July, 28 2022, 10:43am EDT
Family of Slain Palestinian American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to Hold Press Conference in DC Announcing Next Steps in Pursuit of Justice and Accountability. Members of Congress to Share Remarks
WHAT: The family of Shireen Abu Akleh--Palestinian American journalist killed by an Israeli sniper--will hold a press conference to report back on their week of meetings with Secretary of State Blinken and members of Congress. To read the family's statement and for more background on their visit to Washington, see here.
WASHINGTON
WHAT: The family of Shireen Abu Akleh--Palestinian American journalist killed by an Israeli sniper--will hold a press conference to report back on their week of meetings with Secretary of State Blinken and members of Congress. To read the family's statement and for more background on their visit to Washington, see here.
WHO: Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Andre Carson, Betty McCollum, and Marie Newman will be sharing remarks. Legal and policy experts will also be available for interviews. Gypsy Guillen Kaiser, Advocacy and Communications Director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, will offer remarks. Lina Abu Akleh (niece), Anton "Tony" Abu Akleh (brother), and Victor Abu Akleh (nephew) will report on their meetings with Secretary Blinken and several Senators and Representatives; they will be available for questions.
WHEN: Thursday, July 28, 2022 at 12pm ET
WHERE: House Triangle on the House side of the Capitol's East Front.
WHY: The Biden administration has yet to launch an independent US investigation into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, a US citizen and prominent journalist. The Abu Akleh family is seeking justice and accountability.
HOW: For interviews with members of the Abu Akleh family and/or legal and policy experts, contact Parker Breza: parker@imeu.org +1 (612) 383-9555, or Yasmin Hamidi: yasminhamidi@gmail.com +1 (917) 860-6828.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
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The baby was born last week via an emergency Caesarean section, but doctors were ultimately unable to save her.
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A grieving family and a team of medical providers in Rafah, Gaza were desperate this week for a miracle, hoping that newborn Sabreen al-Rouh Jouda would survive after being delivered prematurely moments after her mother died of injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike.
On Friday, it became clear that the family's hopes would not be realized as doctors announced Sabreen's death.
Dr. Muhammad Salama, head of the emergency neonatal department at Emirati Hospital, where Sabreen was born last week via a Caesarean section that was caught on film and widely reported as outlets searched for any bit of hopeful news out of Gaza, said the baby's lungs were not able to fully absorb oxygen because she was born at just 30 weeks' gestation.
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Sabreen's parents and their three-year-old daughter, Malak, were also killed.
Her mother, Sabreen al-Sakani, was rushed to the hospital on Saturday night with extensive injuries that she succumbed to just before doctors performed the emergency Caesarean section.
Sabreen weighed just 3.1 pounds at birth and was in severe respiratory distress, but doctors were able to temporarily stabilize her condition.
Her grandmother was filmed speaking to her as she lay in an incubator earlier this week.
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At least two-thirds of the 34,356 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since last October have been women and children, according to the local health ministry. Israel and the U.S., which has contributed billions of dollars in weapons to the IDF, have repeatedly claimed the military is precisely targeting Hamas fighters.
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Filed in a federal court in New York, the lawsuit comes over a month after the ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking details on the kinds of AI tools the NSA is using and whether it is taking any steps to prevent large-scale privacy abuses of the kind the agency is notorious for.
The ACLU said in its new complaint that the NSA and other federal agencies have yet to release "any responsive records, notwithstanding the FOIA's requirement that agencies respond to requests within twenty working days."
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In a blog post on Thursday, the ACLU's Shaiba Rather and Patrick Toomey noted that AI "has transformed many of the NSA's daily operations" in recent years, with the agency utilizing AI tools to "help gather information on foreign governments, augment human language processing, comb through networks for cybersecurity threats, and even monitor its own analysts as they do their jobs."
"Unfortunately, that's about all we know," the pair wrote. "As the NSA integrates AI into some of its most profound decisions, it's left us in the dark about how it uses AI and what safeguards, if any, are in place to protect everyday Americans and others around the globe whose privacy hangs in the balance."
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BREAKING: We just filed a FOIA lawsuit to find out how the NSA — one of America's biggest spy agencies — is using artificial intelligence.
These are dangerous, powerful tools and the public deserves to know how the government is using them.
— ACLU (@ACLU) April 25, 2024
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Rather and Toomey warned Thursday that the growing, secretive use of artificial intelligence tools has "the potential to expand the NSA's surveillance dragnet more than ever before, expose private facts about our lives through vast data-mining activities, and automate decisions that once relied on human expertise and judgment."
"The government's lack of transparency is especially concerning given the dangers that AI systems pose for people's civil rights and civil liberties," Rather and Toomey wrote. "As we've already seen in areas like law enforcement and employment, using algorithmic systems to gather and analyze intelligence can compound privacy intrusions and perpetuate discrimination."
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Right-wing allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump are reportedly crafting a plan to give the executive branch control over Federal Reserve policy decisions, an effort that comes as the presumptive GOP nominee continues to signal his authoritarian intentions for a potential second term.
The Wall Street Journalreported Thursday that former Trump administration officials and other supporters of the ex-president "have in recent months discussed a range of proposals, from incremental policy changes to a long-shot assertion that the president himself should play a role in setting interest rates."
"A small group of the president's allies—whose work is so secretive that even some prominent former Trump economic aides weren't aware of it—has produced a roughly 10-page document outlining a policy vision for the central bank," the Journal reported. "The group of Trump allies argues that he should be consulted on interest-rate decisions, and the draft document recommends subjecting Fed regulations to White House review and more forcefully using the Treasury Department as a check on the central bank. The group also contends that Trump, if he returns to the White House, would have the authority to oust Jerome Powell as Fed chair before his four-year term ends in 2026."
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"I have the right to do that," Trump said in 2019 of ousting Powell. "I'm not happy with his actions, I don't think he's done a good job."
The Fed, still under Powell's leadership, has since jacked up interest rates to their highest level in decades in an attempt to combat inflation—an approach that progressive lawmakers and economists have criticized as misguided, arguing that prices were elevated primarily by pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and corporate profiteering and that hiking rates would harm workers. (Progressives have historically pushed for Fed reforms that would make the powerful central bank more accountable to the public.)
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"And I hope that forewarned is forearmed," he added. "MAGA attacks on the Fed are coming; they should be treated as the bad-faith bullying they are."
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