Author: Brett Wilkins

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is operating a digital surveillance dragnet through which the agency is able to access information about nearly every person in the United States, a two-year investigation by researchers from the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law revealed Tuesday.

The study – entitled American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century – found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “has built its dragnet surveillance system by crossing legal and ethical lines, leveraging the trust that people place in state agencies and essential service providers, and exploiting the vulnerability of people who volunteer their information to reunite with their families.”

Continue reading “Study Reveals Sweeping Extent of ICE’s Secret Surveillance Dragnet”

A leading international human rights group said Thursday that if genuine, unverified videos showing Ukrainian troops shooting Russian prisoners of war would depict war crimes, while calling on Ukraine to “ensure an effective investigation” into the alleged abuse.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement that “if confirmed, the beating and shooting of captured combatants in their legs would constitute a war crime, and Ukraine needs to demonstrate that it is able and willing to prevent and punish serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

Continue reading “Rights Group Says Ukraine Torture or Killing of Russian POWs Would Be Clear ‘War Crime’”

Nonproliferation advocates on Wednesday expressed disappointment after the Biden administration released a summary of its latest Nuclear Posture Review, which fails to depart from decades of dangerous U.S. first use policy.

“This Nuclear Posture Review is a failure. It nudges the needle back to the Obama administration but does almost nothing to reduce the continuing risks of nuclear war,” Stephen Young, the senior Washington representative for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said in a statement.

While President Joe Biden – a longtime advocate of adopting a no first use (NFU) policy – promised reform while on the 2020 campaign trail and in office, he has largely continued his predecessors’ policies, including initial use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear foes.

Continue reading “‘A Failure’: Critics Rebuke Biden for Nuclear Posture Review Update”

Prominent international human rights groups and defenders on Tuesday condemned Saudi Arabia’s recent execution of 81 people in a single day and called on the fundamentalist monarchy to enact a moratorium on capital punishment and commute the death sentences of all condemned prisoners.

As Common Dreams reported, Saturday’s executions are believed to have been the largest mass killing in the modern Saudi kingdom’s 90-year history. More than half of those put to death were members of the minority Shi’ite Muslim community.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said the men – among them seven Yemenis and a Syrian – were executed for alleged crimes ranging from murder to the nebulous charge of “monitoring and targeting officials and expatriates.”

Continue reading “Right Groups Condemn Saudi Mass Executions as ‘Brutal’ Display of ‘Autocratic Rule’”

A new law passed Thursday that effectively bans the naturalization of Palestinian spouses of Israeli Jews was condemned by human rights advocates in Israel and around the world, some of whom called it the latest manifestation of an apartheid regime.

Reut Shaer, a lawyer with the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, toldReuters that the law “comes off as more xenophobic or racist because it’s not only giving extra rights and privileges to Jewish people, but also preventing certain basic rights only from the Arab population.”

Continue reading “‘Racist’ New Israeli Law Bars Naturalization of Palestinian Spouses”

A pair of progressive US lawmakers on Monday said that if President Joe Biden does not stop supporting the Saudi-led war against Yemen, they will work to pass a new war powers resolution to “end unconstitutional US participation” in the conflict.

“We will not sit by as the Constitution is ignored and the Yemeni people suffer seven years into this unauthorized war,” Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) – who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus – and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) wrote in The Nation. “If the administration refuses to act, Congress will force them to. In advance of the seventh anniversary of this war, we will work with our colleagues in Congress to pass a new Yemen War Powers Resolution.”

Continue reading “House Dems Vow To Introduce War Powers Resolution for Yemen”