful­ly fil­i­bus­tered by forty-one Repub­li­cans and four Democ­rats. By a vote of fifty-four to forty-six (with Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid vot­ing nay so that […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

White House threatens veto of Mike Rogers’ reincarnated CISPA in its current form

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Leg­is­la­tion mak­ing its way through the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that could fur­ther erode our civ­il lib­er­ties would be vetoed by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma were it to reach his desk in its cur­rent form, the White House said today. In a for­mal state­ment of admin­is­tra­tion pol­i­cy on H.R. 624, more com­mon­ly known as the Cyber Intel­li­gence Sharing […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Public Planning

NRA’s answer to Newtown tragedy: Put armed guards in every school in America

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, the Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion (NRA) and its zeal­ous leader, Wayne LaPierre, final­ly broke their silence over the slaugh­ter of twen­ty chil­dren and sev­en adults at Sandy Hook Ele­men­tary in New­town, Con­necti­cut. At a press con­fer­ence in the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, not far from the White House, LaPierre said that imme­di­ate action need­ed to […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Public Planning

A modest proposal

by Jason Black

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Ele­men­tary school shoot­ings of Decem­ber 14th, many are call­ing for reform of gun con­trol laws, stronger gun con­trol laws, a re-intro­­duc­­tion of the assault weapons ban, and so forth. These are wor­thy con­ver­sa­tions that should be had. To them I would add anoth­er idea. On Sat­ur­day, author Mau­reen John­son tweet­ed: @maureenjohnson: […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Authorities release the names of those killed yesterday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Author­i­ties in Con­necti­cut have now released the names of the chil­dren and fac­ul­ty killed yes­ter­day morn­ing at Sandy Hook Ele­men­tary in New­town, Con­necti­cut. The over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of those killed were very young chil­dren, only six years old, as has been report­ed. Three of the chil­dren were sev­en years old. The adults (all women) ranged in […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Activists, artists, elected leaders react to the horrific tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The slaugh­ter of more than two dozen chil­dren and adults at Sandy Hook Ele­men­tary in New­town, Con­necti­cut is, with­out ques­tion, one of the most hor­rif­ic events we have gone through as a coun­try. No sur­prise, then, that it has become the chief top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion all over the coun­try.… in shops, offices, homes, and online. […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Policy Topics, Public Planning

At least eighteen children and eight adults slaughtered at school in Connecticut

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Dev­as­tat­ing, heart­break­ing, hor­ri­ble news out of New Eng­land this morn­ing: At least 27 peo­ple — includ­ing 18 chil­dren — were killed Fri­day morn­ing at a local ele­men­tary school, mark­ing the dead­liest shoot­ing ever in Con­necti­cut and one of the worst ever in the coun­try. The shoot­ing hap­pened at about 9:40 AM [6:40 AM Pacif­ic Time] […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Policy Topics

John Koster: “The rape thing” is not a valid reason for a woman to terminate a pregnancy

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Anoth­er week, anoth­er insen­si­tive and offen­sive com­ment about rape from a self-right­eous male Repub­li­can who does­n’t believe in the right to pri­va­cy. Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Todd Akin and Richard Mour­dock, our own local arch­con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­date for U.S. House — John Koster — has can­did­ly stat­ed his own extreme (and igno­rant) views on reproductive […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Policy Topics

U.S. Representative Rick Larsen leads the charge to stop voter suppression

by Patrick Stickney

React­ing to laws mak­ing aim­ing to increase the dif­fi­cul­ty to vote since con­ser­v­a­tives took con­trol of  state gov­ern­ments in the 2010 midterm elec­tions, Con­gress­man Rick Larsen, along with 14 oth­er House Democ­rats, intro­duced a bill yes­ter­day to “com­bat vot­er sup­pres­sion efforts across the coun­try”. Only two of the cur­rent co-spon­­sors rep­re­sent a state which has enacted […]