On leaving Trump behind and free speech among the young: Interview with PEN CEO Suzanne Nossel
Nossel covers a number of topics, including the larger ramifications of the news media’s coverage of President Trump and the importance for the media to stop using this coverage as a bait for ratings.
Vaccine passports: A stamp of inequity
“We must make sure that, in our scramble to reopen the economy, we do not overlook inequity of access to the vaccine; … and the potential that today’s vaccine passport will act as a catalyst toward tomorrow’s system of national digital identification that can be used to systematically collect and store our personal information.”
Journalism and COVID-19: The toll of the pandemic
What is the toll of the coronavirus on journalism in the United States? While we will never know the full impact, this project – which examines the first 10 months of the pandemic from March to December 2020 – is a
start.
Rights organizations call on Biden administration to shift US policy toward Bahrain
In a joint letter to President Elect Joseph Biden, organizations raise their concerns about the deteriorating political situation in Bahrain and urge him to ensure that democracy and human rights are returned to the center of American foreign policy.
US immigration agency subpoenas “BuzzFeed News”, seeking information on source
“Subpoenaing a news organization to turn over its source material sets a dangerous legal precedent and undermines sources’ trust in the media,” said CPJ.
Law enforcement purchasing commercially-available geolocation data is unconstitutional
Many of the smartphone apps people use every day are collecting data on their users and, in order to make money, many of these apps sell that information. One of the customers for this data is the U.S. government, which regularly purchases commercially available geolocation data.
Barack Obama and the freedom to write
President Barack Obama sat down for an interview with former PEN America president and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Ron Chernow. The following is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Palestinian free speech and human rights work threatened by deliberate anti-semitic labeling
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies says recent efforts by the US State Department to label the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement as anti-semitic threatens to silence the work of Palestinian human rights defenders and organizations that monitor, document, and criticize Israel’s systematic human rights violations.
EFF urges Federal Appeals Court to rehear case involving unconstitutional Baltimore aerial surveillance program
EFF urged the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to reconsider a split three-judge panel’s ruling that the Baltimore Police Department’s aerial surveillance of the city’s more than half a million residents is constitutional.
Visa wants to buy Plaid, and with it, transaction data for millions of people
Visa, the credit card network, is trying to buy financial technology company Plaid for $5.3 billion. The merger is bad for a number of reasons.
As COVID-19 spreads through Belmarsh Prison, RSF calls for urgent release of Julian Assange
“We are alarmed by reports of a rapid increase in Covid infections at Belmarsh prison, resulting in Julian Assange being held in de facto solitary confinement. His physical and mental health history leaves him highly vulnerable, and it is clearly unsafe for him to be detained in these conditions.”
Combating ideological exclusion with Julia Rose Kraut
“Threat of Dissent” tells America’s history of ideological exclusion and instituting laws and practices that bar or deport visitors or immigrants based on their beliefs or their expression, and within the text, she unpacks how that history intersects with that of PEN America.
US election results: What’s next for freedom of expression?
The results offer a new approach to human rights after a challenging four years, where a free press was under repeated attack by the political leadership.
Here’s how Biden can restore US press freedom leadership
Reversing Trump’s record will not be an easy task for the incoming Biden administration, particularly given the competing priorities. But much is at stake.
Elections are partisan affairs. Election security isn’t
EFF was profoundly disturbed by reports that the White House was pressuring Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), to change CISA’s reports on election security.
#PressSafety2020: Safely covering the 2020 U.S. elections
Journalists covering elections and political rallies in the U.S. in recent years have been subjected to online and verbal harassment and even physical assault, CPJ has found.