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In 2005, the CIA destroyed 92 videotapes that had depicted the torture of two detainees. The destruction took place over objections from the White House, the CIA’s legal counsel, and senior intelligence officials. Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, drafted the cable ordering the tapes' destruction and lobbied

Last week, global online-advertising giants Google and Facebook announced that they will no longer accept advertising from bail bonds agencies. In a blog post, Google said its decision to block bail bond ads is part of a broader effort to protect users from damaging content — the same reason it had recently banned ads for payday loans. This development comes just a month after a scathing front page report in The New York Times, which documented the exploitative nature of the for-profit bail bonds industry. “We made this decision bas

On Thursday, May 17, the ACLU will be in federal district court to challenge the Trump’s administration’s arbitrary and illegal incarceration of thousands of asylum seekers who fled persecution, torture, or death in their countries of origin.  For our plaintiffs, and the class members they represent, the chain of events leading to i

As any woman who’s ever been pregnant will tell you, those nine months can be a physical roller coaster, with symptoms ranging from nausea to intense fatigue to joint pain to urinary infections.  And that’s just a “normal” pregnancy. Countless women also suffer from complications like hypertension, diabetes, and placenta previa. At the very least, pregnant women need to see their doctors once a month for prenatal care, increasing in frequency to bi-weekly and then weekly in the final stages of pregnancy.   Consequently, whether it’s because of morning sickness, a delay at the doctor’s office, or pain s

Facial recognition technology stars in three recent Hollywood movies: Isle of Dogs, Ready Player One, and Black Panther. In Wes Anderson’s stop-motion near-future Japan, a corrupt mayor uses the technology to capture the Little Pilot who only wants to save his dog. In Steven Spielberg’s dystopic America, a megalomaniacal billionaire uses drones equipped with face scanners to find one of the movie’s heroes as she drives her van through an impoverished futuristic cityscape. And in Ryan Coogler’s Wakanda, the royal technologist’s team uses her facial recognition tool to identify intruders in the kingdom.  All three films show the ways that facial recognition technology leaves no place to hide — for heroes and villains al

When Milwaukee police killed Adam Trammell, a Black resident of the city, he was unarmed and alone in his locked apartment, just taking a shower. The police came because a neighbor had called them and reported that Trammel was acting “oddly.” Police arrived to do a “wellness check,” already knowing Trammell had schizophrenia.  Trammell was not wanted for a crime. He was not a threat. But he wound up dead at the hands of law enforcement.   Footage from a police

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President Trump’s nominee to be CIA director, Gina Haspel, faced pointed questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday morning. Senators asked about her role in the agency’s torture program and its cover-up, including her role in the destruction of dozens of videotapes documenting torture. Haspel, however, was far from forthright, regularly evading questions or giving only vague answers. Here are som

President Trump’s nominee to be CIA director, Gina Haspel, faced pointed questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday morning. Senators asked about her role in the agency’s torture program and its cover-up, including her role in the destruction of dozens of videotapes documenting torture. Haspel, however, was far from forthright, regularly evading questions or giving only vague answers. Here are som