June, 20 2013, 01:31pm EDT
ACLU in Court Friday for No Fly List Challenge
Lawsuit Argues List Violates Constitution's Due Process Guarantee
PORTLAND, Ore.
The American Civil Liberties Union will be in federal court tomorrow asking a judge to declare unconstitutional the government's practice of banning people from flying without giving them any notice, reasons, or meaningful way to clear their names.
"We're asking the court to finally put a check on the government's use of a blacklist that denies Americans the ability to fly without giving them the explanation or fair hearing that the Constitution requires. It's a question of basic fairness," said ACLU Staff Attorney Nusrat Choudhury, one of the ACLU attorneys who will argue the case Friday in Portland. "It does not make our country safer to ban people from flying without giving them an after-the-fact redress process that allows them to correct the errors that led to their mistaken inclusion on the list."
The national ACLU, along with its affiliates in Oregon, Southern California, Northern California, and New Mexico, filed the lawsuit in June 2010. It represents 13 U.S. citizens, including four military veterans, who are on the No Fly List and banned from flying to or from the U.S. or over American airspace. In a July 2012 decision, the 9th Circuit Appeals Court reversed the district court's dismissal of the case on jurisdictional grounds, and now the district court is considering the case on its merits.
"Americans have a right to know what kind of evidence or innuendo will land them on the No Fly List, and to have a hearing where they can defend themselves. Without this bare minimum, there is no meaningful check to correct the government's mistakes or ensure that it uses this blacklist fairly," Choudhury said.
Being unable to fly has severely affected the plaintiffs' lives, including their ability to be with their families, go to school, and travel for work. Plaintiff Abe Mashal, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and dog trainer, has lost the business of clients located outside of driving distance from his home in Illinois, and he was unable to travel to Hawaii for his sister-in-law's graduation.
"Putting me on a blacklist without telling me why or giving me a chance to clear my name is fundamentally unfair," Mashal said. "I've done nothing wrong, yet the government is putting me through great personal and financial hardship."
According to media reports, there are more than 20,000 people on the No Fly List. Their only recourse is to file a request with the Department of Homeland Security's "Traveler Redress Inquiry Program," after which DHS responds with a letter that does not explain why they were denied boarding. The letter does not confirm or deny whether their names remain on the No Fly List, and does not indicate whether they can fly. The only way for a person to find out if his or her name was removed from the No Fly List is to buy a plane ticket, go to the airport, see if he or she can get on the flight - taking the risk of being denied boarding and marked as a suspected terrorist, and losing the cost of the airline ticket.
The ACLU argues that this system violates the Fifth Amendment's command that the government cannot deprive a person of liberty "without due process of law." Courts have ruled that the Constitution requires some kind of notice and hearing for far less severe actions, such as losing state assistance for utility bills or being suspended from school for 10 days.
In addition to Choudhury, attorneys on the case are Hina Shamsi of the national ACLU; the ACLU of Southern California's Ahilan Arulanantham, who will also argue in court Friday, and Jennie Pasquarella; Kevin Diaz and cooperating attorney Steven Wilker of the ACLU of Oregon; Alan Schlosser and Julia Harumi Mass of the ACLU of Northern California; Laura Ives of the ACLU of New Mexico; and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
More information on the case is at:
aclu.org/national-security/latif-et-al-v-holder-et-al-aclu-challenges-government-no-fly-list
This press release is at:
aclu.org/national-security/aclu-court-friday-no-fly-list-challenge
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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House Progressives Applaud as Biden Student Debt Relief Tops $143 Billion
"Let's keep fighting until we cancel student debt for EVERY single borrower," said Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Mar 21, 2024
Progressive U.S. lawmakers and campaigners on Thursday cheered the Department of Education's announcement of nearly $6 billion in additional student loan relief—this time for public service workers—as President Joe Biden continues to find ways to work around a Supreme Court ruling limiting how he can eliminate educational debt.
The Department of Education (DOE) said the administration has approved $5.8 billion in student debt for around 78,000 borrowers, the result of adjustments to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The move brings the total amount of student loan forgiveness approved by Biden administration to $143.6 billion for nearly 4 million borrowers.
"Of the estimated 43 million student loan borrowers in America, approximately 20% have either been approved for debt cancellation or have no current repayment obligation."
"For too long, our nation's teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters, and other public servants faced logistical troubles and trap doors when they tried to access the debt relief they were entitled to under the law," U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
"With this announcement, the Biden-Harris administration is showing how we're taking further steps not only to fix those trap doors, but also to expand opportunity to many more Americans," Cardona added. "Today, more than 100 times more borrowers are eligible for PSLF than there were at the beginning of the administration."
Before 2021, only around 7,000 borrowers benefited from PSFL relief. During Biden's tenure, more than 871,000 people have had their student loan debt canceled after the administration updated and fixed key parts of the program, including by introducing a new help tool to simplify navigation of the debt relief process.
"The president gets it. Today, thousands more borrowers are finally able to imagine life after student debt," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair (CPC) Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a statement.
Jayapal noted that after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the president's student debt cancellation program last June, Biden and Cardona "got to work" and have been "relentless in the pursuit of other avenues to help the millions of Americans burdened by student debt."
"With the administration's fixes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, teachers, nurses, firefighters, and others in public service will see their relief sooner and can finally start putting their hard-earned income towards buying homes, investing in their communities, and taking care of their families," she added.
Student loan attorney Adam Minsky noted this week that "of the estimated 43 million student loan borrowers in America, approximately 20% have either been approved for debt cancellation or have no current repayment obligation."
According to the Education Data Initiative, U.S. student loan debt in the United States currently totals more than $1.7 trillion.
Some advocates reacted to the Biden administration's announcement by calling for more debt relief and even tuition-free higher education.
"Americans have a right to an education, and it should be debt-free," the Student Debt Crisis Center said on social media. "The time to #CancelStudentDebt is now, not later."
Former Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turnerasserted: "The more student debt canceled, the better. "We must keep pushing for more; it's a nearly $2 trillion crisis."
"We must stop saddling our students with this debt to begin with," Turner added. "We need tuition-free college."
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Trump, House GOP Converge on 15-Week Federal Abortion Ban
A Texas woman who almost died after being denied care said the Republican "is actively planning to ban abortion nationwide if he's elected, inflicting the same cruelty and chaos I've experienced on the entire country."
Mar 21, 2024
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, have made the stakes of the November election clear this week by publicly endorsing a 15-week ban on abortion care nationwide.
"The number of weeks, now, people are agreeing on 15, and I'm thinking in terms of that, and it'll come out to something that's very reasonable," Trump said on WABC's "Sid & Friends in the Morning" Tuesday. "But people are really—even hard-liners are agreeing, seems to be 15 weeks, seems to be a number that people are agreeing at. But I'll make that announcement at the appropriate time."
Trump also promoted letting states lead on the issue and touted the June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, which he enabled with three right-wing appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court. He acknowledged that stricter bans are politically risky, saying that "you have to win elections."
For several years, surveys have shown that most Americans favor abortion rights. A KFF poll released earlier this month found that 58% of U.S. adults oppose a national 16-week abortion ban; 66% support guaranteeing a federal right to an abortion; and 86% support protecting abortion access for patients experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies such as miscarriages.
Trump said Tuesday that he supports exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the pregnant person. As Common Dreams has reported, while Republicans have framed such exceptions as a compromise, patients have shared stories of being turned away or made to wait until they are at greater risk of death before receiving emergency care—particularly in the face of state laws imposed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
Democratic President Joe Biden has promoted his support for abortion rights while running for reelection. In response to Trump's interview, the Biden campaign shared a statement from Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman whose water broke in August 2022, 18 weeks into a wanted pregnancy that came after fertility treatments. Doctors said the fetus would not survive but also denied her care for days, citing state law.
"My family has been forever altered by the nightmare that Donald Trump created by overturning Roe," Zurawski said Wednesday. "I nearly died because my doctor could not give me the care I needed—and my ability to have children in the future has been forever compromised by the damage that was caused. Trump isn't 'signaling,' he isn't 'suggesting,' he isn't 'leaning toward' anything—he is actively planning to ban abortion nationwide if he's elected, inflicting the same cruelty and chaos I've experienced on the entire country. We cannot allow that to happen."
The ex-president's comments to the WABC radio show came after Fox News' Howard Kurtz on Sunday questioned him about February New York Timesreporting that he supports a federal 16-week abortion ban with the three exceptions. Asked if he thinks that could be "politically acceptable," Trump responded that "we're going to find out" and championed the Roe reversal.
While Trump celebrates the Dobbs decision and the potential for federal restrictions on abortion in the presidential race, House Republicans are highlighting their role in efforts to cut off care. The chamber's largest caucus of GOP members on Wednesday put out a budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 that applauds the high court's 2022 ruling and endorses 42 bills that attack reproductive healthcare and research.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) plan endorses legislation that would ban abortion after 15 weeks or even earlier, using medically inaccurate language about "a fetal heartbeat"; require unnecessary ultrasounds and 24-hour waiting periods; let states deprive providers of Medicaid funding; permanently codify the Hyde Amendment; prevent the Department of Defense from paying for abortions; prohibit the Department of Veterans Affairs from providing abortions; outlaw the use of fetal stem cells for research; make it harder to access the abortion pill mifepristone; and block the approval of new medications for abortions.
Among various other proposals, the document endorses the Life at Conception Act that provides 14th Amendment protections "at all stages of life," which would threaten fertility treatments. Safeguarding access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) has become a national priority since Alabama's right-wing Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children. Shortly after that decision, U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) thwarted a Democratic effort to pass IVF protections.
"No matter how they try to spin it, this is the latest proof that if they control Congress and the White House, the GOP will ban abortion and IVF with NO exceptions, nationwide. Watch what they do, not what they say," Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said of the RSC plan.
In November, Republicans hope to not only hold on to their slim House majority—under the the leadership of fervently anti-choice Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—but also reclaim the Senate. Aiding those efforts, Trump-backed Bernie Moreno this week won the Republican primary to face off against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in the general election.
"We knew this primary would advance an anti-reproductive freedom extremist, and Bernie Moreno is that and more—he's a rubber stamp for Trump's national abortion ban and the exact opposite of what Ohioans want in a leader,"
said Reproductive Freedom for All president and CEO Mini Timmaraju. "They deserve better, and they'll get it by reelecting Sen. Sherrod Brown."
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New Wage Data Shows When Workers Organize and Fight 'It Pays Off—Literally'
Union contracts negotiated in 2023 earned workers wage increases they haven't seen in over 35 years.
Mar 21, 2024
A new analysis shows that unionized workers across the United States secured historic wage increases under contracts negotiated last year, further demonstrating the power of collective bargaining.
According to Bloomberg Law, 2023 union contracts "gave workers an average first-year wage increase of 6.6%"—the highest raise since at least 1988.
"With signing bonuses and other lump-sum payments added to the calculations," the outlet added, "2023's average first-year wage increase was 7.3%, also a record high, according to Bloomberg Law's latest Quarterly Union Wage Data report."
The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the U.S., highlighted the findings on social media Thursday, writing, "When we fight together, it pays off—literally."
🔥Union contracts negotiated in 2023 resulted in an average first-year wage increase off 6.6%, the HIGHEST average pay raise for any year since @bloomberglaw began tracking the number in 1988.
When we fight together, it pays off—literally. https://t.co/7bppjtDrMU
— AFL-CIO ✊ (@AFLCIO) March 21, 2024
It's well-established that unionized workers are paid more and receive better benefits than nonunion employees. A Treasury Department study released last year estimated that unions boost their members' wages by 10-15% and "improve fringe benefits and workplace procedures such as retirement plans, workplace grievance policies, and predictable scheduling."
But unionization also benefits nonunion employees—as shown by the United Auto Workers' (UAW) historic contract victories at the Big Three U.S. automakers last year.
After the UAW secured record wage gains in their contracts with Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis following a six-week strike, several nonunion car manufacturers—including Toyota and Tesla—announced pay increases for their employees in an apparent attempt to preempt organizing efforts in their factories.
Overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. union membership grew by 191,000 workers in 2023—but the share of employees represented by a union fell slightly as strong job growth outpaced organizing efforts.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) noted in its analysis of the BLS figures that the share of nonunion workers who would like to have a union at their workplace is far higher than the share who actually have union representation," a testament to the effectiveness of corporate union-busting campaigns and the need for much stronger federal labor laws.
Between 1979 and 2017, EPI has estimated, the median U.S. worker lost out on $3,250 in pay per year due to the decline in unionization during that period.
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