The ACLU Says:

Anti-choice forces in Congress wasted no time trying to limit access to abortion. Their opening salvo: a proposal that penalizes women and businesses and would eliminate insurance coverage of abortion. It would revive the Stupak Amendment that the last Congress rejected.

Here's how the proposal breaks down:

• The bill would allow ( Read more... )

From the ACLU:

We need you to act immediately to undo a disturbing decision from the Obama administration. Remember all the hard work you and other ACLU activists did to defeat Rep. Stupak's draconian abortion coverage ban during the health care debate?

Well, now, the White House has decided to voluntarily impose the ban for all women in the ( Read more... )

Allegedly (Boing Boing, Wired), ASCAP sent a letter to its membership claiming that Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, and the EFF, in supporting copyleft, were undermining copyright, and inducing copyright infringement. I wrote the following to ASCAP via their contact form:

It is being reported that ASCAP has sent letters to members claiming ( Read more... )

From an ACLU message:

It's totally unacceptable. More than 100,000 women serving overseas in our nation's armed services can't exercise the rights they defend with their lives.

But that's what's happening: women in the armed services are prevented from getting abortions-even if they pay for them themselves.

[...]

The Senate Armed Services ( Read more... )

I hate getting notifications that I'm eligible for some class action payout that I don't agree with. It doesn't happen often, but yesterday I got two ( Read more... )

Yesterday the House voted to grant federal employees four weeks of paid parental leave. If it becomes law, that means a baby born to one or more federal employees will have four weeks of extra attention, four weeks when their parent(s) will be able to get up in the night without worrying about being a wreck at work in the morning, four weeks of ( Read more... )

Went to bed with the vote still highly uncertain. (It was 174 to 37, but Obama hadn't taken any states that Kerry didn't.)

Dreamed that Obama won.

Woke up, realized it was only a dream. Aw, grump.

Grabbed my Web tablet, and found out it was real.

Senator Ted Stevens has been convicted on seven felony counts.

And he's still a candidate for reelection.

How does that work? A convicted felon generally isn't allowed to vote in elections; how can he vote in the Senate?

(Edit: I understand how it works legally; I just think the law is wrong. If felons can't be trusted to vote, then they can ( Read more... )

The Senate is set to vote on the FISA Amendments Act, probably today. A few Senators are filibustering it, though: Dodd, Feingold, and Wyden. Please call your Senators and ask them to join the filibuster. This bill is a direct assault on our liberties; it essentially throws out the Fourth Amendment.

Edit: Also call Senator Obama, who promised ( Read more... )

The House of Representatives is preparing to vote, today, on a bill that will permit the government to perform searches-not just wiretaps, but physical searches, too-with no warrant. There's a provision that says the information can't be used unless a warrant is received, but even that has a loophole allowing the Attorney General to waive it ( Read more... )