Like Roaches or Thieves in the Night, White GOP Moves Quickly to Whitelash "Obamacare"

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LA Times

Congressional Republicans, evidently hoping that by repeating an untruth they’ll convince American voters, and perhaps themselves, that it’s a truth, on Wednesday said the Affordable Care Act has “failed.”

The undistilled version of this view came from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who emerged Wednesday from a meeting with Vice President-elect Mike Pence to assert: “This law has failed. Americans are struggling. The law is failing while we speak. … Things are only getting worse under Obamacare. … The healthcare system has been ruined — dismantled — under Obamacare.”

Every one of those statements is demonstrably untrue. How do we know this? We know because every measure of healthcare spending, access and cost has improved since the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Timothy McBride of Washington University in St. Louis has done the heavy lifting of pulling together the relevant charts and graphs, and posting them online in a series of 12 tweets compiled on Storify. We’ve culled some of the most important, and present them here.

We should add, first, that Ryan also pledged, once the GOP repeals the law, to “make sure that there is a stable transition to a truly patient-centered system. We want every American to have access to quality, affordable health coverage”

This is nothing but fatuous gobbledygook. The GOP has had six years to come up with an alternative plan, and never has done so. Its current strategy is to repeal the Affordable Care Act now, and then cook up a replacement sometime in the next two, three, even four years. (They can’t even agree on a time frame.) What exactly is a “patient-centered system,” anyway?

Here are the charts, courtesy of professor McBride.  

NAACP President Arrested During Sit-In at Office of Racist Suspect Jeff Sessions

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Ny Times

Protesters from the N.A.A.C.P., including its national president, were arrested on Tuesday after an hourslong sit-in at the Mobile, Ala., office of Senator Jeff Sessions, where they demanded that he withdraw his name from consideration as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s attorney general.

Almost two dozen civil rights activists occupied the office around 11 a.m. to denounce what they called the senator’s “hostile” attitude toward civil rights and the Voting Rights Act, which was weakened by a Supreme Court decision in 2013.

The sit-in ended shortly after 6:30 p.m. when the protesters refused an order from the building’s management to leave the premises. It was not immediately clear how many people had been arrested, but a live-stream broadcast on Facebook by Lee Hedgepeth, a local journalist, showed at least six people agreeing to be arrested and kneeling before the police in prayer.

“We are about to be arrested,” said Cornell William Brooks, the national president of the N.A.A.C.P., cutting short a phone call with a reporter on Tuesday night. “We are doing this as an act of civil disobedience standing in the tradition of Rosa Parks and members of the N.A.A.C.P. community.”

On the Facebook livestream, Mr. Brooks could be seen shaking hands with a line of police officers standing in Mr. Sessions’s office.

“We are all well aware of the laws of trespass,” Mr. Brooks told the police. “We are engaging in a voluntary act of civil disobedience.”

A phone call to Bernard Simelton, the president of the Alabama N.A.A.C.P. State Conference, was answered by a man who did not identify himself but said that Mr. Simelton was being arrested as well.

“They’re doing it at this moment,” the man said, before quickly hanging up. “You’re going to have to call back.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Brooks pointed to a rise in voter suppression tactics and the continuing debate over police killings of unarmed civilians, primarily African-Americans, and denounced Mr. Sessions as “the worst possible nominee for attorney general at the worst possible moment.”

“If we understand depth of commitment to be a requirement for the job of attorney general, then he is not qualified for the job, because he has demonstrated no depth of commitment when it comes to civil rights,” Mr. Brooks said. [MORE]

Kamala Harris sworn in as California's first African-American U.S. Senator

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CBS

Kamala Harris was sworn in as California's newest U.S. senator on Tuesday, becoming the first African-American senator in the state's history.

Harris, who was the state's attorney general, is the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica. In addition to becoming California's first African-American senator, she is also the first Indian-American and the second African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate.

On November 8, 2016, she defeated Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 U.S. Senate election to replace outgoing Democratic senator Barbara Boxer, becoming the second black woman and first Indian American elected to serve in the United States Senate. 

Harris was among seven new members of the Senate who joined those who won re-election in receiving the oath of office from Vice President Joe Biden Tuesday afternoon.

Each senator was joined at the dais by current and former senators. They then took their new desks and chatted with fellow lawmakers.

There are two new Republican senators and five Democrats. The Republicans are Indiana Sen. Todd Young and Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy. The Democrats are Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Harris.

U.N. Says Unlawful Israeli Apartheid Settlements are Unlawful; White GOP Puppeticians Move to Condemn UN

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From [HERE] Israeli officials are vowing to build thousands of new settlement homes on occupied Palestinian land, in defiance of a United Nations resolution passed Friday condemning such construction as a "flagrant violation under international law." The Security Council vote was 14-0. The United States abstained, denying a veto sought by Israel and President-elect Donald Trump. It is the first resolution the Security Council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years. In the video above, Yousef Munayyer, executive director of US Campaign for Palestinian Rights talks on Democracy Now. 

Congressional Republicans are moving swiftly to denounce the United Nations Security Council’ recent action toward Israel, with GOP lawmakers in both chambers preparing to introduce disapproval resolutions aimed at the United Nations as soon as the new Congress convenes.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), will introduce a “sense of the Senate” resolution next week disapproving of the Security Council's condemnation of Israeli settlement-building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. The resolution is intended to be a companion to the expected House action against the U.N. and could place both chambers at odds with the international body as Congress returns next month.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he had no announcement on whether the chamber would vote on Moran’s resolution or another one like it. Several aides in both parties say there are bipartisan discussions about the Senate censuring the U.N. given the outrage over last week’s Israel vote.

The Senate is expected to quickly proceed to a budget resolution next week, which would give senators the ability to offer unlimited nonbinding amendments at a majority threshold and is often used as a platform for votes on extraneous issues. If a disapproval resolution were introduced and voted upon separately, it could require 60 votes if a senator filibusters it, tying up the Senate floor. [MORE]

Private prison company made illegal contributions to Trump super PAC

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NewJersey Today

The Campaign Legal Center filed a letter with the Federal Election Commission providing evidence that private prison company GEO Group illegally contributed a total of $225,000 to the Donald Trump-affiliated super PAC Rebuilding America Now, in violation of the 75-year-old ban on government contractors making political contributions.

“By contributing to a super PAC closely associated with Trump—the only presidential nominee to endorse private prisons—GEO presumably sought to influence the government contracting process and to ensure that a Trump administration would protect its access to taxpayer dollars,” said Brendan Fischer, associate counsel for the Campaign Legal Center.

“Government contracting is the most obvious way for a politician to reward friends and political donors, which is why companies that receive contracts have been banned for 75 years from making political contributions. Officials are supposed to decide how taxpayer money is spent based on what’s best for the public, not based on what’s best for their big money backers.”

The filing is a follow-up letter to CLC’s original complaint filed on Nov. 1, 2016 after GEO gave  $100,000 to Rebuilding America Now the day after the Obama Administration announced it would be ending private prison government contracts. GEO receives 45 percent of its annual revenue from federal contracts, and its stock soared the day after Trump’s election.

The filing describes how the GEO subsidiary that made the $225,000 in contributions, GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc., is listed as the “employer” in multiple labor relations cases involving federally-contracted detention facilities, and has stated in state and federal proceedings that it operates detention facilities. Additionally, both GEO Group and GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc. are effectively indistinguishable and both appear to rely on taxpayer funds for their operations.

The company also contributed $200,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC associated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and last year gave $100,000 to super PAC supporting Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential bid.

CLC filed a similar complaint in July against a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton, Priorities USA Action, for accepting a $200,000 contribution from a federal contractor, Suffolk Construction Company.

CLC more recently filed complaints with the FEC against both the Trump and Clinton campaigns for coordinating with their super PACs in violation of federal law.

Devil Trump says ‘no computer is safe’ when it comes to privacy

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NPR

President-elect Donald Trump says that “no computer is safe” when it comes to keeping information private, expressing new skepticism about the security of online communications his administration is likely to use for everything from day-to-day planning to international relations.

Trump rarely uses email or computers despite his frequent tweeting - which is done by staffers. 

“You know, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way. Because I’ll tell you what: No computer is safe,” Trump told reporters during his annual New Year’s Eve bash. “I don’t care what they say.”

Trump has repeatedly cast aside allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia tried to influence the presidential election through hacking. President Barack Obama earlier this week ordered sanctions on Russian spy agencies, closed two Russian compounds and expelled 35 diplomats the U.S. said were really spies. The Russian government has denied the allegations.

Trump, who has said that he plans to meet with intelligence officials next to week to learn more about the allegations, said he wants U.S. officials “to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge.” He pointed to intelligence failures over the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S. invasion, and declared himself an expert in the area.

“I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove, so it could be somebody else,” he said.

He added, cryptically, that he also knows “things that other people don’t know. And so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

Trump made the comments during his annual New Year’s Eve bash at his Mar-a-Lago club. Hundreds of guests gathered in the club’s grand ballroom, including action star Sylvester Stallone and romance novel model Fabio. Reporters were invited to watch as guests arrived.

Earlier in the day, Trump ditched his press pool, traveling to play golf at one of his clubs without a pool of journalists on hand to ensure the public has knowledge of his whereabouts.

Racist Suspect NY Gov. Cuomo vetoes bill requiring state to pay for indigent defense

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JURIST

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo on Saturday vetoed a bill [Politico report] that would require the state to pay for indigent representation when counties were unable. The bill was passed six months ago with bipartisan support, though the lawsuit giving rise to the issue was settled approximately 2 years ago [NYCLU press release]. After weeks of negotiation [Politico news report] Cuomo vetoed the bill, with a spokesperson stating [NY Daily News report] that "[u]nfortunately, an agreement was unable to be reached and the Legislature was committed to a flawed bill that placed an $800 million burden on taxpayers — $600 million of which was unnecessary — with no way to pay for it and no plan to make one." Cuomo assured that it would be "revisited" in the upcoming legislation cycle.

This is not the first time that the rights of indigent defendants have suffered due to costs. Last January, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Louisiana filed a class action lawsuit [JURIST report] against the New Orleans Public Defenders Office and the Louisiana Public Defender Board due to the lack of available public defenders for individuals with no access to an attorney. The ACLU claimed that as a result of the lack of state funding for public defenders, individuals are forced to wait months in jail without counsel or accept bail and plea negotiations which can have irreparable effects on their case. This was not the first time the New Orleans County Public Defender's Office had struggled to adequately provide enough enough public defenders, who represent close to 80 percent of criminal defendants in New Orleans. Due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 31 of the office's 39 public defenders were laid off and the annual budget was dropped from $2.5 million to $500,000. The financing system was accused of being unconstitutional because it relied heavily on surcharges from traffic tickets, which were abandoned since Hurricane Katrina, and forced poor people to pay for the system. Many cases involving public defenders were suspended [JURIST report] and a petition was granted to free a prisoner facing serious charges because the suspect lacked counsel. Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr. launched an investigation [JURIST report] in 2006 into the dire finances of the state's indigent defense system.

Many of Trump's Most Anti-Muslim Measures Are Based on Programs Established by the Obama Administration

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Alternet

During the second presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Gorbah Hamed asked the candidates how they would help Muslims deal with “the consequences of being labeled…a threat to the country.” Trump decried Islamophobia as a “shame” but quickly moved on to accuse American Muslims of not reporting “radical Islamic terrorism” and President Obama and Hillary Clinton for not using the term. Clinton assured the questioner that Muslims are very much a part of the United States and that she wished for a country “where citizens like you and your family are just as welcome as anyone else.” Nonetheless, she insisted, American Muslims must be “our eyes and ears on our front lines.”

Clinton’s response, despite including platitudes about Muslims being a part of the country, exhibited a tendency among many national security-minded Democrats to ultimately stigmatize Muslims as a suspect community that must be constantly monitored. Where Trump was accusatory, suggesting against all evidence that American Muslims do not report suspicious behavior, Clinton was more polished and appeared warm and friendly, asking the community to become “part of our homeland security.”

Donald Trump’s penchant for Islamophobia has long been obvious, but Hillary Clinton’s comments were no accident either. Throughout her campaign, Clinton spoke of deputizing American Muslims as agents of the state, always on alert for the first signs of their family and friends’ terrorist proclivities. By peddling such narratives of American Muslims as a suspect community, the Clinton campaign was undoubtedly contributing to Islamophobia but it was also following the established practices of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

During the past eight years, Democrats have echoed much of the Islamophobia now emanating from an incoming Trump administration through both rhetoric and policies. At times it is brazen, but mostly it is couched in an unmistakably liberal gloss of civility and delivered with a smile. As President-elect Trump appoints Islamophobes to his cabinet and prepares to directly target American Muslims, much of the precedents he will rely on have already been firmly established by the Obama administration and supported by the Democratic Party.

Muslim Registry

Perhaps the most recent example of Democratic support for Islamophobic policies emerged after the horrific shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando. House Democrats staged a sit-in to force a vote on gun control measures which would mandate the use of terrorist watch lists to prevent people from purchasing firearms. There are different estimates for just how many names exist on various terrorist watch lists. There are approximately 81,000 names on the No-Fly List (including a 7-month-old baby), 1.5 million names on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) list, and 800,000 names in the FBI’s database.

The vast majority of these names belong to Muslims who are never informed of their inclusion in these secret lists and find it a nearly impossible feat to have their names removed. Inclusion in the list, however, does not seem to require much of anything. According to a document obtained by The Intercept, these lists require “neither ‘concrete facts’ nor ‘irrefutable evidence’ to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist.” The American Civil Liberties Union has long condemned these lists as “a massive, virtually standardless government watchlisting scheme that ensnares innocent people and encourages racial and religious profiling.” None of this stopped liberal darling Elizabeth Warren from calling everyone on the lists “ISIS.”

Surveillance

Donald Trump’s explicit calls for a registry of Muslims may have been challenged by Democrats, but the lists maintained by the Obama administration have escaped any such scrutiny. American Muslim communities have also been subjected to FBI’s geo-mapping efforts, which included the development of maps “displaying the patterns of life in minority neighborhoods” and indicating “where people live, work, pray, eat and shop.” The Domain Management program was the “foundation for the FBI's counterterrorism dragnet” and allowed agents to “target specific communities to recruit informants.”

In addition to being FBI targets, American Muslims also have to deal with the “deep embedding of federal counter-terrorism and intelligence-gathering efforts” in their communities. Trump may have issued blunt calls for law enforcement patrolling of “Muslim neighborhoods” but local law enforcement agencies have already been using more “sophisticated if sometimes intrusive outreach and informant programs.” Community outreach efforts have often turned out to be nothing more than intelligence gathering operations. One program funded by the Department of Justice in 2009, for example, was aimed at promoting St. Paul Police Department’s “involvement with the Somali/Muslim community” in order to “prevent further radicalization of our youth.” Instead, the program was used by the police department to gather intelligence on the local Somali community.

The surveillance of American Muslim communities by local law enforcement agencies has been directly funded by the Obama administration. Hence, it is no surprise that the administration’s promise of a review of the “religious profiling and suspicionless surveillance of Muslims” by the NYPD’s Demographics Unit has remained unfulfilled. Undeterred by any federal oversight, the NYPD has seen little reason to alter its policies. A recent report by the NYPD Inspector General noted that the Department’s Intelligence Bureau “consistently broke court-imposed rules governing investigations involving political activity.” Over 95% of these investigations targeted Muslims. [MORE]

Standing Rock & Flint Prove Elite Media Ignores Environmental Crisis When it Disproportionately Affects People of Color

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EcoWatch

In 2016, major environmental crises that disproportionately affect people of color—such as the Flint water crisis and the fight over the location of the Dakota Access Pipeline—were under-covered by the national media for long periods, despite being reported by local and state media early on. The national media's failure to spotlight these environmental issues as they arise effectively shuts the people in danger out of the national conversation, resulting in delayed political action and worsening conditions.

In early 2016, Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in the majority black city of Flint over the dangerous levels of lead in the drinking water—more than a year after concerns about the water were initially raised. While some local and state media aggressively covered the story from the beginning, national media outlets were almost universally late to the story and even when their coverage picked up, it was often relegated to a subplot of the presidential campaign.

One notable exception was MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who provided far more Flint coverage prior to Snyder's state of emergency declaration than every other network combined. Flint resident Connor Coyne explained that when national media did cover the story, they failed to provide the full context of the tragedy by ignoring the many elements that triggered it. In particular, national outlets did not highlight the role of state-appointed "emergency managers" who made arbitrary decisions based on budgetary concerns, including the catastrophic decision to draw Flint's water from the Flint River instead of Lake Huron (via the Detroit water system).

This crisis, despite media's waning attention, continues to affect Flint residents every day, meaning serious hardships for a population that's more than 50 percent black, with 40.1 percent living under the poverty line. Additionally, according to media reports, approximately 1,000 undocumented immigrants continued to drink poisoned water for considerably longer time than the rest of the population due in part to a lack of information about the crisis available in their language. Even after news broke, a lack of proper identification barred them from getting adequate filtration systems or bottled water.

At Standing Rock, North Dakota, like in Flint, an ongoing environmental crisis failed to get media attention until it began to escalate beyond the people of color it disproportionately affected. Since June, Native water protectors and their allies have protested against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil pipeline which would threaten to contaminate the Missouri River, the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation's primary water source. Several tribes came together to demand that the pipeline be rejected, as it had been when the (mostly white) residents of Bismarck, North Dakota, raised similar concerns.

The tribes' calls for another route option for the pipeline went "criminally undercovered" by the national press until September, when security forces and protesters started clashing violently. CNN's Brian Stelter wondered whether election coverage had crowded out stories about Standing Rock, saying, "It received sort of on-and-off attention from the national media," and, oftentimes, coverage "seemed to fall off the national news media's radar." Coverage of this story was mostly driven by the social media accounts of activists on the ground, online outlets and public media, while cable news networks combined spent less than an hour in the week between Oct. 26, 2016 and Nov. 3, 2016 covering the escalating violence of law enforcement against the demonstrators. Amy Goodman, a veteran journalist who consistently covered the events at Standing Rock, even at the risk of going to prison, told Al Jazeera that the lack of coverage of the issues at Standing Rock went "in lockstep with a lack of coverage of climate change. Add to it a group of people who are marginalized by the corporate media, native Americans and you have a combination that vanishes them." [MORE]

Congressional Black Caucus Plans to Challenge Trump Appointments

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Politico

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus say they’re bracing for the worst in Donald Trump, fearing a presidency that could set minorities back decades.

Leaders of the group told POLITICO they have already begun discussing strategies to deal with Trump and any policies they believe would disenfranchise African-Americans — from public school funding to low-income housing to voting restrictions. Though the president-elect’s supporters call the alarm unwarranted, black lawmakers say Trump’s campaign and his Cabinet picks more than justify their concern.

“The stakes are incredibly high and our community is counting on us as the last line of defense between Donald Trump and the worst of what America could offer,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said.

“This is not the normal incoming president,” added Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). “We had no plan for George Bush. I think Charlie Rangel and John Conyers would tell you they didn’t even have a plan for Richard Nixon. But this is not the norm.”

Incoming CBC Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) is expected to outline his priorities for the new administration when he officially takes the reins of the caucus on Tuesday. Some members suggested challenging Trump on his home turf — Twitter — while others advocated nonviolent protests reminiscent of the civil rights movement.

“We speak for vulnerable people, we speak for the disenfranchised — and we take that seriously,” Richmond said. “And those appointments seem to be tone-deaf to sensitivity and to, I think, just common sense.”

Among the figures chosen to join Trump's inner circle whom lawmakers called unsettling are Jeff Sessions, the Alabama senator and prospective attorney general who was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 over allegations of racism; and Steve Bannon, Trump’s senior adviser who until joining the campaign led Breitbart, the far-right website that appeals to white nationalists. (Bannon does not require Senate confirmation.)

“The appointments should concern not just minorities but all Americans,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). “When you look at Sessions, I mean he doesn’t have the most stellar reputation for civil rights and voting rights. It’s rough.”

Since his nomination, Sessions and his allies have worked to revamp his reputation into that of a longtime civil rights champion.

It’s not just Sessions and Bannon who present concerns for black lawmakers. Betsy DeVos, Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, is a school-choice advocate who has championed voucher programs, which Obama and other Democrats argue siphon money away from public schools.

And Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and 2016 presidential candidate, has been tapped to lead the Housing and Urban Development Department, an area with which he has little, if any, pertinent experience.

“Ben Carson, DeVos, the education nominee, those just don’t fly in the face of good governing,” Richmond said. “And to the extent that they’re going to be there, we’re going to fight.” [MORE]

NY Governor Pardons 101 New Yorkers Convicted as Minors

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Wall Street Journal 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pardoned 101 New Yorkers who were convicted when they were 16 or 17 years old, in what state officials said was part of an effort to remove barriers to housing and employment for those who committed crimes in their youth.

The pardons by Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, went only to those convicted of nonviolent felonies or misdemeanors who have remained conviction-free for at least 10 years, officials said. The pardons are conditional, meaning they can be withdrawn if a person is convicted.

He also pardoned five people who had been convicted as adults and commuted the sentences of seven still in prison. 

Friday’s pardons are a notable departure from past years. In 2015, the governor pardoned three people and commuted the sentences of three others, and in 2014, he pardoned two. Alphonso David, the governor’s counsel, said those pardoned who committed crimes as young people had demonstrated they had been rehabilitated. “If you made a mistake at 16 or 17 you shouldn’t be affected by that mistake at 40 years old,” he said.

The state plans to continue issuing such pardons in the coming years, Mr. David said. State officials estimate 10,000 people fit the eligibility for such pardons. This year, about 260 applied, Mr. David said.

Ruthie Epstein, deputy advocacy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, praised Friday’s pardons but said they are a stopgap measure for what she views as the state’s harsh sentencing laws. New York is one of only two states nationwide that treats 16- and 17-year-old offenders as adults, she said.

“It doesn’t rectify the underlying injustice that got them in prison in the first place,” Ms. Epstein said.

One of those whose sentence was commuted was Judith Clark, 67 years old, a political activist who was a member of the Weather Underground. She was convicted in 1983 for driving the getaway vehicle in a 1981 Brink’s armored car robbery, in Nanuet, N.Y., in which two police offers and a security guard were killed. Ms. Clark has served 35 years of a 75 years-to-life sentence, state officials said. Friday’s commutation makes her eligible to appear before the state parole board.

State officials said Ms. Clark had “made exceptional strides in self-development” while in prison. They said she had earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees, founded an HIV/AIDS education program and trained service dogs as part of the Puppies Behind Bars program.

Anthony Papa, who was pardoned Friday, was convicted of drug charges in 1985. While he has been out of prison since 1997, he said he views the pardon as a vindication. It also removes some barriers that come with a criminal record, he said.

“Every time I went for an apartment I was always terrified they would find out and throw me in the street,” said Mr. Papa, 62 years old, an author and artist who works at advocacy-group the Drug Policy Alliance.

No Privacy From Gov In Your Own Home. Arkansas Prosecutors Obtain Warrant for Defendant's Amazon Echo [Alexa] Recordings

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Democracy Now

In Arkansas, prosecutors seeking evidence against a Bentonville man charged with murder have obtained a warrant to receive data from his Amazon Echo—a voice-activated device that is always listening and often recording. James Andrew Bates says he’s innocent of the murder of Victor Collins, who was found strangled in Bates’s hot tub. Prosecutors hope to search audio recordings on Bates’s Amazon Echo for clues. Lawyers for Amazon.com have refused to comply with the warrant, and technology experts say it’s unlikely the device was recording at the time of the murder. But the case has drawn national attention and alarmed civil liberties groups. Bates’s lawyer, Kimberly Weber, told USA Today, "I have a problem that a Christmas gift that is supposed to better your life can be used against you. It’s almost like a police state."