News & Commentary

While preparing for our Juneteenth celebration at Carnegie Hall this year, I re-read General Order No. 3, presented by General Granger in Galveston, Tex. on June 19, 1865. This order famously communicated to Texans news of the Emancipation Proclamation: all enslaved people were to be freed. I observed that the order combines two elements that only the Creator could grant. From a prophetic perspective, although the proclamation of freedom was from the president of the United States, only God can grant freedom and absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves. Consider these words from General Order No. 3: &

Amazon has doubled down on its private surveillance infrastructure by activating Sidewalk, a private network to connect Amazon’s servers with smart home devices and gadgets sold by Amazon and its partner companies. With concerning privacy and security implications, this network automatically connects users’ Amazon Echo, Ring security cameras, and more to other devices and gadgets beyond their front door. W

Today the Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling that one taxpayer-funded religious agency in Philadelphia has a right to renew its contract to provide foster care services to the city, despite its unwillingness to comply with the city’s non-discrimination requirement, because the city’s contract had a mechanism for allowing individualized exceptions to its non-discrimination policy that it did not grant to that agency. Importantly, the court did not rule (as the agency asked) that there is a constitutional right for government contractors such as the foster care agency to discriminate in their work for the city based on religious beliefs. This means that governments can and should continue to enforce their non-discrimination laws in all contexts. T

Tech companies and police forces would like us to believe that there is nothing we can do to stop harmful surveillance technologies like face recognition. We reject that narrative. Across the country, coalitions of community-based organizations are fighting back to protect our communities and our lives — and winning. T

Here in the United States, many are finally seeing the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. More than 60 percent of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and the vaccine is now available to anyone over the age of 12. However, across the world we see a stark contrast to this American experience. Today, Africa only accounts for 1 percent of the world’s vaccine administration, and much of Asia and South America are struggling to even acquire access to the vaccines. This alarmingly high discrepancy in vaccine access and administration around the world, known as the global vaccine gap, is both a human rights and a racial justice issue — leaving communities of color most vulnerable to its effects. H

In January, many online platforms decided they no longer wanted to host President Trump’s speech. Google, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media services announced they would no longer distribute Trump’s hateful, demeaning, outrageous speech or anything else he might have to say. Many people were pleased. Others, including the ACLU, expressed concern that a few of these companies — namely Facebook, Google, and Twitter — wield such enormous power over online speech that, if they used it against people with fewer outlets than the president of the United States, the companies could effectively silence them. T

Last week, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak signed into law a bill to decriminalize minor traffic violations. This move will ensure all traffic tickets no longer lead to warrants and incarceration for people who cannot afford to pay fines and fees imposed on them for simple traffic infractions, like speeding and driving with a broken tail light. While this victory means that Nevada is now leaving behind 12 states that continue the practice of treating every single traffic code violation as a crime, the national practice of raising revenue from residents’ wallets by imposing vast fines and fees for other traffic infractions and low-level offenses remains widespread. The result: over-criminalization and over-policing for profit across the country. I

Last week, a state court judge in Orange County, California, declared the end of a landmark lawsuit called Campbell v. Barnes. The suit was filed last summer at the height of the pandemic and sought the release of people in the county’s jails due to the unsanitary and crowded conditions, which put incarcerated people and staff at serious risk of COVID-19. T

The trove of revealing data held by phone and email providers is proving too great a temptation for the Justice Department, even when the government’s spying threatens the freedom of the press. The department’s existing rules, which were supposed to prevent abuse, have failed and it’s time for new, robust limits that will adequately protect journalists — and the free press on which our democracy depends. In a welcome step, the Biden administration and Justice Department have announced a ban on efforts to uncover confidential sources by seizing reporters’ phone and email records. And today, the Justice Department’s Inspector General announced he would conduct an investigation into what occurred. But that’s not enough. A