News & Commentary

During today’s nomination hearing for Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the CIA, Haspel testified about a topic that has rightly generated significant controversy: the destruction of 92 videotapes showing CIA torture.   Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), asked a question about the destruction of those tapes, misspeaking when she referred to

In a rebuke to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, a New Hampshire court ruled last week that a Border Patrol checkpoint on an interstate highway last summer was “unconstitutional under both State and federal law.”  Don’t believe for a second the administration’s

It is no accident that much of the United States remains segregated. Decades of slavery, Jim Crow laws, discriminatory lending practices, and intentional policy choices at the federal, state, and local level — most of which were enacted within the last 80 years — helped make it so.  The Fair Housing Act, passed in 1968, just a week after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, was meant to addres

As we approach the confirmation hearing on Wednesday for Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s pick to head the CIA, the agency continues to hide from the American public virtually all information about her role in torture and the destruction of evidence documenting it. According to The Washington Post, Haspel even

In the wake of marijuana legalization, many states are looking for new ways to keep impaired drivers off the road. Unfortunately, some proposals would lead to problematic and possibly unconstitutional police practices. One such idea is warrantless roadside saliva testing.  During a roadside saliva test, a police officer takes a saliva sample from a driver’s mouth and inserts the sample

In March, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop blocking immigrant minors in government custody from obtaining abortions, and, subsequently, to post a notice in all government-funded shelters housing them to inform them that they have the right to decide whether to have an abortion. But since then, the government has sought to undermine the court’s ruling in its relentless drive to control the reproductive choices of young immigrant women.    The Trump administration has appealed the order, arguing that it has the right to hold young women hostage to prevent

The Trump administration recently released a congressionally mandated report on the NSA’s surveillance activities in 2017. Quite a few of the numbers raise questions about Americans’ privacy — some because the numbers are so big, and others because they may indicate troubling intelligence practices. The report is required by the 2015 surveillance reform law passed in response to unla

During the third week of May, tens of thousands of cops from across the nation will gather in Washington, D.C., for “Police Week” and its national memorial services, a solemn tradition that dates back to the Kennedy administration. As a former law enforcement officer, I know the importance of this week. I also know that this is an ideal time to commit to improving the institution from within as well as from

Kellie spent some of her formative years in foster care. The experience led her to become a child welfare professional, who tries to find stability for children in Kansas. She knows personally that what young people in foster care need more than anything are loving homes where they can feel safe, which is why she opposes bills that allow agencies to turn away good parents simply because of who they are.  Yesterday, Oklahoma and Kansas became the first states in 2018 to pass laws targeting LGBT people. These bills would allow