December, 23 2016, 01:30pm EDT
Fifth Circuit Should Reverse Order Blocking Overtime Protections for Millions of Workers
 Representing 26 Members of Congress, Public Citizen Files Amicus Brief Supporting Stronger Overtime Protections
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit should reverse an order blocking overtime protections for millions of American workers, according to a brief submitted late Thursday by 26 members of Congress, represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group.
The brief (PDF) urges the Fifth Circuit to reverse a district court order barring the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing a regulation updating a test used to identify workers who are exempt from the minimum wage and overtime protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The members who submitted the brief include U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
The FLSA exempts from its minimum wage and overtime protections workers "employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity." Since the Department of Labor first promulgated regulations on this exemption in 1938, it has used a salary level test to help define the scope of the exemption. Employees who earn less than the salary set by the Department are not exempt.
"The use of a salary level test is well supported, long-established, and helps ensure that workers receive fair wages," said Adina Rosenbaum, the Public Citizen attorney representing the members. "The district court erred in finding that use of the test violates the FLSA."
In May 2016, the Department of Labor updated the salary level needed to be exempt to $913 per week. Twenty-one states sued the Department, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a nationwide preliminary injunction prohibiting the Department from implementing and enforcing the updated salary level test.
The Department of Labor appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where the 26 members of Congress filed a friend of the court brief supporting the Department. The brief explains that the regulation is supported by the purpose and history of the FLSA, and Congress has long sanctioned the Department's use, since 1938, of a salary level test to help distinguish exempt and non-exempt workers.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Wyden Says Spying Bill Would Force Americans to Become an 'Agent for Big Brother'
"If you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy," said Sen. Ron Wyden.
Apr 17, 2024
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday to speak out against a chilling mass surveillance bill that lawmakers are working to rush through the upper chamber and send to President Joe Biden's desk by the end of the week.
The measure in question would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years and massively expand the federal government's warrantless surveillance power by requiring a wide range of businesses and individuals to cooperate with spying efforts.
"If you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy," said Wyden (Ore.), referring to an amendment that was tacked on to the legislation by the U.S. House last week with bipartisan support. "That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a Wi-Fi router, a phone, or a computer. So think for a moment about the millions of Americans who work in buildings and offices in which communications are stored or pass through."
"After all, every office building in America has data cables running through it," the senator continued. "The people are not just the engineers who install, maintain, and repair our communications infrastructure; there are countless others who could be forced to help the government spy, including those who clean offices and guard buildings. If this provision is enacted, the government can deputize any of these people against their will, and force them in effect to become what amounts to an agent for Big Brother—for example, by forcing an employee to insert a USB thumb drive into a server at an office they clean or guard at night."
Wyden said the process "can all happen without any oversight whatsoever: The FISA Court won't know about it, Congress won't know about it. Americans who are handed these directives will be forbidden from talking about it. Unless they can afford high-priced lawyers with security clearances who know their way around the FISA Court, they will have no recourse at all."
Wyden's remarks came after the Senate narrowly approved a motion Tuesday to proceed to the FISA reauthorization bill ahead of Section 702's expiration at the end of the week. The Oregon senator, an outspoken privacy advocate, was among the seven members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the procedural motion.
Despite its grave implications for civil liberties, the bill has drawn relatively little vocal opposition in the Senate. A final vote could come as soon as Thursday.
Titled Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), the legislation passed the Republican-controlled House last week after lawmakers voted down an amendment that would have added a search warrant requirement to Section 702.
The authority allows U.S. agencies to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country, but it has been abused extensively by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency to collect the communications of American lawmakers, activists, journalists, and others without a warrant.
Privacy advocates warn RISAA would dramatically expand the scope of Section 702 by broadening the kinds of individuals and businesses required to participate in government spying. A key provision of the bill would mandate cooperation from "electronic communications service providers" such as Google, Verizon, and AT&T as well as "any other service provider who has access to equipment that is being or may be used" to transmit or store electronic communications.
That would mean U.S. intelligence agencies could, without a warrant, compel gyms, grocery stores, barber shops, and other businesses to hand over communications data.
"In the face of the pervasive past misuse of Section 702, the last thing Americans need is a large expansion of government surveillance," Caitlin Vogus, deputy director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian on Tuesday. "The Senate should reject the House bill and refuse to reauthorize Section 702 without a warrant requirement. Lawmakers must demand reforms to put a stop to unjustified government spying on Americans."
Wyden said during his floor speech Tuesday that some of his colleagues "say they aren't worried about President Biden abusing these authorities."
"In that case, how about [former President Donald] Trump? Imagine these authorities in his hands," said Wyden. "If you're worried about having a president who lives to target vulnerable Americans, to pit Americans against each other, to find every conceivable way to punish perceived enemies, you ought to find this bill terrifying."
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House Dems Voice 'Deep Concern' Over Biden Claim That Israel Is Legally Using US Arms
A letter from 26 lawmakers notes the "stark differences and gaps" between what Biden administration officials say and the opinions of "prominent experts and global institutions" accusing Israel of genocide.
Apr 16, 2024
More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
Citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza and soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, 26 congressional Democrats led by Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar—who co-chairs President Joe Biden's reelection campaign—and Joaquin Castro asked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines "whether and how" their agencies determined Israel is lawfully using arms provided by Washington.
"We write to express our deep concern regarding the U.S. Department of State's recent comments regarding assurances from the Israeli government, under National Security Memorandum (NSM) 20, that the Israeli government is using U.S.-origin weapons in full compliance with relevant U.S. and international law and is not restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Cabinet members.
The letter acknowledges the "grave concerns" of institutions and experts around the world regarding Israel's "conduct throughout the war in Gaza, its policies regarding civilian harm and military targeting, unauthorized expansion of settlements and settler violence in the West Bank, and potential use of U.S. arms by settlers, in additional to limitations on humanitarian aid supported by the U.S."
The legislators noted Israeli attacks on aid convoys, workers, and recipients—like the February 29 "
Flour Massacre" in which nearly 900 starving Palestinians were killed or wounded at a food distribution site—and "the closure of vital border crossings" as Gazan children starve to death as causes for serious concern.
While the lawmakers didn't mention the International Court of Justice's January 26
preliminary finding that Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza, their letter highlights the "stark differences and gaps in the statements" made by Biden administration officials and "those made by prominent experts and global institutions"—many of whom accuse Israel of genocide.
The lawmakers' letter came amid reports of fresh Israeli atrocities, including a drone strike on a playground in the Maghazi refugee camp in northern Gaza that killed at least 11 children. Eyewitnesses described a "horrific scene of children torn apart."
While Biden has called out Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza—much of it carried out using U.S.-supplied warplanes and munitions including 2,000-pound bombs that can level whole city blocks—his administration has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel, has repeatedly sidestepped Congress to fast-track emergency armed aid, and is seeking to provide the key ally with billions of dollars in addition weaponry atop the nearly $4 billion it gets annually from Washington.
This, despite multiple federal laws—and the administration's own rules— prohibiting U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators.
According to Palestinian and international officials, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children. At least 7,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced in what many Palestinians are calling a second Nakba, a reference to the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
A growing number of not only progressive lawmakers but also mainstream Democrats are calling for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who was criticized earlier in the war for not calling for a cease-fire—stood beside a photo of a starving Gazan girl while declaring "no more money for" the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his "war machine."
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'Weasel Words': Julian Assange's Wife Slams US Assurances to UK
"The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family's extreme distress about his future—his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism."
Apr 16, 2024
The wife of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sharply criticized "assurances" the U.S. government made as the U.K. High Court considers allowing the 52-year-old Australian's extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison.
The U.S. document states that if extradited, "Assange will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial (which includes any sentencing hearing) the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States," though it points out that "a decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. courts."
"A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange," the document adds, noting that he has not been charged with any offense for which that is a possible punishment. It comes after the U.K. court ruled last month that the Biden administration had until Tuesday to confirm that he wouldn't face the death penalty and if it did not, he could continue appealing his extradition.
Responding on social media, his wife, Stella Assange—who is an attorney—blasted the U.S. assurances as "weasel words."
"The United States has issued a nonassurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty," she said. "It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen."
"The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
"Instead, the U.S. has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can 'seek to raise' the First Amendment if extradited," she added. "The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family's extreme distress about his future—his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism. The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
The U.K. court's next hearing is scheduled for May 20. Last week, reporters asked U.S. President Joe Biden about requests from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of the country's Parliament to drop the extradition effort and charges. He said that "we're considering it."
So far, the Biden administration has ignored significant pressure from Australian and U.S. politicians as well as human rights and press freedom groups, and continued to pursue the extradition of Julian Assange, who was charged under former President Donald Trump—the Republican expected to face the Democratic president in the November election.
Assange was charged under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for publishing classified documents including the "Collateral Murder" video and the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Since British authorities dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London—where he lived with political asylum for seven years—he has been jailed in the city's Belmarsh Prison.
The WikiLeaks founder's wife, with whom he has two children, was not alone in condemning the U.S. assurances on Tuesday.
"This 'assurance' should make journalists even more worried about how the Assange prosecution could impact press freedom in the U.S. and globally. The U.K. should grant Assange's appeal and refuse to extradite him," said the Freedom of the Press Foundation. "The U.S. doesn't disclaim the ability to argue that the First Amendment doesn't apply to Assange because of his nationality or other reasons, or for a court to rule against a First Amendment challenge to his prosecution."
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, similarly said that "no one who cares about press freedom should take any comfort at all from the United States' assurance that Assange will be permitted to 'rely upon' the First Amendment."
"If the prosecution goes forward, the U.S. government will be trying to persuade American courts that the First Amendment poses no bar to the prosecution of a publisher under the Espionage Act," Jaffer warned. "And if the government is successful, no journalist will ever again be able to publish U.S. government secrets without risking her liberty."
"So the government's First Amendment assurances aren't responsive at all to the concerns that press freedom advocates have been raising," he concluded. "This case poses essentially the same threat to press freedom today as it did yesterday."
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