September, 09 2013, 02:04pm EDT
D.C. Circuit Hears Arguments in Net Neutrality Case
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments in Verizon v. FCC -- the landmark case on the Federal Communications Commission's open Internet rules.
In December 2010, the FCC approved its Open Internet Order, which established limited protections preventing Internet service providers from interfering with online traffic. Shortly thereafter, Verizon challenged the order, claiming the FCC lacked the authority to issue the rules.
Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood made the following statement:
WASHINGTON
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments in Verizon v. FCC -- the landmark case on the Federal Communications Commission's open Internet rules.
In December 2010, the FCC approved its Open Internet Order, which established limited protections preventing Internet service providers from interfering with online traffic. Shortly thereafter, Verizon challenged the order, claiming the FCC lacked the authority to issue the rules.
Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood made the following statement:
"Today in the courtroom, all three judges seemed to agree that the FCC has some authority over broadband Internet access services, but they questioned the framework that the agency used to get there.
"We've said all along that the FCC should fix the mistakes it made a decade ago and put Internet access and broadband telecommunications back under the regulatory framework that Congress intended. This case is not the end of the line for the FCC or the Open Internet rules, but it should be the end of the line for this compromised legal approach that strands Internet access services in a regulatory twilight zone.
"Regardless of this case's outcome, the American people need an open and public communications network and a strong agency that protects the public from abusive corporate practices. If the FCC abdicates that broader role, there will be serious negative consequences for consumers, competition and innovation."
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
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At ICJ, Lawyer for Palestine Rips US for Defending 'Whatever Offenses' Israel Commits
The U.S. has shown it is willing to go "very far indeed" in disregarding international law to defend the Israeli government, said Paul Reichler during a hearing on the occupation of Palestine.
Feb 19, 2024
An attorney representing Palestine at the United Nations' highest court called out the U.S. on Monday for routinely defending Israel's violations of international law, including its brutal 57-year occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Paul Reichler, an American lawyer who has a record of success at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), said during a historic hearing on Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory that the U.S. is nearly alone in attempting to provide legal cover for the Israeli government's actions over the past six decades.
The "two outliers" among nations that have intervened in the ICJ case on Israel's occupation are Fiji and the United States, said Reichler.
"This is not surprising: Whatever offenses against international law Israel commits, the United States comes forward to shield it from accountability," he continued.
In its written submission to the ICJ, Reichler noted, the U.S. "argues that belligerent occupation is governed exclusively by international humanitarian law and not by the U.N. Charter or general international law."
"Here the United States attempts to defend Israel not by arguing that the occupation is lawful but that it is neither lawful nor unlawful," Reichler said, adding that such a position runs directly counter to that of its allies, including France and Switzerland.
"Just how far in disregarding the international legal order will the United States go to exempt Israel from the consequences of its ongoing violation of peremptory norms, including the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force?" Reichler asked. "Apparently very far indeed."
Reichler's presentation followed remarks by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who said that "the genocide underway in Gaza is a result of decades of impunity and inaction" in the face of Israel's illegal occupation and seizure of Palestinian land.
"Ending Israel's impunity is a moral, political, and legal imperative," said al-Maliki.
"...ending Israels impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative. Successive Israeli govts have given the Palestinian people only 3 options, displacement, subjugation or death... ethnic cleansing, apartheid or genocide"
Palestinian Foreign Minister at the ICJ this morning pic.twitter.com/pLzeXL24nk
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 19, 2024
Monday's presentations kicked off a week of public ICJ hearings examining the legality of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.
The U.S. is set to deliver its arguments in the case on Wednesday. Israel will not be participating.
The proceedings began less than a month after the ICJ handed down an interim ruling ordering the Israeli government to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, a decision that Israel has repeatedly flouted as it continues committing atrocities in the enclave and targets the severely overcrowded city of Rafah.
Israeli forces have killed more than 29,000 people in Gaza since October 7.
Agnès Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said Monday that "the current conflict raging in the occupied Gaza Strip, where the ICJ has ruled there is a real and imminent risk of genocide, has brought into sharp focus the catastrophic consequences of allowing Israel's international crimes in the [occupied Palestinian territories] to continue with impunity for so long."
"The world must recognize that ending Israel's illegal occupation is a prerequisite to stopping the recurrent human rights violations in Israel and the OPT," Callamard added.
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Israeli Assault Leaves Gaza's Nasser Hospital 'Not Functional'
The WHO "was not permitted to enter" the facility in recent days, said the agency chief, warning that "the cost of delays will be paid by patients' lives."
Feb 18, 2024
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced Sunday that the largest hospital in the southern Gaza Strip "is not functional anymore, after a weeklong siege followed by the ongoing raid" by Israeli forces.
After claiming that Hamas was using Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis for "military activity" and some hostages' bodies may be there, the Israel Defense Forces on Thursday began raiding the facility, where around 10,000 people had sought shelter. Sources there said the IDF bombed "a ward full of patients" and multiple people who were dependent on oxygen have died due to power outages.
Tedros highlighted on Sunday that the WHO team "was not permitted to enter" the facility in recent days "to assess the conditions of the patients and critical medical needs, despite reaching the hospital compound to deliver fuel alongside partners."
"There are still about 200 patients in the hospital. At least 20 need to be urgently referred to other hospitals to receive healthcare; medical referral is every patient's right," he added. "The cost of delays will be paid by patients' lives. Access to the patients and hospital should be facilitated."
Later Sunday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that "150 patients who cannot move are piled inside the rooms and corridors of the old building at Nasser Medical Complex without medical care after the arrest of 70 of the complex's management and medical staff."
"The occupation refuses to evacuate patients for treatment in other hospitals, which endangers their lives, including seven intensive care patients, five dialysis patients, [and] three newborns in the nursery, in addition to cases of burns, amputations, quadriplegia, childbirth, and others," the ministry added.
The IDF said on Telegram that in its operations around the facility, Israeli troops apprehended "hundreds of terrorists and other terror suspects who were hiding in the hospital, some of whom had posed as medical staff," including alleged participants in the October 7 Hamas-led attack that led to the war.
Noting IDF claims that soldiers aimed to recover the remains of hostages believed to be in the facility, The Washington Postreported that "Israeli forces have not yet found the bodies of any hostages but said on Sunday that they discovered medicine at the hospital bearing the names of Israelis who were abducted by Hamas."
The Israeli assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians, injured over 68,800 others, devastated civilian infrastructure—including hospitals—and left most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents displaced, hungry, and at risk of disease. Global experts and critics have accused Israel of genocide, including in a South Africa-led case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
In response to IDF orders to leave northern Gaza, most residents are now crammed into the southern part of the strip. According toAl-Jazeera:
Al-Amal Hospital, the only other major medical facility still operational in Khan Younis, continues to be a target of Israeli attacks. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Sunday said Israeli forces targeted the third floor of the hospital with artillery fire.
The Israeli military has expanded its siege on Khan Younis and its medical facilities as it pushed further south into Rafah on the border with Egypt.
Throughout the week, people around the world including humanitarian and United Nations leaders have pressured Israel to refrain from a full-scale attack on Rafah. The ICJ on Friday echoed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' warning that it "would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences."
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Biden Runs on Reproductive Rights as Movement Fractures Over Gaza
"Kamala and I will restore Roe v. Wade and make it once again the law of the land. Donald Trump will ban abortion nationwide. That is what is at stake this November," the Democratic president warns.
Feb 18, 2024
"Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans. There's nothing more important. Nothing more sacred. That's been the work of my first term."
That's how U.S. President Joe Biden began the video launch of his reelection campaign last year—and now, with the primary season underway, the Democrat continues to emphasize the importance of freedom and the related issue of reproductive healthcare.
The Republican front-runner, former President Donald Trump, and his MAGA movement have made clear that they are foes of abortion rights and other reproductive justice priorities, but Biden has work to do to win over some frustrated voters, including those outraged about the maternal health crisis created by the U.S.-backed Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
Biden is backed by national groups such as EMILY's List, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and Reproductive Freedom for All, but the devastation of Gaza has caused a "growing rift in the reproductive rights movement," HuffPost's Alanna Vagianos reported Friday.
Vagianos pointed to the January rally marking what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade—the landmark abortion rights ruling overturned in June 2022 by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court to which Trump appointed three justices:
The president was interrupted over a dozen times as security struggled to wrangle protesters who were screaming "Genocide Joe!" and demanding a cease-fire. Hundreds of Biden supporters tried to drown out the protesters by clapping and chanting, "Four more years!"
"Israel kills two mothers every hour in Gaza! Cease-fire now! End the genocide!" one protester yelled at Biden, who was standing on stage in front of a massive "Restore Roe" banner and flanked by supporters holding "Defend choice" signs.
A video of the event shows Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, clad in her trademark hot-pink pantsuit, standing up and chanting "Four more years!" as security dragged the shouting protester out.
"HuffPost spoke with over a dozen people who work for reproductive justice causes―including current Planned Parenthood employees, legal experts, nurse midwives, abortion fund workers, and clinic staffers from across the country―who say that Biden's unwavering support for Israel has fractured the movement," Vagianos added. "The rift has left those who support Palestinians to feel ostracized by the larger reproductive rights groups and questioning whether they can vote for Biden in November."
\u201cThere\u2019s a huge divide in our movement now that a lot of the union workers are talking about. We\u2019re feeling used; we\u2019re feeling abandoned\u201d We can and should demand better, for us in the US and for people in Palestine. Solidarity forever, for everyone\u270a\ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8 https://t.co/CrcBNU9Rj5— (@)
Frustration with Biden's response to what other world leaders and legal scholars are calling Israel's genocidal war on Gaza—which has killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians—is far from limited to those campaigning for or working in reproductive healthcare.
"Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government," U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American in Congress, said in a Saturday video supporting the Listen to Michigan campaign, which is urging Democrats to vote uncommitted in the February 27 presidential primary to send Biden a message on Gaza.
Michigan has large numbers of Arab and Muslim Americans. It is also a swing state where residents narrowly supported Biden over Trump in 2020. Two years later, just after the Roe reversal, they voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution.
After The New York Timesreported Friday that "Trump has told advisers and allies that he likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban" with exceptions for rape, incest, or saving the pregnant person's life, Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined Biden allies in advocating for reelecting him and Vice President Kamala Harris "to protect reproductive rights."
In a Friday statement about the reporting, Biden said that "Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land. And that's because of one person: Donald Trump. In fact, Trump brags about being the one to overturn Roe."
"Kamala and I will restore Roe v. Wade and make it once again the law of the land. Donald Trump will ban abortion nationwide. That is what is at stake this November," he added. "Our democracy. Our fundamental freedoms."
The Times then reported Saturday that Trump allies and former officials "are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country."
As the newspaper detailed:
In policy documents, private conversations, and interviews, the plans described by former Trump administration officials, allies, and supporters propose circumventing Congress and leveraging the regulatory powers of federal institutions, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Justice, and the National Institutes of Health.
The effect would be to create a second Trump administration that would attack abortion rights and abortion access from a variety of angles and could be stopped only by courts that the first Trump administration had already stacked with conservative judges.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez RodrÃguez responded that "it's never been clearer what the American people can expect from Donald Trump: If given power, he will circumvent Congress and further rip away women's healthcare, including attempting to unilaterally institute a national abortion ban. These plans are as terrifying as they are unsurprising."
Leaders of national groups also weighed in with comments circulated by Biden's campaign. McGill Johnson called Trump "a disaster for democracy and a disaster for sexual and reproductive healthcare," while EMILY's List interim president Jessica Mackler declared that "there is a clear choice in November: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who have worked consistently to protect our rights, or Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who want to take our decisions and our rights away."
Reproductive Freedom for All president and CEO Mini Timmaraju said: "The most chilling part of the playbook of horrors Trump's advisers have cooked up is how confident they are that he can do untold damage in a second term—with or without Congress. If they have another opportunity, they'll act on it, and the consequences will be unimaginable."
As Common Dreamsreported earlier this month, Biden has centered his support for abortion rights on the campaign trail but also come under fire for some recent remarks. While fundraising in New York City—where he faced Gaza-related protests—he said: "I'm a practicing Catholic. I don't want abortion on demand but I thought Roe v. Wade was right."
Renee Bracey Sherman, an organizer and abortion storyteller, said that "if Biden insists on hinging his entire campaign on abortion because it's more popular than he is, it would behoove him to actually use the messaging that we use to talk about abortion, without stigma, rather than throwing all of us who had abortions on demand under the bus."
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