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Gabriela Melendez, 202-715-0826, gmelendez@aclu.org
The Senate voted today to pass a resolution that would overturn a Federal Communications Commission rule that requires internet service providers to get customers' permission before they sell sensitive consumer data, such as browsing history.
Passage of the resolution by Congress could prevent the FCC from issuing rules that are substantially the same in the future. ACLU Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani issued the following statement:
The Senate voted today to pass a resolution that would overturn a Federal Communications Commission rule that requires internet service providers to get customers' permission before they sell sensitive consumer data, such as browsing history.
Passage of the resolution by Congress could prevent the FCC from issuing rules that are substantially the same in the future. ACLU Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani issued the following statement:
"It is extremely disappointing that the Senate voted today to sacrifice the privacy rights of Americans in the interest of protecting the profits of major internet companies, including Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. The resolution would undo privacy rules that ensure consumers control how their most sensitive information is used. The House must now stop this resolution from moving forward and stand up for our privacy rights."
This statement is online here: https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-comment-senate-vote-allow-internet-provi...
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) 549-2666"Suppressing scientific research exposes the absurdity of Kennedy’s frequently repeated claim that he would bring ‘gold standard’ science and ‘radical transparency’ to the nation’s public health agencies."
Public health campaigners are calling on the Trump administration to end its censorship of vaccine research immediately after a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Tuesday that the agency recently blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of commonly used inoculations against Covid-19 and shingles.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the two Covid-19 vaccine studies in question were "withdrawn because the authors"—which included Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists—"drew broad conclusions that were not supported by the underlying data." The abstract of one of the studies, which had been accepted for publication in the medical journal Vaccine, stated that "no new safety concerns were found following 2023–2024 Covid-19 vaccination among US health plan enrollees aged 6 months–64 years."
The blocked shingles studies underscored the safety and effectiveness of Shingrix, according to reporting by The New York Times and Washington Post.
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, the Health Research Group director at Public Citizen, noted in a Tuesday statement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recently blocked a Covid-19 vaccine study from being published in the agency's scientific journal.
“The censorship of FDA and CDC scientific studies because their findings undermine Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine agenda is outrageous and appalling," said Steinbrook. "Suppressing scientific research exposes the absurdity of Kennedy’s frequently repeated claim that he would bring ‘gold standard’ science and ‘radical transparency’ to the nation’s public health agencies."
“FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary and Dr. Erica Schwartz, the nominee for CDC Director, must publicly commit to reversing these decisions and allowing the vaccine studies to be promptly published," Steinbrook added. "Bona fide public health agencies do not censor bona fide vaccine research.”
Kayla Hancock, director of the advocacy group Protect Our Care’s Public Health Project, said the censorship of vaccine studies further demonstrates that "this administration does not care how many Americans suffer from preventable diseases, so long as the anti-science elements of their base keep supporting them."
"Contrary to claims of its demise, the Trump-RFK Jr. HHS anti-vax agenda is here to stay and they will keep seizing any opportunity to put politics over public health," said Hancock.
"Sanctioning those who defend international justice puts the entire human rights system at risk," said the Spanish prime minister.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez asked the European Commission on Wednesday to block compliance with US sanctions against the International Criminal Court over its arrest warrants against Israeli leaders accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Last February, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order sanctioning the ICC, citing its warrants in November 2024 for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
The ICC said at the time that the sanctions were meant to "harm its independent and impartial judicial work," potentially restricting officials’ access to US-linked property, services, travel, banking, and financial transactions, as they investigate widespread human rights violations and accusations of genocide during the more than two-year military campaign, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 72,000 Palestinians according to official estimates.
In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday, Sánchez called for the immediate activation of the European Union's Blocking Statute, which is designed to protect European citizens from the effects of foreign sanctions.
"Spain does not look the other way," Sánchez said in a post to social media. "Sanctioning those who defend international justice puts the entire human rights system at risk."
"The EU cannot remain idle in the face of this persecution," he continued. "That is why, today, we ask the commission to activate the Blocking Statute, to protect the independence of the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, and their actions to end the genocide in Gaza."
In addition to the ICC, Sánchez said that the commission should also shield Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, whom the Trump administration also sanctioned in July, claiming that her stark criticisms of Israel's actions in Gaza helped to "prompt" the ICC investigation.
Following the announcement, Albanese issued a message of thanks to Sánchez over social media.
"Gracias, Presidente Sánchez," she wrote. "For your words, for your principled stance, and for trying to steer Europe away from the abyss."
"Has anyone told these children that that bloodthirsty man killed more than 200 students just a few days ago?"
The day after US President Donald Trump told young children in the Oval Office about the blowing up of strategic targets in Iran and described the graphic killing of Iranian protesters who were shot in the head by alleged snipers, a social media account with Iran's foreign service on Wednesday inquired whether anyone had thought to mention the scores of students who were murdered earlier this year when US forces bombed a school in the city of Minab.
"Has anyone told these children that that bloodthirsty man killed more than 200 students just a few days ago?" asked the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in South Africa.
While the number of students killed in the Minab massacre—which took place on the very first day of US bombing—was put at "more than 100" by Amnesty International in a March report, the Iranian government has said 60 or more college students have been killed by US and Israeli forces during airstrikes on universities and research facilities since the attack ordered by Trump began on February 28.
Trump, during his remarks to the children and other gathered in the White House to mark a new physical fitness initiative by the White House, called the Iranians "sick people" who he absurdly claimed would have destroyed the entire Middle East, including Israel, with a nuclear weapon—which they don't have—"within two weeks" if the US had not attacked when they did.
Trump, with no sense of irony, told the children, "we're not going to let lunatics have a nuclear weapon." The optics of Trump's comments were not only seized by the Iranians to make a point about how the US military has conducted itself under his command.
"Trump unironically tells kids in America that Iran is full of 'sick people' who would've nuked them," said journalist Fiorella Isabella, "as the entire world with a half a brain reminds him that the very first thing he and his Zionist ghouls did was order a double tap-strike on 180 school children in Minab."