Guinea-Bissau: Request for a Nine-Month Staff Monitored Program-Press Release; and Staff Report

Guinea-Bissau: Request for a Nine-Month Staff Monitored Program-Press Release; and Staff Report
Published July 30, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

ACLU: The Texas Legislature’s Culture War

The Texas Legislature’s Culture War

On July 12, Texas House Democrats headed to Washington D.C. in a last resort attempt to deny Republicans the quorum they needed to pass restrictive voting measures during a special legislative session. The Democratic exodus not only stalled the GOP-led election bills, it also delayed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s longer agenda for this special session, including legislation to ban transgender youth in sports, further limit access to reproductive healthcare, and dictate how U.S. race history is taught in schools.

The Texas Democrats who fled said they aren’t returning until the special session expires on August 6, but Gov. Abbott said he will continue calling special sessions into next year. Legislative standoffs of this nature are very rare, but the Democrats went to Washington to block the full range of issues that were at stake in the special session.

Restrictive voting bills were the impetus for the Democrats’ stall tactic. Texas already has numerous voter suppression tactics in place when it comes to voter ID, registration, and vote-by-mail laws. The new voting bills seek to expand criminal penalties in the election code — penalties that disproportionately impact people of color. According to analysis from the ACLU of Texas, 72 percent of the prosecutions pursued by Texas’ election integrity unit were against people of color. Texas’ Republican leadership has transparently focused their voter suppression efforts on suppressing votes that tend to be more Democratic, thus targeting mor e voters of color.

Beyond election bills, attempts to censor discussions of race in the classroom are also at the forefront of Texas’ special session. Texas is just one of the many states involved in the national critical race theory debate in which various states are proposing and passing bills that seek to rob young people of an inclusive education while blatantly suppressing speech about race and gender.

In this week’s episode of At Liberty, Sarah Labowitz, policy and advocacy director at the ACLU of Texas, discusses the legislative standoff and the various civil rights and civil liberties at the center of this special legislative session.

We need you with us to keep fighting

Donate today

Published July 31, 2021 at 12:48AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3zSEnqF

ACLU: The Texas Legislature’s Culture War

The Texas Legislature’s Culture War

On July 12, Texas House Democrats headed to Washington D.C. in a last resort attempt to deny Republicans the quorum they needed to pass restrictive voting measures during a special legislative session. The Democratic exodus not only stalled the GOP-led election bills, it also delayed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s longer agenda for this special session, including legislation to ban transgender youth in sports, further limit access to reproductive healthcare, and dictate how U.S. race history is taught in schools.

The Texas Democrats who fled said they aren’t returning until the special session expires on August 6, but Gov. Abbott said he will continue calling special sessions into next year. Legislative standoffs of this nature are very rare, but the Democrats went to Washington to block the full range of issues that were at stake in the special session.

Restrictive voting bills were the impetus for the Democrats’ stall tactic. Texas already has numerous voter suppression tactics in place when it comes to voter ID, registration, and vote-by-mail laws. The new voting bills seek to expand criminal penalties in the election code — penalties that disproportionately impact people of color. According to analysis from the ACLU of Texas, 72 percent of the prosecutions pursued by Texas’ election integrity unit were against people of color. Texas’ Republican leadership has transparently focused their voter suppression efforts on suppressing votes that tend to be more Democratic, thus targeting mor e voters of color.

Beyond election bills, attempts to censor discussions of race in the classroom are also at the forefront of Texas’ special session. Texas is just one of the many states involved in the national critical race theory debate in which various states are proposing and passing bills that seek to rob young people of an inclusive education while blatantly suppressing speech about race and gender.

In this week’s episode of At Liberty, Sarah Labowitz, policy and advocacy director at the ACLU of Texas, discusses the legislative standoff and the various civil rights and civil liberties at the center of this special legislative session.

We need you with us to keep fighting

Donate today

Published July 30, 2021 at 08:18PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3zSEnqF

Panama: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Panama

Panama: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Panama
Published July 30, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

ACLU: Our Leaders Can Save Lives With the Stroke of a Pen

Our Leaders Can Save Lives With the Stroke of a Pen

The single action of a governor or president can reset people’s lives and send them on a journey of liberation and healing. This should be done more often in every state.

“This is a very strange feeling, tomorrow’s the first day of the rest of my life. The depression can be gone. You’re free to do what you want to do. You don’t have this hanging over you anymore.”

– Michael McCloud, granted clemency by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly in July after serving 27 years in prison.

In most states, governors have the unilateral power to liberate people from incarceration or the sentence of supervision with a stroke of their pen. A governor can save people from a sentence of death, free people from a sentence of incarceration, and even liberate people from the burden of parole or probation. The power of commutations — reducing or eliminating sentences — can correct for racial bias, prosecutor misconduct, and wrongful convictions in the criminal legal system. More importantly, governors can do what state legislatures have failed to do — retroactively apply relief to people serving sentences that legislatures have deemed harsh, unnecessary, or discriminatory.

In recent weeks, multiple governors have led by example in using this transformative power, exercising their executive clemency powers to commute the sentences of incarcerated people. In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown commuted the sentences of 41 incarcerated people who, while serving their sentences, bravely fought wildfires that torched over 4,000 residences and more than 1 million acres across the state. In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly commuted the sentences of five incarcerated people, the single most commutations in an executive action by a Kansas governor in 15 years.

Republican and Democratic governors commuted the sentences of a total of 164 incarcerated people in 2021. That number pales in comparison to the 2,437 commutations sparked in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Just three out of 50 governors account for nearly 80 percent of all 2,601 commutations since 2020. Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has commuted 832 sentences, Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has commuted 764 sentences, and Washington’s Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee has commuted 471 sentences. Yet these numbers are misleading: the large majority of Gov. Beshear’s and Gov. Inslee’s commutations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were for people already on track to complete their sentences within a few months of each respective governor issuing their orders.

Despite the overwhelming failure on the part of governors to meet the moment and save the lives of incarcerated people from COVID-19 through large scale releases, we did see some governors break tradition and begin viewing their use of executive clemency authority as a normal and reasonable solution to underlying problems in their prisons and jails. A stroke of a governor’s pen brought harsh and unjust sentences to life, and the same stroke of a governor’s pen can end those sentences for thousands of people. We need every governor — and President Biden — to embrace their power to set people free.

Across the country, voters recognize the need for criminal justice reform, and a vast majority of voters across partisan lines support governors in using their clemency powers to liberate people and confront racial injustice. Eighty-six percent of Democrats, 81 percent of Independents, and 73 percent of Republicans support governors shortening the sentences of incarcerated people through clemency, according to a poll commissioned by the ACLU. The public support for the use of executive clemency should motivate the federal government as the Biden administration debates whether or not to send 4,000 people in federal custody on home confinement back to prison. Governors and the executive branch of the federal government have unique power when it comes to ending mass incarceration. We applaud the recent efforts of Gov. Kelly and Gov. Brown, but they could and should issue more commutations, more often. State governors and the president should heed the will of the people, and take action.

What you can do:

4,000 People Could Be Sent Back to Prison. Contact Biden Now.

Send your message

Published July 30, 2021 at 10:50PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3j9ypex

ACLU: Our Leaders Can Save Lives With the Stroke of a Pen

Our Leaders Can Save Lives With the Stroke of a Pen

The single action of a governor or president can reset people’s lives and send them on a journey of liberation and healing. This should be done more often in every state.

“This is a very strange feeling, tomorrow’s the first day of the rest of my life. The depression can be gone. You’re free to do what you want to do. You don’t have this hanging over you anymore.”

– Michael McCloud, granted clemency by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly in July after serving 27 years in prison.

In most states, governors have the unilateral power to liberate people from incarceration or the sentence of supervision with a stroke of their pen. A governor can save people from a sentence of death, free people from a sentence of incarceration, and even liberate people from the burden of parole or probation. The power of commutations — reducing or eliminating sentences — can correct for racial bias, prosecutor misconduct, and wrongful convictions in the criminal legal system. More importantly, governors can do what state legislatures have failed to do — retroactively apply relief to people serving sentences that legislatures have deemed harsh, unnecessary, or discriminatory.

In recent weeks, multiple governors have led by example in using this transformative power, exercising their executive clemency powers to commute the sentences of incarcerated people. In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown commuted the sentences of 41 incarcerated people who, while serving their sentences, bravely fought wildfires that torched over 4,000 residences and more than 1 million acres across the state. In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly commuted the sentences of five incarcerated people, the single most commutations in an executive action by a Kansas governor in 15 years.

Republican and Democratic governors commuted the sentences of a total of 164 incarcerated people in 2021. That number pales in comparison to the 2,437 commutations sparked in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Just three out of 50 governors account for nearly 80 percent of all 2,601 commutations since 2020. Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has commuted 832 sentences, Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has commuted 764 sentences, and Washington’s Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee has commuted 471 sentences. Yet these numbers are misleading: the large majority of Gov. Beshear’s and Gov. Inslee’s commutations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were for people already on track to complete their sentences within a few months of each respective governor issuing their orders.

Despite the overwhelming failure on the part of governors to meet the moment and save the lives of incarcerated people from COVID-19 through large scale releases, we did see some governors break tradition and begin viewing their use of executive clemency authority as a normal and reasonable solution to underlying problems in their prisons and jails. A stroke of a governor’s pen brought harsh and unjust sentences to life, and the same stroke of a governor’s pen can end those sentences for thousands of people. We need every governor — and President Biden — to embrace their power to set people free.

Across the country, voters recognize the need for criminal justice reform, and a vast majority of voters across partisan lines support governors in using their clemency powers to liberate people and confront racial injustice. Eighty-six percent of Democrats, 81 percent of Independents, and 73 percent of Republicans support governors shortening the sentences of incarcerated people through clemency, according to a poll commissioned by the ACLU. The public support for the use of executive clemency should motivate the federal government as the Biden administration debates whether or not to send 4,000 people in federal custody on home confinement back to prison. Governors and the executive branch of the federal government have unique power when it comes to ending mass incarceration. We applaud the recent efforts of Gov. Kelly and Gov. Brown, but they could and should issue more commutations, more often. State governors and the president should heed the will of the people, and take action.

What you can do:

4,000 People Could Be Sent Back to Prison. Contact Biden Now.

Send your message

Published July 30, 2021 at 06:20PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3j9ypex

Dominican Republic: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Dominican Republic
Published July 28, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Request for a Three-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility; Review of Performance Under the Staff Monitored Program-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Democratic Republic of Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Request for a Three-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility; Review of Performance Under the Staff Monitored Program-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Democratic Republic of Congo
Published July 28, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

ACLU: Maine’s Facial Recognition Law Shows Bipartisan Support for Protecting Privacy

Maine’s Facial Recognition Law Shows Bipartisan Support for Protecting Privacy

This piece was first published in TechCrunch.

Maine has joined a growing number of cities, counties and states that are rejecting dangerously biased surveillance technologies like facial recognition.

The new law, which is the strongest statewide facial recognition law in the country, not only received broad, bipartisan support, but it passed unanimously in both chambers of the state legislature. Lawmakers and advocates spanning the political spectrum — from the progressive lawmaker who sponsored the bill to the Republican members who voted it out of committee, from the ACLU of Maine to state law enforcement agencies — came together to secure this major victory for Mainers and anyone who cares about their right to privacy.

Maine is just the latest success story in the nationwide movement to ban or tightly regulate the use of facial recognition technology, an effort led by grassroots activists and organizations like the ACLU. From the Pine Tree State to the Golden State, national efforts to regulate facial recognition demonstrate a broad recognition that we can’t let technology determine the boundaries of our freedoms in the digital 21st century.

Facial recognition technology poses a profound threat to civil rights and civil liberties. Without democratic oversight, governments can use the technology as a tool for dragnet surveillance, threatening our freedoms of speech and association, due process rights, and right to be left alone. Democracy itself is at stake if this technology remains unregulated.

We know the burdens of facial recognition are not borne equally, as Black and brown communities — especially Muslim and immigrant communities — are already targets of discriminatory government surveillance. Making matters worse, face surveillance algorithms tend to have more difficulty accurately analyzing the faces of darker-skinned people, women, the elderly and children. Simply put: The technology is dangerous when it works — and when it doesn’t.

But not all approaches to regulating this technology are created equal. Maine is among the first in the nation to pass comprehensive statewide regulations. Washington was the first, passing a weak law in the face of strong opposition from civil rights, community and religious liberty organizations. The law passed in large part because of strong backing from Washington-based megacorporation Microsoft. Washington’s facial recognition law would still allow tech companies to sell their technology, worth millions of dollars, to every conceivable government agency.

In contrast, Maine’s law strikes a different path, putting the interests of ordinary Mainers above the profit motives of private companies.

Maine’s new law prohibits the use of facial recognition technology in most areas of government, including in public schools and for surveillance purposes. It creates carefully carved out exceptions for law enforcement to use facial recognition, creating standards for its use and avoiding the potential for abuse we’ve seen in other parts of the country. Importantly, it prohibits the use of facial recognition technology to conduct surveillance of people as they go about their business in Maine, attending political meetings and protests, visiting friends and family, and seeking out healthcare.

In Maine, law enforcement must now — among other limitations — meet a probable cause standard before making a facial recognition request, and they cannot use a facial recognition match as the sole basis to arrest or search someone. Nor can local police departments buy, possess or use their own facial recognition software, ensuring shady technologies like Clearview AI will not be used by Maine’s government officials behind closed doors, as has happened in other states.

Maine’s law and others like it are crucial to preventing communities from being harmed by new, untested surveillance technologies like facial recognition. But we need a federal approach, not only a piecemeal local approach, to effectively protect Americans’ privacy from facial surveillance. That’s why it’s crucial for Americans to support the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, a bill introduced by members of both houses of Congress last month.

The ACLU supports this federal legislation that would protect all people in the United States from invasive surveillance. We urge all Americans to ask their members of Congress to join the movement to halt facial recognition technology and support it, too.

What you can do:

Stop Face Surveillance Technologies

Send your message

Published July 27, 2021 at 11:37PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3zDMxTR

ACLU: Maine’s Facial Recognition Law Shows Bipartisan Support for Protecting Privacy

Maine’s Facial Recognition Law Shows Bipartisan Support for Protecting Privacy

This piece was first published in TechCrunch.

Maine has joined a growing number of cities, counties and states that are rejecting dangerously biased surveillance technologies like facial recognition.

The new law, which is the strongest statewide facial recognition law in the country, not only received broad, bipartisan support, but it passed unanimously in both chambers of the state legislature. Lawmakers and advocates spanning the political spectrum — from the progressive lawmaker who sponsored the bill to the Republican members who voted it out of committee, from the ACLU of Maine to state law enforcement agencies — came together to secure this major victory for Mainers and anyone who cares about their right to privacy.

Maine is just the latest success story in the nationwide movement to ban or tightly regulate the use of facial recognition technology, an effort led by grassroots activists and organizations like the ACLU. From the Pine Tree State to the Golden State, national efforts to regulate facial recognition demonstrate a broad recognition that we can’t let technology determine the boundaries of our freedoms in the digital 21st century.

Facial recognition technology poses a profound threat to civil rights and civil liberties. Without democratic oversight, governments can use the technology as a tool for dragnet surveillance, threatening our freedoms of speech and association, due process rights, and right to be left alone. Democracy itself is at stake if this technology remains unregulated.

We know the burdens of facial recognition are not borne equally, as Black and brown communities — especially Muslim and immigrant communities — are already targets of discriminatory government surveillance. Making matters worse, face surveillance algorithms tend to have more difficulty accurately analyzing the faces of darker-skinned people, women, the elderly and children. Simply put: The technology is dangerous when it works — and when it doesn’t.

But not all approaches to regulating this technology are created equal. Maine is among the first in the nation to pass comprehensive statewide regulations. Washington was the first, passing a weak law in the face of strong opposition from civil rights, community and religious liberty organizations. The law passed in large part because of strong backing from Washington-based megacorporation Microsoft. Washington’s facial recognition law would still allow tech companies to sell their technology, worth millions of dollars, to every conceivable government agency.

In contrast, Maine’s law strikes a different path, putting the interests of ordinary Mainers above the profit motives of private companies.

Maine’s new law prohibits the use of facial recognition technology in most areas of government, including in public schools and for surveillance purposes. It creates carefully carved out exceptions for law enforcement to use facial recognition, creating standards for its use and avoiding the potential for abuse we’ve seen in other parts of the country. Importantly, it prohibits the use of facial recognition technology to conduct surveillance of people as they go about their business in Maine, attending political meetings and protests, visiting friends and family, and seeking out healthcare.

In Maine, law enforcement must now — among other limitations — meet a probable cause standard before making a facial recognition request, and they cannot use a facial recognition match as the sole basis to arrest or search someone. Nor can local police departments buy, possess or use their own facial recognition software, ensuring shady technologies like Clearview AI will not be used by Maine’s government officials behind closed doors, as has happened in other states.

Maine’s law and others like it are crucial to preventing communities from being harmed by new, untested surveillance technologies like facial recognition. But we need a federal approach, not only a piecemeal local approach, to effectively protect Americans’ privacy from facial surveillance. That’s why it’s crucial for Americans to support the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, a bill introduced by members of both houses of Congress last month.

The ACLU supports this federal legislation that would protect all people in the United States from invasive surveillance. We urge all Americans to ask their members of Congress to join the movement to halt facial recognition technology and support it, too.

What you can do:

Stop Face Surveillance Technologies

Send your message

Published July 27, 2021 at 07:07PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3zDMxTR

ACLU: Diners Beware: That Meal May Cost You Your Privacy and Security

Diners Beware: That Meal May Cost You Your Privacy and Security

If you’ve been to a restaurant lately and scanned a QR code rather than order from a physical menu, you likely paid for that meal with not just your money, but your privacy and security too. Businesses are taking advantage of the rise of touchless services during the pandemic to harvest massive amounts of sensitive information about who we are, where we go, and what we do, including our eating and drinking habits — when all we want to do is just eat a meal.

In the past decade, technology companies and the advertising industry have created a vast and extremely lucrative online spying apparatus. They try to collect information about every click we make online and package it into profiles to be shared, sold, and used in ways we couldn’t even imagine, as seen in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. These surveillance capitalists have long wanted to link online profiling to our physical movements to pry even further into our private lives. Manipulating us into scanning QR codes instead of ordering from a physical menu is a way for these companies to achieve their dream of online-offline tracking by inserting all the machinery of the online advertising ecosystem between you and your food.

You may not have thought much about what actually happens when you open your phone and click on a QR code at a restaurant. Sometimes it just opens the restaurant’s web page. But many of the QR codes you see in restaurants are actually generated by a different company that collects, uses, and then often shares your personal information with other companies. In fact, companies that provide QR codes to restaurants like to brag about all the personal information you are sharing along with that food order: your location, your demographics such as gender and age group, and other information about you and your behavior. Plus, as your phone opens the website or app, all the terrible privacy practices of our current online and mobile environments come into play: cookies, your phone’s advertising ID number, and device fingerprinting. There is an entire industry dedicated to using these and other technologies to identify you — precisely — so that a visit to a restaurant can be connected to all your other tracked activities to create a detailed profile of who you are, where you go, what you do, and your interests and habits.

In China, this technology has been used to create a network of mandatory checkpoints used to track citizens as they moved throughout society. While that hopefully could never happen in the United States, if the codes become pervasive enough, an advertising-based equivalent could certainly arise. And your personal information collected by companies can be shared with or accessed by the government for surveillance. In recent years, we’ve seen how information collected by prayer apps has been used to target and surveil Muslim Americans, and how location information of devices has been used to surveil people protesting for racial justice. In Australia, where QR codes have been put to widespread use for COVID contact tracing, the police have already tapped into these treasure troves of personal information.

When restaurants make owning a smartphone and being able to scan a QR code the default for being served a meal, that also has significant implications for equity. Many people do not have a smartphone, including more than 40 percent of people over 65 and 25 percent of people who make less than $30,000 per year. People with disabilities and the unhoused are also less likely to own one. These are some of our most vulnerable communities.

QR codes can also pose security risks. A QR code transfers data directly into your phone that you can’t read, and it could trigger an action that you can’t scrutinize before it happens. That’s an inherently risky thing to do, like blindly clicking a link in an unknown e-mail. Depending on your operating system, QR code reader app, or the QR code itself, you may not get the chance to inspect the proposed action, or you might be distracted or hungry and take the action without considering it carefully. Some scammers have been known to put their own QR code sticker over a legitimate QR code, redirecting anyone who scans it to a subtly different payment target, or to a website that hosts malware. Some QR code software is not trustworthy, and an honest but naïve business may inadvertently steer people to a malware site. Even a legitimate URL can be repurposed by an attacker if the website gets compromised or its domain name expires.

Whether technology helps or harms us depends on its purpose, the people who build it, and how we control and use these technologies. Based on current privacy and security risks of QR codes, we recommend that people:

• Treat any QR code like a link in an unknown email: Be wary and pay attention to the context in which it appears.
• When not certain a code can be trusted, consider seeking the information another way, such as by manually navigating to the business or organization’s website.
• Use software that allows you to inspect the QR code or the action it will take before it is passed to your browser or any other app.
• Keep an eye out for any QR code that has been pasted on top of another one.
• In restaurants, continue to use a physical menu. We now know that it’s highly unlikely to spread the virus by touching a piece of paper.

With the privacy threats, equity concerns, and security risks of QR codes, no business should require anyone to scan a QR code or make it difficult for people to continue to use a physical menu if they want one. COVID has already cost our communities so much. Now is the time to make sure that any technology we use is working for us, not putting more of our personal information and power into the hands of companies who profit at our expense.

What you can do:

Stop Face Surveillance Technologies

Send your message

Published July 27, 2021 at 06:52PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/375dnrO

ACLU: Diners Beware: That Meal May Cost You Your Privacy and Security

Diners Beware: That Meal May Cost You Your Privacy and Security

If you’ve been to a restaurant lately and scanned a QR code rather than order from a physical menu, you likely paid for that meal with not just your money, but your privacy and security too. Businesses are taking advantage of the rise of touchless services during the pandemic to harvest massive amounts of sensitive information about who we are, where we go, and what we do, including our eating and drinking habits — when all we want to do is just eat a meal.

In the past decade, technology companies and the advertising industry have created a vast and extremely lucrative online spying apparatus. They try to collect information about every click we make online and package it into profiles to be shared, sold, and used in ways we couldn’t even imagine, as seen in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. These surveillance capitalists have long wanted to link online profiling to our physical movements to pry even further into our private lives. Manipulating us into scanning QR codes instead of ordering from a physical menu is a way for these companies to achieve their dream of online-offline tracking by inserting all the machinery of the online advertising ecosystem between you and your food.

You may not have thought much about what actually happens when you open your phone and click on a QR code at a restaurant. Sometimes it just opens the restaurant’s web page. But many of the QR codes you see in restaurants are actually generated by a different company that collects, uses, and then often shares your personal information with other companies. In fact, companies that provide QR codes to restaurants like to brag about all the personal information you are sharing along with that food order: your location, your demographics such as gender and age group, and other information about you and your behavior. Plus, as your phone opens the website or app, all the terrible privacy practices of our current online and mobile environments come into play: cookies, your phone’s advertising ID number, and device fingerprinting. There is an entire industry dedicated to using these and other technologies to identify you — precisely — so that a visit to a restaurant can be connected to all your other tracked activities to create a detailed profile of who you are, where you go, what you do, and your interests and habits.

In China, this technology has been used to create a network of mandatory checkpoints used to track citizens as they moved throughout society. While that hopefully could never happen in the United States, if the codes become pervasive enough, an advertising-based equivalent could certainly arise. And your personal information collected by companies can be shared with or accessed by the government for surveillance. In recent years, we’ve seen how information collected by prayer apps has been used to target and surveil Muslim Americans, and how location information of devices has been used to surveil people protesting for racial justice. In Australia, where QR codes have been put to widespread use for COVID contact tracing, the police have already tapped into these treasure troves of personal information.

When restaurants make owning a smartphone and being able to scan a QR code the default for being served a meal, that also has significant implications for equity. Many people do not have a smartphone, including more than 40 percent of people over 65 and 25 percent of people who make less than $30,000 per year. People with disabilities and the unhoused are also less likely to own one. These are some of our most vulnerable communities.

QR codes can also pose security risks. A QR code transfers data directly into your phone that you can’t read, and it could trigger an action that you can’t scrutinize before it happens. That’s an inherently risky thing to do, like blindly clicking a link in an unknown e-mail. Depending on your operating system, QR code reader app, or the QR code itself, you may not get the chance to inspect the proposed action, or you might be distracted or hungry and take the action without considering it carefully. Some scammers have been known to put their own QR code sticker over a legitimate QR code, redirecting anyone who scans it to a subtly different payment target, or to a website that hosts malware. Some QR code software is not trustworthy, and an honest but naïve business may inadvertently steer people to a malware site. Even a legitimate URL can be repurposed by an attacker if the website gets compromised or its domain name expires.

Whether technology helps or harms us depends on its purpose, the people who build it, and how we control and use these technologies. Based on current privacy and security risks of QR codes, we recommend that people:

• Treat any QR code like a link in an unknown email: Be wary and pay attention to the context in which it appears.
• When not certain a code can be trusted, consider seeking the information another way, such as by manually navigating to the business or organization’s website.
• Use software that allows you to inspect the QR code or the action it will take before it is passed to your browser or any other app.
• Keep an eye out for any QR code that has been pasted on top of another one.
• In restaurants, continue to use a physical menu. We now know that it’s highly unlikely to spread the virus by touching a piece of paper.

With the privacy threats, equity concerns, and security risks of QR codes, no business should require anyone to scan a QR code or make it difficult for people to continue to use a physical menu if they want one. COVID has already cost our communities so much. Now is the time to make sure that any technology we use is working for us, not putting more of our personal information and power into the hands of companies who profit at our expense.

What you can do:

Stop Face Surveillance Technologies

Send your message

Published July 27, 2021 at 11:22PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/375dnrO

ACLU: “It’s Real, and People Are Dying”: Arkansas’ Fight for Reproductive Rights

“It’s Real, and People Are Dying”: Arkansas’ Fight for Reproductive Rights

This legislative session, Arkansas lawmakers passed 20 abortion-related restrictions — tying Louisiana’s 1978 record for the most restrictions passed in a single year. These attacks reached their peak with the passage of Act 309 in March, which bans nearly all abortions in the state. In May, the ACLU and its allies filed a lawsuit challenging that law, which is blatantly unconstitutional under nearly five decades of Supreme Court precedent. Following a federal court’s decision last week blocking the ban from taking effect while the case continues, we sat down with a few members of the Arkansas Coalition for Reproductive Justice (ACRJ), a grassroots organization based out of Little Rock, Arkansas, to talk about their work fighting for reproductive justice in the state.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

ACLU: Tell us about the origins of ACRJ. What brought you together?

Brittaney Stockton: We began as part of a counter-protest in response to an Arkansas “right to life” rally in 2010. Our main goal in hosting the counter-protest was to show that we are also here fighting the abortion bans and restrictions in Arkansas, and to show that the anti-abortion movement will not go unanswered. Our coalition of organizations banded together to protest bans and bad laws in the state, and officially became a nonprofit a couple years after that first rally. Today, ACRJ has approximately two dozen active members who work together on the ground in Arkansas to advocate for a world in which all people have the social, political, and economic power and resources to have full autonomy over decisions about their bodies, gender, and sexuality.

ACLU: What is the reproductive justice community like in Arkansas?

Brittaney: It’s a small, tight-knit community, mostly based in central Arkansas. In recent years there has been some growth as the attacks against abortion have escalated. At rallies you see some new faces — parents bringing their kids, recent college graduates. A lot of people really do care about reproductive rights and justice here, but even other progressive organizations are really hesitant to talk about abortion.

ACLU: What does it feel like to live in Arkansas while all these anti-abortion laws are being passed?

Karen Ricketts: It’s like “The Handmaid’s Tale.” You can watch it on Hulu, or come to Arkansas and watch it in real life. It’s real, and people are dying. The amount of anger just makes your scalp burn. And when you consider race, abortion access for Black women is a whole other story. These laws are violent, and they are a continuation of white supremacy and patriarchy. We’re on the front lines, working with very limited resources.

Sydney Rasch: Each year anti-abortion politicians pass more abortion restrictions. These laws pile on top of each other and make it next to impossible for many to access abortion care — especially those who are people of color, low-income, or live in rural areas. It’s death by a thousand cuts.

Shakia Jackson: When I first read that rape and incest weren’t considered exceptions that would permit an abortion (in Act 309), I was horrified. I know first hand that many people can’t afford Plan B [emergency contraception]. It’s embarrassing to live in a state that creates bills to attack already marginalized groups.

Brittaney: Arkansas is often discounted in the fight for reproductive justice, but we shouldn’t be. People say we are the number one “pro-life” state, but it’s not true. It’s not “pro-life” to attack trans kids, or to kill someone with the death penalty. And Arkansas consistently ranks among the worst states in the nation when it comes to maternal mortality rates, Black maternal mortality rates, and infant mortality rates. How is that “pro-life”? On the other hand, there are a lot of us who are “pro-life” in the sense that we support people in making decisions about their own bodies and getting access to the health care they need.

ACLU: What was your reaction when you learned that anti-abortion politicians in the state were trying to ban abortion?

Sydney: We got mad, but it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before. The Arkansas legislature has tried to ban abortion before, and all of those bans were struck down in federal court.

Brittaney: We knew it would be bad, but didn’t know how bad. It was incredibly traumatic to witness everything. When we got the notification that the ban was filed in the legislature, it felt so hopeless, because we knew it would pass. I became pregnant the first week of the legislative session. I was terrified of having a miscarriage. As a sexual assault survivor and someone who is currently pregnant, it triggered my PTSD, and I started having nightmares. They don’t understand what this is doing to folks, not just those who would have an abortion, but also people who want to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and need access to safe health care as well.

ACLU: Last week, a federal judge blocked the near-total ban on abortion, stopping it from taking effect while the legal challenge continues. What does this win mean to you?

Brittaney Stockton: I knew a block on Act 309 was very likely. The ban is clearly unconstitutional and a federal judge issuing this block just proves that. I am thankful for the decision and proud of the ACLU and others who helped make this happen. I am also saddened that in order to protect our rights it takes thousands of dollars and unnecessary court battles. The State of Arkansas insists on wasting money and resources that it could use to support struggling families, build a world class education system, and support our healthcare system that is currently crumbling due to the effects of a pandemic that leaders refused to effectively prepare for. Instead of doing the right thing and ensuring Arkansans have the resources they need to not only survive but to thrive, elected officials would rather throw money into a fight whose only goal is to take away a pregnant person’s agency to make the best decision for themselves and their families. It is sickening.

Unfortunately, the battle isn’t over. While abortion care remains available in Arkansas, many will not be able to access the care they need partially because of a lack of resources, but also because of the countless other restrictions that the legislature has passed over the years. We believe in the right to have children, the right to not have children, and the right to parent the children we do have in safe and healthy environments — the SisterSong definition of reproductive justice.

We are doing our best to carry on that work, but it’s challenging. We need support, and we need more people. We must keep fighting to help those in need and to ensure that everyone has access to the care they need. Part of this fight needs to include holding politicians who claim to be “pro-life” accountable when they do not actually support any true pro-life policies. When so many Arkansans are struggling, we cannot afford to keep going down this path. The road to true progress is long and it will take all of us but the work must begin today. Join the fight, volunteer for or support an organization doing work that aligns with your values. Or consider running for office and making proactive changes yourself. The movement needs you.

Karen: I feel relief knowing that safe abortion services are still legal and accessible in Arkansas. It feels like we have won, yet again, another battle against anti-abortion politicians who are obsessed with controlling the bodily autonomy and personal freedoms of others. To be honest, it’s frustrating that extremist lawmakers are wasting our tax dollars to fight legal challenges for bills they knew were unconstitutional in the first place.

The fight isn’t over, the time to act is now. What can you do? There is a desperate dire need for abortion funding. If you can, support or volunteer with advocacy organizations who support the right to abortion. It takes all of us doing our part to make a lasting change. What it boils down to is that people need to invest in organizations that are fighting for these issues. If not now, when?

 

What you can do:

Defend Abortion Access for All

Send your message

Published July 27, 2021 at 01:11AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3kZkjyW

ACLU: “It’s Real, and People Are Dying”: Arkansas’ Fight for Reproductive Rights

“It’s Real, and People Are Dying”: Arkansas’ Fight for Reproductive Rights

This legislative session, Arkansas lawmakers passed 20 abortion-related restrictions — tying Louisiana’s 1978 record for the most restrictions passed in a single year. These attacks reached their peak with the passage of Act 309 in March, which bans nearly all abortions in the state. In May, the ACLU and its allies filed a lawsuit challenging that law, which is blatantly unconstitutional under nearly five decades of Supreme Court precedent. Following a federal court’s decision last week blocking the ban from taking effect while the case continues, we sat down with a few members of the Arkansas Coalition for Reproductive Justice (ACRJ), a grassroots organization based out of Little Rock, Arkansas, to talk about their work fighting for reproductive justice in the state.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

ACLU: Tell us about the origins of ACRJ. What brought you together?

Brittaney Stockton: We began as part of a counter-protest in response to an Arkansas “right to life” rally in 2010. Our main goal in hosting the counter-protest was to show that we are also here fighting the abortion bans and restrictions in Arkansas, and to show that the anti-abortion movement will not go unanswered. Our coalition of organizations banded together to protest bans and bad laws in the state, and officially became a nonprofit a couple years after that first rally. Today, ACRJ has approximately two dozen active members who work together on the ground in Arkansas to advocate for a world in which all people have the social, political, and economic power and resources to have full autonomy over decisions about their bodies, gender, and sexuality.

ACLU: What is the reproductive justice community like in Arkansas?

Brittaney: It’s a small, tight-knit community, mostly based in central Arkansas. In recent years there has been some growth as the attacks against abortion have escalated. At rallies you see some new faces — parents bringing their kids, recent college graduates. A lot of people really do care about reproductive rights and justice here, but even other progressive organizations are really hesitant to talk about abortion.

ACLU: What does it feel like to live in Arkansas while all these anti-abortion laws are being passed?

Karen Ricketts: It’s like “The Handmaid’s Tale.” You can watch it on Hulu, or come to Arkansas and watch it in real life. It’s real, and people are dying. The amount of anger just makes your scalp burn. And when you consider race, abortion access for Black women is a whole other story. These laws are violent, and they are a continuation of white supremacy and patriarchy. We’re on the front lines, working with very limited resources.

Sydney Rasch: Each year anti-abortion politicians pass more abortion restrictions. These laws pile on top of each other and make it next to impossible for many to access abortion care — especially those who are people of color, low-income, or live in rural areas. It’s death by a thousand cuts.

Shakia Jackson: When I first read that rape and incest weren’t considered exceptions that would permit an abortion (in Act 309), I was horrified. I know first hand that many people can’t afford Plan B [emergency contraception]. It’s embarrassing to live in a state that creates bills to attack already marginalized groups.

Brittaney: Arkansas is often discounted in the fight for reproductive justice, but we shouldn’t be. People say we are the number one “pro-life” state, but it’s not true. It’s not “pro-life” to attack trans kids, or to kill someone with the death penalty. And Arkansas consistently ranks among the worst states in the nation when it comes to maternal mortality rates, Black maternal mortality rates, and infant mortality rates. How is that “pro-life”? On the other hand, there are a lot of us who are “pro-life” in the sense that we support people in making decisions about their own bodies and getting access to the health care they need.

ACLU: What was your reaction when you learned that anti-abortion politicians in the state were trying to ban abortion?

Sydney: We got mad, but it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before. The Arkansas legislature has tried to ban abortion before, and all of those bans were struck down in federal court.

Brittaney: We knew it would be bad, but didn’t know how bad. It was incredibly traumatic to witness everything. When we got the notification that the ban was filed in the legislature, it felt so hopeless, because we knew it would pass. I became pregnant the first week of the legislative session. I was terrified of having a miscarriage. As a sexual assault survivor and someone who is currently pregnant, it triggered my PTSD, and I started having nightmares. They don’t understand what this is doing to folks, not just those who would have an abortion, but also people who want to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and need access to safe health care as well.

ACLU: Last week, a federal judge blocked the near-total ban on abortion, stopping it from taking effect while the legal challenge continues. What does this win mean to you?

Brittaney Stockton: I knew a block on Act 309 was very likely. The ban is clearly unconstitutional and a federal judge issuing this block just proves that. I am thankful for the decision and proud of the ACLU and others who helped make this happen. I am also saddened that in order to protect our rights it takes thousands of dollars and unnecessary court battles. The State of Arkansas insists on wasting money and resources that it could use to support struggling families, build a world class education system, and support our healthcare system that is currently crumbling due to the effects of a pandemic that leaders refused to effectively prepare for. Instead of doing the right thing and ensuring Arkansans have the resources they need to not only survive but to thrive, elected officials would rather throw money into a fight whose only goal is to take away a pregnant person’s agency to make the best decision for themselves and their families. It is sickening.

Unfortunately, the battle isn’t over. While abortion care remains available in Arkansas, many will not be able to access the care they need partially because of a lack of resources, but also because of the countless other restrictions that the legislature has passed over the years. We believe in the right to have children, the right to not have children, and the right to parent the children we do have in safe and healthy environments — the SisterSong definition of reproductive justice.

We are doing our best to carry on that work, but it’s challenging. We need support, and we need more people. We must keep fighting to help those in need and to ensure that everyone has access to the care they need. Part of this fight needs to include holding politicians who claim to be “pro-life” accountable when they do not actually support any true pro-life policies. When so many Arkansans are struggling, we cannot afford to keep going down this path. The road to true progress is long and it will take all of us but the work must begin today. Join the fight, volunteer for or support an organization doing work that aligns with your values. Or consider running for office and making proactive changes yourself. The movement needs you.

Karen: I feel relief knowing that safe abortion services are still legal and accessible in Arkansas. It feels like we have won, yet again, another battle against anti-abortion politicians who are obsessed with controlling the bodily autonomy and personal freedoms of others. To be honest, it’s frustrating that extremist lawmakers are wasting our tax dollars to fight legal challenges for bills they knew were unconstitutional in the first place.

The fight isn’t over, the time to act is now. What can you do? There is a desperate dire need for abortion funding. If you can, support or volunteer with advocacy organizations who support the right to abortion. It takes all of us doing our part to make a lasting change. What it boils down to is that people need to invest in organizations that are fighting for these issues. If not now, when?

 

What you can do:

Defend Abortion Access for All

Send your message

Published July 26, 2021 at 08:41PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3kZkjyW

ACLU: Congress Can Stop This Vicious Cycle of Debt-Based Poverty

Congress Can Stop This Vicious Cycle of Debt-Based Poverty

On any given day across the country, millions of Americans have had their drivers’ license suspended — not because of unsafe driving or other safety concerns but because of a government imposed debt they can’t afford to pay.

It doesn’t have to be this way. State and local governments can and must end taxation by citation — and right now Congress has a chance to help them do it.

The Driving for Opportunity Act, introduced by Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), is bipartisan legislation that provides grants to states that do not suspend, revoke, or refuse to renew a driver’s license of a person or registration of a motor vehicle for failure to pay a civil or criminal fine or fee.

By helping states cover the costs of reinstating driver’s licenses previously suspended for unpaid fines and fees, the Driving for Opportunity Act would encourage states to do the right thing, and it would give millions of Americans the opportunity to have their driving privileges restored. Right now, the bill is awaiting action by the Senate Judiciary Committee — and there’s no time to waste.

Taxation by citation is a pernicious system, and it works like this: State and local governments create frivolous regulations as predatory money-making schemes to fund government services. For instance, nuisance regulations like loitering, beautification regulations like lawn maintenance requirements, traffic regulations like bans on tinted windows, or quality of life regulations like bans on sleeping in public. The sheer number of regulations, which have no bearing on public safety, make it very likely that someone will run afoul of one of the many finable offenses at some point in time — especially if they live in Black and Brown communities that are already subjected to over-policing.

A person in violation of any one of these unnecessary codes is then slapped with a fine and a bevy of administrative fees, which can then escalate into hundreds or even thousands of dollars. When that person can’t afford to pay their debt, the government suspends their driver’s license. This exposes them to even harsher penalties, including arrest and incarceration, when they have no choice but to drive on a suspended license.

A recent ACLU report documents the pervasive practice of using driver’s license suspension as a consequence for unpaid fines and fees. These burdens are borne disproportionately by Black and Brown communities, fueling a vicious cycle of poverty and criminalization.

The fact is that in most of America, driving isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. The majority of people living in the U.S. don’t have access to public transportation and rely on driving to get to work, school, religious services, court obligations, and medical appointments. People whose licenses have been suspended are often left with no choice but to drive and risk criminal consequences, making it even more difficult for them to pay off their debt.

State and local governments should not be funding their operations through law enforcement, period. But they do, and it’s nonsensical and counterproductive.

First, debt-based license suspension is not an effective collection tool. Taking away people’s ability to get to work doesn’t just make it harder for them to pay off their initial debt, it also has ripple effects throughout the economy — reducing family incomes and destabilizing communities.

Instead of protecting public safety, debt-based license suspensions undermine it by diverting resources away from important community services and priorities. In 2019, Minneapolis City Attorney Mary Ellen Heng told the Minnesota legislature that her prosecutors spend about 30 percent of their time enforcing these suspensions that have no bearing on public safety.

Worst of all, using courts and law enforcement officers as debt-collectors enables over-criminalization and exacerbates racist policing practices. In Texas, 95 percent of arrest warrants issued in 2016 were for unpaid fines and fees, and more than 640,000 people were jailed as a result.

In Durham County, North Carolina, 80 percent of those with suspended licenses were people of color, mostly Black Americans, and the average time they had lived without a license was 11 years. In New York City — where driving on a suspended license was the fourth-most charged crime in 2018 — 76 percent of drivers are white, yet 80 percent of people arrested for driving on a suspended license in 2018 were Black or Latinx, according to the Fines and Fees Justice Center.

For Black and Brown communities, the practice of debt-based license suspension can be deadly. When Daunte Wright was brutally killed by police in Minnesota, it was during a traffic stop that stemmed from unpaid fines and fees.

Fortunately, more and more states are recognizing the harms of this costly and counterproductive practice. Ten states have already ended debt-based license suspensions, and Congress can encourage more to do so by passing the Driving for Opportunity Act.

Now, this legislation has bipartisan support in Congress and from groups across the political spectrum, including Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity, the ACLU, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Curbing debt-based license suspensions is a common sense opportunity for Congress to advance racial justice and our economic recovery. They shouldn’t wait to seize it.

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Published July 26, 2021 at 11:53PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3BBch4W

ACLU: Congress Can Stop This Vicious Cycle of Debt-Based Poverty

Congress Can Stop This Vicious Cycle of Debt-Based Poverty

On any given day across the country, millions of Americans have had their drivers’ license suspended — not because of unsafe driving or other safety concerns but because of a government imposed debt they can’t afford to pay.

It doesn’t have to be this way. State and local governments can and must end taxation by citation — and right now Congress has a chance to help them do it.

The Driving for Opportunity Act, introduced by Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), is bipartisan legislation that provides grants to states that do not suspend, revoke, or refuse to renew a driver’s license of a person or registration of a motor vehicle for failure to pay a civil or criminal fine or fee.

By helping states cover the costs of reinstating driver’s licenses previously suspended for unpaid fines and fees, the Driving for Opportunity Act would encourage states to do the right thing, and it would give millions of Americans the opportunity to have their driving privileges restored. Right now, the bill is awaiting action by the Senate Judiciary Committee — and there’s no time to waste.

Taxation by citation is a pernicious system, and it works like this: State and local governments create frivolous regulations as predatory money-making schemes to fund government services. For instance, nuisance regulations like loitering, beautification regulations like lawn maintenance requirements, traffic regulations like bans on tinted windows, or quality of life regulations like bans on sleeping in public. The sheer number of regulations, which have no bearing on public safety, make it very likely that someone will run afoul of one of the many finable offenses at some point in time — especially if they live in Black and Brown communities that are already subjected to over-policing.

A person in violation of any one of these unnecessary codes is then slapped with a fine and a bevy of administrative fees, which can then escalate into hundreds or even thousands of dollars. When that person can’t afford to pay their debt, the government suspends their driver’s license. This exposes them to even harsher penalties, including arrest and incarceration, when they have no choice but to drive on a suspended license.

A recent ACLU report documents the pervasive practice of using driver’s license suspension as a consequence for unpaid fines and fees. These burdens are borne disproportionately by Black and Brown communities, fueling a vicious cycle of poverty and criminalization.

The fact is that in most of America, driving isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. The majority of people living in the U.S. don’t have access to public transportation and rely on driving to get to work, school, religious services, court obligations, and medical appointments. People whose licenses have been suspended are often left with no choice but to drive and risk criminal consequences, making it even more difficult for them to pay off their debt.

State and local governments should not be funding their operations through law enforcement, period. But they do, and it’s nonsensical and counterproductive.

First, debt-based license suspension is not an effective collection tool. Taking away people’s ability to get to work doesn’t just make it harder for them to pay off their initial debt, it also has ripple effects throughout the economy — reducing family incomes and destabilizing communities.

Instead of protecting public safety, debt-based license suspensions undermine it by diverting resources away from important community services and priorities. In 2019, Minneapolis City Attorney Mary Ellen Heng told the Minnesota legislature that her prosecutors spend about 30 percent of their time enforcing these suspensions that have no bearing on public safety.

Worst of all, using courts and law enforcement officers as debt-collectors enables over-criminalization and exacerbates racist policing practices. In Texas, 95 percent of arrest warrants issued in 2016 were for unpaid fines and fees, and more than 640,000 people were jailed as a result.

In Durham County, North Carolina, 80 percent of those with suspended licenses were people of color, mostly Black Americans, and the average time they had lived without a license was 11 years. In New York City — where driving on a suspended license was the fourth-most charged crime in 2018 — 76 percent of drivers are white, yet 80 percent of people arrested for driving on a suspended license in 2018 were Black or Latinx, according to the Fines and Fees Justice Center.

For Black and Brown communities, the practice of debt-based license suspension can be deadly. When Daunte Wright was brutally killed by police in Minnesota, it was during a traffic stop that stemmed from unpaid fines and fees.

Fortunately, more and more states are recognizing the harms of this costly and counterproductive practice. Ten states have already ended debt-based license suspensions, and Congress can encourage more to do so by passing the Driving for Opportunity Act.

Now, this legislation has bipartisan support in Congress and from groups across the political spectrum, including Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity, the ACLU, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Curbing debt-based license suspensions is a common sense opportunity for Congress to advance racial justice and our economic recovery. They shouldn’t wait to seize it.

Stay informed about our work

Sign up

Published July 26, 2021 at 07:23PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3BBch4W

Republic of Moldova: Technical Assistance Report-Country Governance Assessment

Republic of Moldova: Technical Assistance Report-Country Governance Assessment
Published July 26, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Maldives: Technical Assistance Report-Fiscal Transparency Evaluation

Maldives: Technical Assistance Report-Fiscal Transparency Evaluation
Published July 23, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Ghana: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Ghana

Ghana: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Ghana
Published July 23, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

ACLU: Tony Winner Ali Stroker Reframes Disability Representation and Identity

Tony Winner Ali Stroker Reframes Disability Representation and Identity

Over the past several years, we have witnessed a heightened demand for marginalized communities to be better represented in the media, in boardrooms, and every sector of society. While some progress has been made, representation of people with disabilities often takes a backseat in the conversation.

In fact, it was only in 2015 that actress and singer Ali Stroker made history when she became the first person using a wheelchair to perform on a Broadway stage — immediately breaking barriers for people with disabilities. Four years later, she did it again, becoming the first person using a wheelchair to win a Tony award.

“This award is for every kid watching tonight who has a disability, who has a limitation or challenge, who has been waiting to see themselves represented in this arena,” she said while accepting the award.

Stroker’s representation is undoubtedly historic, but there is still so much more work to be done. Although there are around 133 million Americans who live with visible or invisible disabilities, their representation in media and entertainment remains bleak and in many cases, nonexistent. Across the top 100 movies of 2019 only 2.3 percent of all speaking characters had a disability. Even more alarming, when a character with a disability is portrayed, they often aren’t even played by someone with a disability. In fact, one study found that in the top 10 TV shows during 2018, only 12 percent of disabled characters were depicted by actors with the same diagnoses in real life. That’s why disability representation is more important than ever, as we strive to create a more equitable and inclusive world.

Since her historic broadway debut, Stroker has blazed the trail for more disabled representation, on and off the stage. This week, she sat down for a conversation with us on our podcast to discuss the importance of not just representation, but the celebration of disabilities in the entertainment industry and beyond.

Listen to Episode 166 of ACLU's "At Liberty" Podcast Below:

https://soundcloud.com/aclu/ali-stroker/s-Lv90HAzfHLG

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Published July 23, 2021 at 08:50PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3eMxOOw

ACLU: Tony Winner Ali Stroker Reframes Disability Representation and Identity

Tony Winner Ali Stroker Reframes Disability Representation and Identity

Over the past several years, we have witnessed a heightened demand for marginalized communities to be better represented in the media, in boardrooms, and every sector of society. While some progress has been made, representation of people with disabilities often takes a backseat in the conversation.

In fact, it was only in 2015 that actress and singer Ali Stroker made history when she became the first person using a wheelchair to perform on a Broadway stage — immediately breaking barriers for people with disabilities. Four years later, she did it again, becoming the first person using a wheelchair to win a Tony award.

“This award is for every kid watching tonight who has a disability, who has a limitation or challenge, who has been waiting to see themselves represented in this arena,” she said while accepting the award.

Stroker’s representation is undoubtedly historic, but there is still so much more work to be done. Although there are around 133 million Americans who live with visible or invisible disabilities, their representation in media and entertainment remains bleak and in many cases, nonexistent. Across the top 100 movies of 2019 only 2.3 percent of all speaking characters had a disability. Even more alarming, when a character with a disability is portrayed, they often aren’t even played by someone with a disability. In fact, one study found that in the top 10 TV shows during 2018, only 12 percent of disabled characters were depicted by actors with the same diagnoses in real life. That’s why disability representation is more important than ever, as we strive to create a more equitable and inclusive world.

Since her historic broadway debut, Stroker has blazed the trail for more disabled representation, on and off the stage. This week, she sat down for a conversation with us on our podcast to discuss the importance of not just representation, but the celebration of disabilities in the entertainment industry and beyond.

Listen to Episode 166 of ACLU's "At Liberty" Podcast Below:

https://soundcloud.com/aclu/ali-stroker/s-Lv90HAzfHLG

Stay informed about our work

Sign up

Published July 24, 2021 at 01:20AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3eMxOOw

Rwanda: Fourth Review of the Policy Coordination Instrument and Request of an Extension of the Policy Coordination Instrument-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Rwanda

Rwanda: Fourth Review of the Policy Coordination Instrument and Request of an Extension of the Policy Coordination Instrument-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Rwanda
Published July 23, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

ACLU: How Face Recognition Fuels Racist Systems of Policing and Immigration — And Why Congress Must Act Now

How Face Recognition Fuels Racist Systems of Policing and Immigration — And Why Congress Must Act Now

Face recognition technology may sound futuristic, or perhaps too abstract to seem harmful. But we are already living in a reality in which face recognition and other forms of biometric surveillance pervade our daily lives. These technologies threaten our privacy and free speech rights and, when used by police and immigration enforcement, serve as yet another dangerous system to abuse Black and Brown people on a massive scale. Big Tech companies are profiting off these abuses because they are the ones developing and selling face recognition to government agencies. And it’s our communities — particularly communities of color — that face the harmful consequences.

The good news is that there is a national movement against face recognition that is gaining momentum every day. Recently, a coalition of grassroots organizations from across the country called on Congress to take immediate action to stop government use of dangerous face recognition. Here in Washington state, a place where companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Palantir loom large, we know firsthand how tech companies collaborate with immigration and law enforcement agencies to build large-scale surveillance tools that facilitate and fuel racist systems that harm both immigrants and U.S. citizens.

Face recognition technology is racist, from how it was built to how it is used. It’s been used by police departments to wrongfully arrest Black men, by ICE and CBP to target and track immigrant families, and by the FBI to surveil Black Lives Matter demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights. Face recognition massively expands the government’s power to track our movements and target people based on their race, religion, political affiliation, or speech — and while everyone’s rights are at stake, Black and Brown people are harmed the most when this racist technology collides with our racist systems.

Our law and immigration enforcement systems are rooted in this country’s racist history, including slavery, and were created to uphold white supremacy. This is why it’s often those who sit at the margins — folks of color, immigrants, the poor, disabled, women, and trans or gender nonconforming people — who face systemic violence and brutality. Face recognition technology, which was created by those with the most power in society, will only exacerbate this legacy and pattern of state-sanctioned violence against our communities. We’re already seeing this dynamic at work.

In Detroit, police use of face recognition led to the wrongful arrest of Robert Williams, a Black man who was arrested at his home in front of his family. Face recognition’s proven track record of inaccuracy when used against people of color makes us even more likely to be targeted, arrested, or detained. But even if this technology was perfectly accurate, it would still harm communities of color by facilitating systems that are already racist.

The Department of Homeland Security and its sub-agencies ICE and CBP have already committed horrific abuses. With face recognition, they could potentially pinpoint the location of immigrants across the country, marking them for detention and deportation on an unprecedented scale. In 2017, for example, DHS, ICE, and the Department of Health and Human Services used technology supplied by Palantir to tag, track, locate, and arrest 400 people in an operation that targeted the family members and caregivers of unaccompanied migrant children. Face recognition would only expand the power of agencies like ICE to target and tear apart communities of color throughout the country.

 

Congress is starting to respond. Last week, Sens. Edward Markey and Jeff Merkley and Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Ayanna Pressley reintroduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, an important bill that responds to the imminent threat of this dangerous surveillance technology. This bill comes as grassroots-powered coalitions continue to pass bans on face recognition across the country. King County, Wash. became the latest jurisdiction to ban face recognition after a unanimous vote by its county council. Big Tech companies — most recently Amazon — have also been forced to make commitments to stop selling face recognition to law enforcement. These wins are not an accident; they are the result of years of local organizing and activism from the communities most impacted.

There’s no doubt these victories are important, but any moratorium is still a temporary solution. Our communities have been clear: We want new systems to keep us safe — systems not rooted in slavery and racism. We need Congress to not only stop face recognition technology, but permanently divest from our racist punishment systems and reinvest in our communities. Until the federal government takes action, our communities will remain in danger.

Big Tech companies like Microsoft are already lobbying for weak regulations that protect their corporate interests and effectively greenlight these dangerous systems. In addition to stopping government acquisition, use, and funding of face recognition technology for state and local face surveillance, the federal government must support local grassroots-powered progress by rejecting Big Tech efforts to preempt state and local bans and moratoria. We can’t let Big Tech stamp out our hard-won advancements.

We are at a critical moment. The fight against face recognition comes alongside a nationwide reckoning with racism and policing led by the Black Lives Matter movement. We must take this opportunity to recognize the role of surveillance in exacerbating the inherent racism of our law and immigration enforcement systems. We must stop face and other biometric surveillance and confront these systemic harms. Only then will we be on the path to equity and justice.

What you can do:

Stop Face Surveillance Technologies

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Published July 23, 2021 at 01:54AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3hYcLdO

ACLU: How Face Recognition Fuels Racist Systems of Policing and Immigration — And Why Congress Must Act Now

How Face Recognition Fuels Racist Systems of Policing and Immigration — And Why Congress Must Act Now

Face recognition technology may sound futuristic, or perhaps too abstract to seem harmful. But we are already living in a reality in which face recognition and other forms of biometric surveillance pervade our daily lives. These technologies threaten our privacy and free speech rights and, when used by police and immigration enforcement, serve as yet another dangerous system to abuse Black and Brown people on a massive scale. Big Tech companies are profiting off these abuses because they are the ones developing and selling face recognition to government agencies. And it’s our communities — particularly communities of color — that face the harmful consequences.

The good news is that there is a national movement against face recognition that is gaining momentum every day. Recently, a coalition of grassroots organizations from across the country called on Congress to take immediate action to stop government use of dangerous face recognition. Here in Washington state, a place where companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Palantir loom large, we know firsthand how tech companies collaborate with immigration and law enforcement agencies to build large-scale surveillance tools that facilitate and fuel racist systems that harm both immigrants and U.S. citizens.

Face recognition technology is racist, from how it was built to how it is used. It’s been used by police departments to wrongfully arrest Black men, by ICE and CBP to target and track immigrant families, and by the FBI to surveil Black Lives Matter demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights. Face recognition massively expands the government’s power to track our movements and target people based on their race, religion, political affiliation, or speech — and while everyone’s rights are at stake, Black and Brown people are harmed the most when this racist technology collides with our racist systems.

Our law and immigration enforcement systems are rooted in this country’s racist history, including slavery, and were created to uphold white supremacy. This is why it’s often those who sit at the margins — folks of color, immigrants, the poor, disabled, women, and trans or gender nonconforming people — who face systemic violence and brutality. Face recognition technology, which was created by those with the most power in society, will only exacerbate this legacy and pattern of state-sanctioned violence against our communities. We’re already seeing this dynamic at work.

In Detroit, police use of face recognition led to the wrongful arrest of Robert Williams, a Black man who was arrested at his home in front of his family. Face recognition’s proven track record of inaccuracy when used against people of color makes us even more likely to be targeted, arrested, or detained. But even if this technology was perfectly accurate, it would still harm communities of color by facilitating systems that are already racist.

The Department of Homeland Security and its sub-agencies ICE and CBP have already committed horrific abuses. With face recognition, they could potentially pinpoint the location of immigrants across the country, marking them for detention and deportation on an unprecedented scale. In 2017, for example, DHS, ICE, and the Department of Health and Human Services used technology supplied by Palantir to tag, track, locate, and arrest 400 people in an operation that targeted the family members and caregivers of unaccompanied migrant children. Face recognition would only expand the power of agencies like ICE to target and tear apart communities of color throughout the country.

 

Congress is starting to respond. Last week, Sens. Edward Markey and Jeff Merkley and Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Ayanna Pressley reintroduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, an important bill that responds to the imminent threat of this dangerous surveillance technology. This bill comes as grassroots-powered coalitions continue to pass bans on face recognition across the country. King County, Wash. became the latest jurisdiction to ban face recognition after a unanimous vote by its county council. Big Tech companies — most recently Amazon — have also been forced to make commitments to stop selling face recognition to law enforcement. These wins are not an accident; they are the result of years of local organizing and activism from the communities most impacted.

There’s no doubt these victories are important, but any moratorium is still a temporary solution. Our communities have been clear: We want new systems to keep us safe — systems not rooted in slavery and racism. We need Congress to not only stop face recognition technology, but permanently divest from our racist punishment systems and reinvest in our communities. Until the federal government takes action, our communities will remain in danger.

Big Tech companies like Microsoft are already lobbying for weak regulations that protect their corporate interests and effectively greenlight these dangerous systems. In addition to stopping government acquisition, use, and funding of face recognition technology for state and local face surveillance, the federal government must support local grassroots-powered progress by rejecting Big Tech efforts to preempt state and local bans and moratoria. We can’t let Big Tech stamp out our hard-won advancements.

We are at a critical moment. The fight against face recognition comes alongside a nationwide reckoning with racism and policing led by the Black Lives Matter movement. We must take this opportunity to recognize the role of surveillance in exacerbating the inherent racism of our law and immigration enforcement systems. We must stop face and other biometric surveillance and confront these systemic harms. Only then will we be on the path to equity and justice.

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Published July 22, 2021 at 09:24PM
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ACLU: Montana is Failing its Constitutional Promise to Teach Native American History

Montana is Failing its Constitutional Promise to Teach Native American History

All young people should have equal access to an education that includes learning the complete history of this country, including the experiences and viewpoints of marginalized communities. Unfortunately, in the United States, too many public schools fail to teach about diverse communities in their curriculum. For Native Americans, this disparity is even more stark. According to the National Congress of American Indians, 27 states make no mention of Native Americans in their K-12 curriculum, and 87 percent of state history standards do not mention Native American history after 1900. Access to learning about Native American heritage and culture in our educational institutions is a racial justice issue, and it’s one we’re fighting to preserve.

Although it is encouraging that some states have worked toward building their state curricula to more thoroughly and accurately discuss Native Americans — even passing laws requiring schools to do so — those states must also be held accountable when they fail. That’s why the ACLU, the ACLU of Montana, and the Native American Rights Fund, are suing the state of Montana for violating its legal obligation to ensure that all public school students have access to education about Native American culture and history.

In 1972, as a result of powerful organizing by Native American communities, the Montana Constitution adopted a provision that made a promise to all public school students that “Indian education” would be incorporated across all grades, subjects, and curricula. More than two decades later in 1999, the Montana State Legislature passed the Indian Education for All Act (IEFA), which underscored the state’s constitutional mandate to preserve the cultural integrity of Native Americans through education. The IEFA intended to make good on Montana’s unique constitutional promise after years of failing to deliver.

The IEFA created educational requirements for Montana public schools to ensure that every Montana school child, whether Native American or not, has the opportunity to learn about the distinct and unique heritage of Native Americans. Yet for decades since its enactment, the state has repeatedly broken that promise. In many schools, the cultural heritage and integrity of Native Americans is not being preserved, and students are not learning about Native American heritage.

Although the Montana Supreme Court has ruled that the state has a responsibility to implement the IEFA, the Montana Office of Public Instruction and the Montana Board of Public Education have failed to create uniform standards for implementing, monitoring, and enforcing Indian education as required by law. For example, only a small fraction of Montana’s public school districts fully report whether and how they are spending IEFA funding, which means a school district might be using money specifically dedicated for Indian education for alternative purposes. In fiscal years 2019 and 2020, about 50 percent of IEFA funding to Montana public school districts went unaccounted for, according to annual trustees’ reports the ACLU obtained via public records request.

But it’s not just a failure to account for dedicated funding. Some schools are actually using IEFA funds for things that may be harmful to students. One Montana elementary school used IEFA funds to purchase the book “Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving,” which tells the story of English traders who captured a 12-year-old Native American boy, Squanto, and sold him into slavery. The book “approaches the holiday from an evangelical point of view” and fails to provide a Native American viewpoint, which can be damaging to Native students. This is just one example of how public educational systems in the United States historically have erased Native Americans and their perspectives.

In addition to learning about the importance of Native American histories and modern-day contributions, teaching all students about Native culture and heritage can help reduce cultural misunderstandings, racial stereotyping, and fear-based ignorance. For Native American students specifically, culturally responsive education can help foster a feeling of belonging within the education system, support the growth and development of their identities, and help uphold the established political and legal sovereignty — independent governance — of their tribes. All of these things can lead to greater academic success.

Every student should have the right to receive an inclusive education and have an open and honest dialogue about America’s history. But unfortunately, states across the country are trying to prevent this by banning discussions about gender and race in schools. This effectively erases the history and lived experiences of people of color, and censors discussion around racism and the critical role it has played in American history. The echoes from our colonial past and the history of using education as an assimilationist tool continue to haunt students in our current schools.

Equal access to learning about Native American heritage and culture in our education institutions is a racial justice issue. Representation matters.

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Published July 23, 2021 at 12:33AM
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