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Category Archives: Legislation

Congresswoman Sara Jacobs – we need to protect reproductive health data

Sara Jacobs: “On June 24, 2022 “the Supreme Court of the United States released their decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, finding there is no constitutional right to an abortion and effectively overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973. “This decision is outrageous and has dangerous and far-reaching implications for Americans’ right to privacy… Continue Reading

With Roe overturned, updated ABA Legal Fact Check explores doctrine of legal precedent

“With the decision today by the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the landmark abortion decision of Roe v. Wade, the posted ABA Legal Fact Check has been revised to reflect the developments to assist reporters and the public to better understand the legal principle of stare decisis, or legal precedent, and how it came to be.… Continue Reading

What the data says about abortion in the U.S.

“Pew Research Center has conducted many surveys about abortion over the years, providing a lens into Americans’ views on whether the procedure should be legal, among a host of other questions. In our most recent survey, 61% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal all or most of the time, while 37% say it should… Continue Reading

Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

Senator Chris Murphy: “Following agreement between U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) on legislative text that will allow the Senate to vote to end a three decades long logjam on gun safety legislation, Murphy released the following statement: “For decades, the anti-gun violence movement has been… Continue Reading

Study – Google search results for abortion services are leading users to ‘fake clinics’

Inside Daily Brief: “Congressional Democrats have sent a letter to Google encouraging the search engine to improve its results for users seeking abortions. The letter follows a study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate which found that 11% of abortion searches in states with “trigger laws” – states which will automatically ban abortion if the… Continue Reading

Compiling Congressional Districts

Via Center for Data Innovation – Grossmann, M., Lucas, C., McCrain, J, & Ostrander, I. (2022). CongressData. East Lansing, MI: Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (IPPSR) – “Researchers at Michigan State University have created a dataset tracking the history of U.S. congressional districts. The dataset consists of congressional districts from 1789 to 2021… Continue Reading

Warren, Wyden, Murray, Whitehouse, Sanders Introduce Legislation to Ban Data Brokers from Selling Americans’ Location and Health Data

Bill Text (PDF) | One-Pager (PDF) – “United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced the Health and Location Data Protection Act, legislation that bans data brokers from selling some of the most sensitive data available about everyday Americans: their health and location data. The legislation is cosponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chair of the… Continue Reading

What the TSA could teach Congress about gun control

Recode – “TSA PreCheck uses enhanced background checks to make everyone safer. With the country continually in mourning over gun violence — we keep seeing mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting — it’s time to find ways to prevent it, lest we remain the “only nation where this regularly happens.” Those solutions needn’t be… Continue Reading

Your connected car could be putting your privacy at risk

Popular Science – “As the U.S. enters a new era of lawmaking, connected cars could become the new front of legal battles. Most modern cars know their locations better than their owners do. As suites of connected-car apps become mainstream for both emergency functionality (such as General Motors’ OnStar) or for owner conveniences such as remote… Continue Reading

Mandatory Student Spyware Is Creating a Perfect Storm of Human Rights Abuses

EFF: “Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Today, long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights abuses. In a recent Center for Democracy and Technology report, 81 percent of teachers said their schools use some form… Continue Reading

Don’t Forget the First Half of the Second Amendment

The Atlantic – The amendment doesn’t prohibit gun regulations; it demands them. By Thomas P. Crocker “…[the first half of the] Second Amendment reads, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.” The Supreme Court barely contemplated the text’s meaning in Heller v. District of Columbia, asking no more than… Continue Reading

Hospitals are required to post prices for common procedures. Few do

NBCNews: “Few hospitals are posting the prices of their common procedures online, despite a federal law that went into effect more than a year ago. The Hospital Price Transparency Law is intended to make the hidden costs of services such as X-rays, medical tests or colonoscopies clear to patients before they enter the hospital. But… Continue Reading