March, 10 2014, 02:48pm EDT
ACLU Calls on Gov. Scott, Clemency Board to Reform Voting Ban Policy in "Precious Little Time" before UN Review
Letter sent today by ACLU of Florida Regional Director who is travelling to Geneva to testify before UN Committee on Human Rights on state’s lifetime voting bans for people with past felony convictions.
TALLAHASSEE, FL
Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida sent a final warning to the Florida Board of Executive Clemency - made up of Gov. Rick Scott and his cabinet - calling on them to reform Florida's voting policies before they are the subject to international scrutiny at an upcoming United Nations review.
This week, the United States' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) will be under review by the UN Committee on Human Rights. Lifetime voting bans for people with past felony convictions violate the ICCPR and because of calls from the ACLU and other groups, the Human Rights Committee will include the issue in its review of the United States' compliance with the treaty.
Florida is by far the worst offender, as the state's policies have shut about 1.5 million people out of our democracy, accounting for roughly one third of the disfranchised population of the United States, and preventing over 1 in 5 of the state's African American population from voting. The problem was exacerbated by the current members of the Board of Executive Clemency in their first meeting in 2011, when they passed new restrictions on rights restoration that undid previous reforms and added new 5-7 year waiting periods to apply, which have all but stopped the rights restoration process in the state.
In the letter sent to the Clemency Board today, ACLU of Florida Mid-Florida Regional Director Dr. Joyce Hamilton Henry, who is travelling to Geneva to testify before the Committee on the issue of Florida's felon disfranchisement on March 13th and 14th, calls on the Clemency Board to announce that they will address the issue at their upcoming March 19th meeting.
From the letter:
"In a February 11th speech, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke out against policies such as Florida's, which 'have their roots in centuries-old conceptions of justice that were too often based on exclusion, animus, and fear' and 'defy the principles of accountability and rehabilitation that guide our criminal justice policies.' The ACLU of Florida agrees, and we believe that those who have returned to our communities should have full and equal rights of citizenship."
[...]
"I therefore urge you, in the precious little time that remains before that review, to publicly state that you will take action to bring Florida into compliance with our obligations to international human rights standards at the upcoming meeting of the Clemency Board.
"If you do not, our state's failure to make our democracy fully inclusive will be put forth on the international spotlight and we will find ourselves in the all-to-familiar position of international embarrassment for our failures to protect the right of all citizens to vote."
The full letter is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/letter-to-clemency-board-about-un-iccpr-review/
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.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Container Ship That Destroyed Baltimore Bridge Has Troubled History
The Maersk-chartered MV Dali—which lost propulsion just before the collision—not only was involved in a previous crash, but was also briefly detained last year over problems with its propulsion system.
Mar 26, 2024
The mega-container ship that lost propulsion before toppling Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in a Tuesday morning collision was involved in a previous crash, and was cited last year for propulsion-related problems.
Newsweekreported that the Maersk Line Limited-chartered MV Dali—which crashed into the Interstate 695 Patapsco River crossing just before 1:30 am, causing the span to collapse and sending a construction crew into the water—collided with a wall in the harbor at Antwerp, Belgium in 2016. The accident, which was reported by Vessel Finder and other outlets at the time, was attributed to errors made by the ship's master and pilot.
The 9-year-old Dali was also detained by port officials in San Antonio, Chile last June after inspectors discovered a problem related to the vessel's "propulsion and auxiliary machinery," according toThe Washington Post, which cited records from the intergovernmental shipping regulator Tokyo MOU.
The ship's owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and operator, Synergy Marine, "have been sued at least four times in U.S. federal court on allegations of negligence and other claims tied to worker injuries on other ships owned and operated by the Singapore-based companies," according toThe Associated Press.
Maersk was also sanctioned last year by the U.S. Labor Department for allegedly stopping employees from reporting safety concerns, documents published by The Lever revealed.
According to a July 14, 2023 Labor Department letter to Maersk regarding an Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation, the Danish company "suspended and then terminated" a worker "in retaliation for reporting unsafe conditions and contacting the U.S. Coast Guard."
The fired employee "engaged in numerous protected activities" including reporting a leak and the need for repairs to a ship's cargo hold bilge system, alcohol use aboard the vessel by crew members, and inoperable equipment including an emergency fire pump and lifeboat block and releasing gear.
The search for six construction workers who were on the bridge when it collapsed into the river was suspended until Wednesday, according toThe Associated Press. The workers are presumed dead by their employer, Brawner Builders. Local media reported that multiple vehicles plunged into the river and that two workers—one of whom was briefly hospitalized—were rescued from the water.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Pentagon Urged to Just Say No to AI-Powered Killer Robots
"The Department of Defense should declare its opposition to the development and deployment of autonomous weapons."
Mar 26, 2024
The watchdog group Public Citizen on Tuesday led a letter urging Pentagon leaders "to clarify that the Replicator Initiative will not involve the development and deployment of autonomous weapons systems," also known as "killer robots."
Last September, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks "asserted that the development of all-domain, attributable autonomy systems (ADA2) is an essential way for the Pentagon to maintain its comparative cutting-edge and keep up with the technological advancements of other states," notes the letter, which was addressed to her and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
"However, those comments failed to specify whether or not supporting autonomous weapons systems is one of the key focuses of this initiative," the letter stresses. "When addressing whether or not 'ADA2 means weapons systems,' Secretary Hicks stated: 'That's a serious question to be sure. They are not synonymous. There are many applications for ADA2 systems beyond delivering weapons effects.'"
"Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
Public Citizen and the 13 other organizations argued that "this is no place for strategic ambiguity. Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
Deploying lethal weapons that rely on artificial intelligence (AI) "in battlefield conditions necessarily means inserting them into novel conditions for which they have not been programmed, an invitation for disastrous outcomes," the groups warned. "'Swarms' of the sort envisioned by Replicator pose even heightened risks, because of the unpredictability of how autonomous systems will function in a network. And the mere ambiguity of the U.S. position on autonomous weapons risks spurring a catastrophic arms race."
"We believe the Department of Defense should declare its opposition to the development and deployment of autonomous weapons," the coalition concluded. "However, even if you are not prepared to make that declaration, we strongly urge you to clarify that the Replicator Initiative will not employ autonomous weapons."
In addition to Public Citizen, the coalition included the American Friends Service Committee, Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, Backbone Campaign, Demand Progress Education Fund, Fight for the Future, Future of Life, National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, RootsAction.org, United Church of Christ, the Value Alliance, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom U.S., Win Without War, and World Beyond War.
The letter comes on the heels of Public Citizen releasing a report about the rise of killer robots, AI Joe: The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence and the Military.
The February report addresses the Pentagon's AI policy, the dangers of killer robots, the need to ensure decisions about nuclear weapons aren't made by automated systems, how artificial intelligence can increase not diminish the use of violence, risks of using deepfakes on the battlefield, and how AI startups are seeking government contracts.
The publication concludes with recommendations that Public Citizen president Robert Weissman echoed in a statement Tuesday.
"The United States should state plainly that it will not create or deploy killer robots and should work to advance global treaty negotiations to ban such weapons," Weissman said. "At minimum, the United States should commit that the Replicator Initiative will not involve the use of autonomous weapons."
"Ambiguity about the Replicator program essentially ensures a catastrophic arms race over autonomous weapons," he added. "That's a race in which all of humanity is the loser."
Keep ReadingShow Less
12 Palestinians Drown Trying to Retrieve Airdropped Gaza Aid From Sea
One campaigner called the incident "another deadly example of why airdrops are not the answer to famine in Gaza."
Mar 26, 2024
Human rights defenders on Tuesday pointed to the drowning deaths of 12 Palestinians trying to retrieve humanitarian aid parcels airdropped off the Gaza shore as yet another reason why Israel must stop blocking aid from entering the embattled strip by land.
Video published on social media shows Palestinians running toward the Mediterranean Sea in Beit Lahia as aid parcels parachute downward. Eyewitness Abu Mohammad toldCNN that the people who drowned "don't know how to swim."
"There were strong currents and all the parachutes fell in the water," Mohammad said. "People want to eat and are hungry. I haven't been able to receive anything."
Ramy Abdu, chair of the Geneva-based group Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, said that some of the victims died after becoming entangled in parachute ropes.
BREAKING| 9 Palestinians drowned and 5 others missing in the Sea of Gaza while trying to get humanitarian airdrop aid due to falling into the sea. pic.twitter.com/tSPpbrKsTg
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) March 26, 2024
According to the U.S. military—which along with Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Singapore has been airdropping aid into Gaza—parachute malfunctions caused three of the 80 parcels dropped to land in the sea. The Pentagon did not say which country carried out the drop.
Earlier this month, five children were crushed to death and numerous other Palestinians were injured by U.S.-airdropped parcels on which the parachutes apparently malfunctioned.
The airdrops come amid widespread and increasingly deadly starvation in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been accused of using hunger as a weapon of war. Last month, Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, called Israel's forced starvation of Gazans part of "a situation of genocide" in the besieged enclave, where more than 114,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7 and around 2 million people out of a population of 2.3 million have been forcibly displaced.
While Israel claims there are no limits on aid entering Gaza by land, Israeli officials said Monday that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East trucks would be blocked from entering northern Gaza. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked aid convoys and their police escorts, forcing UNRWA to suspend humanitarian deliveries.
Israeli forces have also on several occasions attacked starving Palestinians as they desperately attempt to get food for their families, including in the February 29 "
Flour Massacre" that left more than 870 Gazans dead or wounded.
Also blocking humanitarian aid from reaching starving Palestinians are Israeli civilians who have camped at border crossings to prevent convoys from entering Gaza. Last month, right-wing extremists set up a giant inflatable children's bouncy castle where aid trucks are meant to pass through the Kerem Shalom border crossing in an effort to lend a festive atmosphere to the action.
Medical Aid for Palestinians, a London-based humanitarian group, said Tuesday that "airdrops will not end famine and are a dangerous proposed 'solution.'"
Palestinians in Gaza expressed similar sentiments.
"We call for the opening of the crossings in a proper fashion," Mohammad told CNN, "but these humiliating methods are not acceptable."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular