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Trump has loved “travel bans” since his first term in office. It has nothing to do with making America safer or better and everything to do with making America whiter.
People were opposed to Trump’s blanket bans all the way back in 2017, when the heads of tech companies managed to collectively grow enough spine to push back against Trump and his bigoted take on immigration.
Well, it’s now Trump’s second term and for damn sure US tech companies aren’t going to be riding to rescue. The post-truth administration continues to welcome white migrants while doing everything it can to eject non-whites, even if it means repeatedly arresting and jailing actual US citizens.
The thing is that migrants actually make America greater than it would ever be if it was just a nation of white people pretending they’re actually the “native” Americans. Migrants break fewer laws, pay more taxes, and avail themselves of fewer social programs than naturally-born citizens.
This administration is fully engaged in Manifest Bigotry. It has stripped temporary protected status from thousands of people who fled from war-torn countries, abject poverty, and nations known for their perpetual human rights abuses. Those still being allowed to access this particular privilege are the kind of people this administration loves: whites fleeing imaginary “persecution” in a nation where Black people have finally been given the same rights as white people.
While it may seem plausible to extend a travel ban now that Trump has picked an unwinnable fight with a nation capable of destroying the world’s economy for the next several decades, it doesn’t explain why Trump feels the need to strip rights and privileges from so many people who’ve already made their way into the United States.
That US Citizenship and Immigration Services policy has blocked work permits and green cards for people from countries deemed “high risk” by the government including Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela—even though they were already present in the US. That’s led many to lose jobs and put their lawful status in jeopardy as the benefits pause has continued.
As the court notes in its ruling, this targeting of so many migrants is retroactive. Rather than treat the new policy as something that only effects everyone moving forward, the administration treats every new anti-migrant policy as retroactive, clawing back protections awarded them by previous administrations.
All of this is being done by executive order. At no point has Congress passed any laws in support of these executive declarations. And while far too many judges (especially those in certain appellate courts and the Supreme Court) seem to feel they’re incapable of reining in executive power, lower courts are more than willing to lay down a few roadblocks, even when it’s almost inevitable the higher courts will have them removed as soon as fucking possible.
And the administration continues this assault on non-white people, practically daring courts to do anything about it. This court — one that is currently entertaining the thought of sanctioning DOJ prosecutors — is trying to do something about it. And the Rhode Island court — represented here by chief judge John McConnell Jr. — points out the government has sabotaged its own reputation repeatedly while engaging in what appears to be blatant bigotry.
McConnell also found evidence—including derogatory statements about immigrants by administration officials after the National Guard shooting—of pretextual reasons behind the policies.
“The Government effectively invites the Court to shut its eyes and ignore the strong evidence of anti-immigrant animus before it,” he wrote. “Doing so would require profound naiveté on the Court’s part.”
This government wants courts to pretend they’re stupid. It wants the sort of deference handed over to despots, even as it pretends it’s still the leader of the Free World. And so the courts that respect the rule of law get this sort of bullshit from administration officials, who choose to present everything as some sort of liberal conspiracy against the Great Morbidly Obese White Hope:
The administration’s critics on the left have been “running the same gambit with so called ‘animus’ claims since 2017,” James Percival, general counsel for DHS, said in a statement.
“It is sabotage dressed in legal clothing,” he said.
Cause and effect, you racist idiots. If you’re seeing more anti-immigrant animus claims since Trump’s first term in office, it’s because the Trump administration (both versions) is deeply steeped in anti-migrant animus. Correlation and causation. That fewer judges ruled against the Biden administration on animus claims isn’t evidence of judicial activism. It’s nothing more than judges responding to stimuli.
Filed Under: bigotry, cbp, dhs, ice, iran, john mcconnell, mass deportation, nicaragua, nigeria, rhode island, travel ban, trump administration, venezuela
There’s hardly anyone left in the Justice Department that has any deeper desire than just giving Trump what he wants. The few lawyers Trump didn’t purge resigned soon after it became clear the DOJ would be little more than personification of Trump’s vengeful whims.
Lawyers with decades of experience were replaced with Trump loyalists, former Trump lawyers, and prosecutors so devoid of real-world experience they may as well still be interns. Not that this has slowed the administration’s attempts to strip the US of anything that actually makes it great. The efforts continue, but the DOJ’s flag is flying at half-staff (at best), to mix a metaphor.
Meanwhile, even Trump-appointed judges are getting tired of the Trump DOJ’s bullshit. It has sustained thousands of losses in immigration cases, seen most of its high-profile vindictive prosecutions dead-ended by grand juries and judges, and engaged in mostly-futile deck-chair rearranging/goal-post relocations that haven’t delivered it the streak of wins it clearly feels it’s owed.
In this case, the DOJ did a little of everything. Deck chairs were rearranged to sub in rookie lawyers, goal posts shifted between Texas and Rhode Island (despite the central subpoena targeting Rhode Island medical entities), and DOJ lawyers spent most of their time refusing to engage honestly with the targets of the subpoena (Rhode Island Hospital), much less the federal courts handling the cases.
While the Texas court was ultimately more amenable to the DOJ’s demand for sensitive medical information about Rhode Island minors (in furtherance of the administration’s war on trans people), the proper venue — overseen by Trump appointee Judge Mary McElroy — expressed her frustration and anger in a recent order blocking the subpoena and suggesting sanctions might be just over the horizon.
DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case. It has misrepresented and withheld information to both this Court and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (the “Texas court”). It did so in an obvious effort to shield it’s recent investigative tactics—previously rejected by every other court to review them—from this Court’s review, in favor of a distant forum that DOJ deems friendly to its political positions. Its representatives have, under oath, misrepresented salient facts. It has misled the parties with whom it was negotiating in Rhode Island, who have now been placed in an untenable and unprecedented procedural position. And when its attorneys came to this Court to explain their conduct, the senior attorney—who was present at many of the events that took place in this case—sat silently by as his counterpart, a junior attorney who has been practicing law for approximately six months and had no relevant information, was forced to answer questions about DOJ’s blatant disregard for the proper course of negotiations.
The government has long relied on the “presumption of regularity” in cases handled by federal courts. That presumption assumes the government is acting in good faith, even when it’s on the wrong side of the law. In less than two years, the Trump administration has destroyed this presumption — something the DOJ has had in its back pocket for most of the last two centuries.
Everything said above (just a small part of McElroy’s extremely scathing May 14 ruling) factors into this much shorter docket item. (h/t Josh Gerstein)
TEXT ORDER. Because of the representations made to this Court by the respondents’ attorneys, as well as the findings of the Court in its order of May 14, 2026, this matter is referred for further proceedings under R.I. Dist. Ct. Local Rule 210(b). So Ordered by District Judge Mary S. McElroy on 6/5/2026. (Potter, Carrie)
Sorry, I know that’s all super-dry and doesn’t contain anything pithy enough for bold text, etc., but here’s what that means: some DOJ lawyers — including ones hand-picked by Trump to do his evil bidding — are potentially headed for discipline.
Rule 210(b) gives the court permission to refer government lawyers for discipline. The more interesting part of the rules directly precedes this, where it says the end result could be government lawyers being disbarred.
The evidence against the DOJ lawyers was covered comprehensively by Judge McElroy in her earlier ruling. To sum up: the DOJ lied. More formally, it “misrepresented” and “withheld information.” Those are both forms of lying, with the severity shifting depending on the context. And when the DOJ knew it had been caught doing it, the most senior prosecutor dumped the case into the lap of the most junior prosecutor in the jurisdiction and forced them to personally absorb the righteous anger of the judge, as well as handle all the uncomfortable questions DOJ officials decided they simply weren’t going to answer.
And, of course, having been called out and threatened with meaningful consequences, the Trump DOJ has decided to pretend it has always been forthright and honest.
“The Civil Division has thoroughly reviewed the District Court’s allegations and concluded that they are without merit. Our attorneys did not misrepresent facts, withhold relevant information, or otherwise mislead the Court. The Department stands behind its attorneys without reservation and has appealed the District Court’s erroneous order.”
I assume that any day now the DOJ will move past its (literally unbelievable) defense of efforts to directly (and personally) attacking Trump’s own appointee as an “activist judge” or (as it often does) claim this is somehow the fault of Joe Biden, who not only didn’t appoint this judge but wasn’t in office when the judge pointed out the DOJ (under this administration) no longer has a reliable reputation.
Sure, this isn’t nearly as satisfying as a coup or the immediate jailing of lying DOJ lawyers. But it is a step further than many judges are willing to go, no matter how often the DOJ lies, cheats, and flat out refuses to play by the rules.
Filed Under: bigotry, doj, intimidation, lgbtq, mary mcelroy, rhode island, texas, trump administration
Puerile, vindictive, and hateful is no way to run a government. That’s how Trump is running his, however. And that means his DOJ cannot possibly hope to stay on the good side of judges, not when it’s actively engaged in appeasing an autocratic megalomaniac and his enablers.
The lawyers currently staffing the DOJ cannot be excused for their actions. They have been called out time and time again for eroding the trust the DOJ has earned over the years by engaging in vindictive prosecutions, arguing in favor of blatant rights violations, and otherwise pursuing the corrupted version of lawfare that is the hallmark of this administration.
There are only two options at this point, considering the thousands of adverse rulings Trump’s DOJ has racked up. Either the remaining prosecutors are no more honorable or ethical than the man in the White House, or they’re so bereft of morals and ethics that it means nothing to sacrifice what’s left of these traits on the altar of MAGA.
Here’s more from the DOJ that’s nothing more than a blunt force object of oppression, completely beholden to this American version of fascism. To understand what has lead to a federal judge ripping into the DOJ (something that’s now as common as the administration pretending it’s fine to be openly racist again), you have to backtrack a little. Chris Geidner, a.k.a. Law Dork, has the background:
The Trump administration is apparently shifting tactics to advance its stated policy to “reduce or eliminate gender-related care to minors“ by using the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas to try and get invasive information from medical providers about transgender minor patients obtaining gender-affirming medical care.
The apparent shift came after more than a half-dozen federal judges across the nation have blocked the effort to obtain patient information through administrative subpoenas; following a hearing in multistate litigation against the Trump administration’s anti-trans policies; and in the midst of a sprawling dispute over the Justice Department’s effort to enforce one of the administrative subpoenas — issued last year against Rhode Island Hospital — in the same district in Texas.
Why is the DOJ using a Texas court to enforce a subpoena issued to a Rhode Island hospital? The answer is obvious. This is forum shopping by the administration, hoping to find courts more disposed to harming trans people than those found on the East Coast. If nothing else, the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court tends to be receptive of the DOJ’s advances now that Trump’s in charge, which means the rare adverse ruling might be immediately reversed or stayed once it’s appealed.
That didn’t work here, however. The case got sent to the proper jurisdiction. And, upon arrival, it has found an extremely unreceptive audience in the form of Judge Mary McElroy, who ended up with the case currently being deliberately and deceptively handled by the DOJ.
Judge McElroy wastes no time attacking the DOJ for its behavior and actions in furtherance of Trump’s hateful anti-trans agenda. These are the opening two paragraphs of her ruling [PDF], copy-pasted here verbatim:
The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) possesses immense prosecutorial authority and discretion. As citizens, we trust that federal prosecutors, when wielding this awesome power against a state, a company, or certainly against vulnerable children, will play fair and be honest with its counterparts and the judiciary.
DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case. It has misrepresented and withheld information to both this Court and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (the “Texas court”). It did so in an obvious effort to shield it’s recent investigative tactics—previously rejected by every other court to review them—from this Court’s review, in favor of a distant forum that DOJ deems friendly to its political positions. Its representatives have, under oath, misrepresented salient facts. It has misled the parties with whom it was negotiating in Rhode Island, who have now been placed in an untenable and unprecedented procedural position. And when its attorneys came to this Court to explain their
conduct, the senior attorney—who was present at many of the events that took place in this case—sat silently by as his counterpart, a junior attorney who has been practicing law for approximately six months and had no relevant information, was forced to answer questions about DOJ’s blatant disregard for the proper course of negotiations.
The bold sentences are stinging. But even the last sentence is damning. It says the DOJ attorney with the most experience refused to defend the government’s positions in what appears to be an act of abject cowardice. Instead, the senior attorney sent a junior attorney with less than six months experience to face the justifiable wrath of the court.
Underneath everything here is the ugly truth of the case: the DOJ is demanding hospitals turn over the names, social security numbers, addresses, clinical histories, and family information of any minors seeking gender-affirming care. The government should not have this information because it’s clear it intends to harm both the minors and their care providers for reasons it can’t actually justify under existing law.
That’s why it went forum shopping in Texas. And that’s why it deliberately withheld information from those challenging the subpoena and, indeed, the court itself.
The DOJ won’t play fair because if it does, it can’t hope to win. That much is clear, and is stated clearly by Judge McElroy. Here’s just one of several footnotes detailing the DOJ’s dishonesty.
It is well established that counsel are responsible for working in a cooperative, rather than an adversarial manner, and to confer in good faith when negotiating the parameters of a subpoena. The parties had done so up until DOJ’s about face on April 30, when it repaired to the Texas court and presented RIH with a fait-accompli motion to enforce (after it had submitted it), followed a few hours later by an order granting that motion. The Child Advocate learned of the subpoena and motion that targeted its children’s private information by a DOJ press release the next day.
Here’s more on that, from the body of the order:
This representation that the communication with RIH had ceased as of February 4, 2026, was clearly misleading, if not utterly false. At the hearing on this Motion, DOJ’s attorney attempted to justify the glaring omission by saying that the February 4, 2026 email was the last “such” communication. This is patently untrue because, just the day before filing the declaration containing this representation the attorneys for RIH had sent an email in response to DOJ’s request for a conference to discuss the terms provided in the February 4th email. This reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed to a federal court is appalling.
Leading the charge in lying to the court was none other than Lisa Hsiao, who currently serves as the head of the DOJ’s “Enforcement and Affirmative Litigation” office.
Ms. Hsiao also represented that requests regarding “patient-level clinical practices and drug safety” (Requests 11–15) were necessary because “without this information, DOJ cannot fully determine the scope of the violations, identify patterns of misbranding or fraudulent billing, or assess whether the conduct was undertaken with intent to defraud or mislead, as required for felony liability under 21 U.S.C. § 333(a)(2).” But Ms. Hsiao neglected to inform the Texas court that DOJ had agreed to anonymized data in several other jurisdictions. Her assertion that DOJ needed this information was therefore, at best, deceptive, if not intentionally and knowingly false.
There’s a footnote attached to this paragraph that shows this a pattern and practice of Ms. Hsiao when it comes to trying to destroy the lives of transgender minors.
This is not the first time Ms. Hsiao and her subordinates have, in their crusade to obtain transgender children’s medical records, acted in ways that appear to deviate from the norms of professional conduct expected of attorneys representing the United States.
The order notes that the DOJ’s forum shopping in Texas (despite seeking records from an entity located in Rhode Island on behalf of an investigation instigated in Washington D.C.) worked…. right up until it didn’t. The district court granted the government’s request to enforce the subpoena following an ex parte submission by the DOJ that cut RIH out of the loop. And the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court refused to stay this enforcement order pending appeal with a one-sentence denial.
In the end, the DOJ loses. The Rhode Island court quashes the administrative subpoena (i.e., self-issued) because it seeks information that is protected by state law and the US Constitution itself. It does not have the jurisdiction to block the Texas court’s enforcement order, but that ultimately doesn’t matter because the subpoena is no longer usable.
In signing off on the decision, the judge again points out this iteration of the DOJ is an embarrassment to every iteration that came before it.
[T]he discrepancy between the honorable conduct expected of federal prosecutors and DOJ’s tactics in this case is unsettling. The Court cannot help but share the sentiment that “[t]he presumption of regularity that has previously been extended to [DOJ] that it could be taken at its word—with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes—no longer holds.” United States v. Oregon, No. 6:25-CV-01666-MTK, 2026 WL 318402, at *11 (D. Or. Feb. 5, 2026). It is regrettable that this is now the case.
Without a doubt, Trump’s DOJ will continue to shit all over the presumption of regulatory, overseen by equally evil people who will oversee those too spineless or devoid of morality to refuse to do Donald’s dirty work. But even if the DOJ manages to avoid being laughed out of court every time it engages in a case, it will never be able to erase the blighted legacy it’s leaving behind.
Filed Under: bigotry, doj, evil, intimidation, lgbtq, rhode island, texas, trump administration
Let’s hope the word “possibly” can be stricken from this headline in the near future. And while contempt charges don’t mean much to an administration that is openly contemptuous of anything that hints at checks or balances, it would, at the very least, encourage other judges to stop treating the Trump DOJ like it’s worthy of anything less than contempt.
If nothing else, federal judge Melissa DuBose has at least forced the government to publicly admit it’s been lying to her.
A federal judge said Monday that the Trump administration had put her security at risk by posting a “patently false” allegation that she knowingly released an ICE detainee with an international warrant for murder.
Justice Department attorney Kevin Bolan profusely apologized to Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose for the press release posted last week by the Department of Homeland Security, which Bolan acknowledged “simply was not true.”
Let’s go live (because — for whatever reason — the press release is still “live”) to the DHS website posting, which leads off with this headline because it’s operated by unserious people who have chosen to serve an autocratic megalomaniac rather than the nation itself:
Activist Biden Judge Releases Violent Criminal Illegal Alien Wanted for Murder
A judge ordering the release of an arrestee on bail is rarely reason for a public statement by a federal agency. Normally, they’ve got better stuff to do that engage in personal attacks on judges who have done nothing more than interpreted the law and ruled accordingly.
Every alleged crime is noted in bold type in the press release, which also includes this statement from the DHS (emphasis in the original):
“Bryan Rafael Gomez is a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic with an international warrant for homicide,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “An activist judge appointed by Joe Biden released this wanted murderer back into American communities. This is yet another example of an activist judge trying to thwart President Trump’s mandate from the American people to remove criminal illegal aliens from our communities. Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, DHS will continue to fight for the removal of criminal illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country.”
Even if you choose to ignore the headline and the politically motivated attacks on the judge, you’re still left with something that isn’t normally the way the federal government does business. After all, judges are part of a co-equal branch, and there’s little to be gained by pretending normal court stuff is “activism.”
There’s even less to be gained when it’s discovered that the government’s lawyers didn’t bother to apprise the judge of this homicide warrant the DHS is now using to attack the judiciary. And what’s left of the DOJ appears to have realized this belatedly. There’s a lot of contrition in this short filing that Assistant US Attorney Charles Calenda (who oversees the affected jurisdiction) hopes will defuse the judge’s righteous anger.
Signed by Assistant US Attorney Kevin Bolan, the response to Judge DuBose’s order to show cause blames ICE for misleading the judge, even though it was Bolan who ultimately did the misleading:
Before the response was filed, I had been informed by ICE about the Petitioner’s pending arrest warrant issued on January 24, 2023, from a court in the Dominican Republic and that I could not disclose that information. I was not aware that ICE had previously disclosed that same information on April 16, 2026. In failing to disclose the information regarding Petitioner’s criminal history, I relied on ICE’s representation that I was not permitted to disclose that information and understood that a legitimate law enforcement reason prevented disclosure. Judge DuBose, therefore, lacked that information about the Petitioner’s criminal background when she granted the petition.
I sincerely apologize to Judge DuBose, personally, and to the entire Court for the consequences of this lack of disclosure.
Sure, contrition is welcomed. But it’s not quite as welcome when (1) ICE had already disclosed this fact, (2) the DHS continues to post an unwarranted attack on this “activist judge,” and (3) nobody in the government appears willing to act honestly until a court forces them to do it.
The DOJ may have some plausible deniability, but that relies on everyone assuming this administration is so disjointed some fingers may not even know what other fingers are doing, which is something that needs to be addressed before we get to larger questions vis-à-vis right hands and left hands knowing what each other are up to.
And while the DOJ may have some legitimate complaints about being both understaffed and overwhelmed by immigration cases, the problem lies with Donald Trump and his cabinet full of bigoted middle managers. The administration is still hoping to eject nearly a half-million more people by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the DOJ continues to bleed talent thanks to loyalty purges and prosecutors walking off the job because they can’t stomach what they’re being commanded to do.
The solution is contempt charges. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a start. Judge DuBose says she’s looking at both the DOJ and DHS. If any entity should bear the brunt of this, it’s the DHS, which continues to post misleading invective targeting this judge, as well as being instrumental in the burial of information the judge should have had access to while making a release determination.
And while I understand that contempt charges just mean taxpayers will continue to bail out an administration unworthy of its tax dollars, it will at least contribute to the steady drip of adverse rulings. When enough of those pile up, it becomes a flood this administration won’t be able to contain.
Filed Under: contempt, dhs, doj, kevin bolan, mass deportation, rhode island, rule of law, trump administration
As we’ve mentioned a few times, $42.5 billion in taxpayer-funded broadband subsidies will soon start hitting the states next year courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill’s Broadband, Equity And Deployment (BEAD) program. Efforts to expand affordable fiber access don’t get all that much press attention in the AI hustlebro era, but the impact will be massive all the same.
Unfortunately, a ton of that money is going to be given to giant telecom monopolies with a long history of empty promises and half-completed networks. But an impressive chunk will also wind up in the hands of smaller broadband ISPs, cooperatives, city-owned electrical utilities, and municipal broadband networks, allowing them to build fiber access out into areas that would have never seen service otherwise.
Unsurprisingly, entrenched telecom giants like Verizon, Cox, AT&T, and Comcast are working hard to ensure the lion’s share of this funding goes to them, and not pesky competition. That has involved overstating coverage areas so that other companies can’t get funds, trying to block funds from funding direct competitors, or miring competing grant applications in costly bureaucratic grant challenges.
Since the states are in charge of fund disbursement, how corrupt and fucked up fund dispersal is will be highly state dependent. Some states, like New York, California, or Vermont, are spending big on popular community broadband networks. Other states, like Pennsylvania, are just throwing the lion’s share of funding at giants like Verizon, ignoring the company’s long history of sketchy subsidy abuse.
In Rhode Island, incumbent cable giant Cox Communications has filed a court challenge attempting to block the state from doling out $108.7 million to the company’s competitors.
Cox is very upset that not all of the state’s share of infrastructure bill broadband money is going to Cox, so they’re trying to pretend the process was somehow flawed:
“The cable company claims Rhode Island used “flawed Internet speed data” to determine which areas are underserved and that the plan “will benefit wealthy parts of the State already served with high-speed Internet in contravention of the program that it purports to implement.”
Cable and phone giants have lobbied extensively (with mixed results) to make sure the majority of this infrastructure money goes to completely unserved, heavily rural locations they historically couldn’t care about because of the high cost of deployment. The problem is that limited competition means that affordability is also a key consideration; so driving some new competition into these stagnant suburban and urban markets where apathetic regional monopolies like Cox do business would also be helpful.
Cox, of course, doesn’t want that. Like most giant telecoms they’re perfectly happy with their regional domination of largely uncompetitive U.S. broadband access, allowing them to price gouge captive customers. For years, big ISPs like Cox have taken advantage of inaccurate FCC mapping data to overstate their coverage footprints in order to downplay the lack of competition.
Now that the government has improved mapping data (in this case the state also used Ookla crowdsourced speedtest data), and it’s highlighting competition and coverage gaps, Cox is suddenly upset. The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation (RICC) issued a statement correctly noting that Cox is simply angry that it may soon face new competitors in long-stagnant markets:
“Let’s be clear about what’s behind Cox’s lawsuit: It is an attempt to prevent the investment of $108.7 million in broadband infrastructure in Rhode Island, likely because it realizes that some, or even all, of that money may be awarded through a competitive process to other Internet service providers.”
The RICC also noted that Cox was largely absent from earlier conversations about how the state’s share of BEAD funding would be distributed, and only showed up to whine when it became clear the infrastructure bill would help fund new competitors:
“Cox did not submit public comments on the design of the BEAD program, did not raise concerns at public Broadband Advisory Council meetings (where they are the sole provider represented), and declined to share its network map information during the 90-day Rhode Island Broadband Map Challenge Process. Our planning process was open and participatory, and Cox did not participate.”
This is par for the course for U.S. telecom monopolies. They work tirelessly to crush all competition in a region with the help of corrupt and state federal lawmakers. Then, when somebody actually does anything that addresses regional monopoly power, they whine, and file lawsuits, and kick and scream like rich, petulant toddlers who didn’t get the right toy for Christmas.
I spend pretty much every week now talking to a different municipality somewhere in the U.S. that has been able to build out affordable new fiber networks thanks to either 2021 COVID relief legislation (ARPA) or the infrastructure bill. In many instances, the funding is helping to construct new open access fiber networks that deliver locals uncapped, symmetrical gigabit fiber access for as little as $70 a month.
You can see how fat and comfortable cable giants, used to charging twice that for slower service, might not appreciate that.
These projects may not be seeing much nationwide press attention, but they’re hugely impactful all the same. This being government, I’m laboring under no illusions that there won’t be ample graft at the hands of lazily-regulated telecom giants. But I’m also seeing first hand how these funds are making a meaningful difference in a lot of long-neglected communities country wide.
Filed Under: bead, broadband, competition, fiber, gigabit, high speed internet, infrastructure bill, rhode island, telecom
Companies: cox communications
Kind of an odd bit of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence here, given all the factors. (h/t FourthAmendment.com)
Obviously, some conversations have an expectation of privacy, even when they’re held in police interrogation rooms. Those would be ones between the suspect and their legal representation. But that’s not really a Fourth Amendment issue as it is about privileged communications. The government isn’t allowed to eavesdrop on suspects as they work on a legal defense and/or make statements to their lawyer.
Then there’s the assumption that pretty much everything a cop would like to listen to is recorded, starting with anything said in interrogation rooms (minus attorney-client communications) and ending with phone calls placed from jail phones. (On the other hand, if a cop doesn’t want anyone to hear the conversation, recordings in interrogation rooms just disappear, or never spring into existence.)
That’s one assumption of the expectation of privacy: there isn’t one. But, as this decision [PDF] from the Supreme Court of Rhode Island points out, there can be an expectation of privacy in interrogation room conversations with people who aren’t cops. It won’t work for everyone. There are a lot of things that need to happen, beginning with a solid invocation of rights by the person being interrogated.
It began this way:
On February 6, 2020, at approximately 6:15 a.m., Providence police officers executed an arrest warrant at the home of [Marklyn] Brown’s mother and apprehended Mr. Brown. Later that morning, at approximately 9:45 a.m., five different Providence police officers began questioning Mr. Brown in an interview room at the police station about his alleged involvement in Ms. Pereira-Roldan’s death, and sought to obtain a confession from him. Throughout the duration of this interrogation, the interrogating officers engaged in repeated attempts (1) to convince Mr. Brown that the state had obtained overwhelming evidence of his guilt in this matter; (2) to persuade Mr. Brown to admit his involvement in killing Ms. Pereira-Roldan based on a theory that he accidentally shot her; and (3) to pressure Mr. Brown into accepting responsibility for his alleged actions through their insistence that he had a moral obligation to do so.
The usual coercion didn’t work. Marklyn Brown steadfastly refused to talk to the police officers. He repeatedly expressed his willingness to speak to only one person: his mother. This statement — along with all his refusals to talk to the officers — was captured by the PD’s recording devices.
“MR. BROWN: I want to talk to my mom. That’s all I want to talk to.
“[DETECTIVE] MICHAEL: I can make that happen. I can definitely make that happen. ’Cause we told your mom that we would call her. Your mom doesn’t know what’s going on, just to let you know. Okay? I will get on making a call to your mom to come down here. Okay?
“MR. BROWN: Yeah, ’cause that’s the only person I really want to talk to as of, like, right now. Only person I want to talk to.”
Despite explicitly acknowledging the facts that Brown would not talk to them and only wanted to talk to his mom, the officers continued interrogating him for another three hours. Detective Michael’s promise to “get on” that phone call to Brown’s mom was apparently just another of those famous cop conversational tactics. You know: a lie.
Finally, the officers did bring in Brown’s mom to talk with him. The officers then implied he was being left alone to have a private conversation.
“MR. BROWN: WHAT’S GOING ON?
“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: Boss. Mom’s here.
“MR. BROWN: All right. How can I speak with her?
“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: We’re gonna bring Mom in here.
“MR. BROWN: Okay.
“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: We’re gonna leave this room.
“MR. BROWN: Fair enough. I appreciate that.”
The detectives then physically left the room to give Brown the privacy they insinuated they were providing him with. But they didn’t shut off their recording devices. They listened in on this “private” conversation, interrogated Brown for three more hours, and then finally allowed him to return to his cell.
This led to the trial court suppressing the evidence the cops had obtained by eavesdropping:
Ultimately, the trial justice suppressed both the interrogation, beginning at page twenty-two of the interrogation transcript, and Mr. Brown’s entire conversation with his mother. The trial justice determined that Mr. Brown asserted his right to remain silent when he stated that he wanted to speak with his mother and only with his mother, thus clearly implying that he did not want to speak with them. With respect to Mr. Brown’s conversation with his mother, the trial justice determined that those same statements to the interrogating officers, recorded on page twenty two of the interrogation transcript, also clearly implied that Mr. Brown reasonably expected that the officers would not involve themselves in his conversation with his mother when left alone with her. In evaluating Mr. Brown’s expectation of privacy, the trial justice noted the lack of evidence indicating that the interrogating officers informed his mother that they would record their conversation. Finally, the trial justice supported his decision to suppress the remainder of the interrogation by referencing Mr. Brown’s affirmative statement, once the interrogation resumed, that he did not wish to answer any further questions.
The government appealed this decision, arguing that there’s no expectation of privacy in conversations held in interrogation rooms where cops have access to recording devices. But that’s simply not true, says the court. And the Rhode Island State Constitution. And the US Constitution.
Brown had made it exceedingly clear he was going to exercise his right to remain silent by refusing to talk to the officers. He also made it clear he only wished to speak to one person, who definitely wasn’t a cop. The cops led him to believe this conversation would be private. They made the same insinuation to his mother when she was allowed to speak to him.
It was only after they’d already violated the Constitution that they went in and made it clear to Mr. Brown that they’d done exactly that. Unbelievably, it’s this unforced error the government thinks should have waived any privacy expectations Brown might have had.
“[SERGEANT] ZUENA: Trying to help you out, man. She’s trying to help you out, man. She told a few things, what you guys discussed, man. That’s all. I’m just telling you. How the * * * would I know that?
“MR. BROWN: Camera.
“[SERGEANT] ZUENA: The cam-, what’s the camera got to do with it?
“MR. BROWN: There’s a camera in this room, and it’s probably being voice-recorded. I know what you guys do in an interrogation room.”
Aha! said the government. He did know his “private” conversation was being recorded, ipso facto no expectation of privacy.
But that’s not how this works, says the court. Not under the Constitution, whether it’s the one put together by the federal government or the one we’ve erected in Rhode Island.
Mr. Brown’s acknowledgement of Sgt. Zuena’s awareness of the content of the conversation simply demonstrates that, during this interaction with Sgt. Zuena, Mr. Brown learned that the police had eavesdropped on his conversation. The fact that Mr. Brown identified the medium through which the police monitored the conversation does not necessarily imply that Mr. Brown knew, from the inception of the conversation, that the interrogating officers were recording it.
And arguing that Brown should have assumed any conversation he had in this room would be listened to by cops misses the point, as well. Just because it might be reasonable to assume this doesn’t mean a reasonable expectation of privacy in conversations with non-cops simply doesn’t exist. Especially not when a suspect has already invoked (even indirectly) the right to remain silent by making it clear they will not talk to cops. That all of this occurred in the confines of a police interrogation room changes nothing.
First, we have unmistakably held that the Fourth Amendment and article 1, section 6 of the Rhode Island Constitution protect people, not the locations they find themselves in. Where, as here, interrogating officers create an environment that reasonably allows an individual suspected of a crime to believe that they may have a private conversation, an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the content of that conversation exists.
Second, we have held that law enforcement officers lack the authority to engage in an indirect interrogation of a suspect when they do not have the authority to proceed with a direct interrogation. Even if this Court assumed that Mr. Brown had a full awareness that the interrogating officers recorded his conversation from the outset, Mr. Brown’s invocation of his right to remain silent prevented them from attempting to extract further information in support of their investigation.
That’s the key part there: because he had invoked his right to remain silent, even without a recognized expectation of privacy, the officers would have still been denied access to this evidence because it was obtained by someone else and never offered directly to the officers by the person on the other end of the conversation.
Of course, this just means the cops are free to try to sweat down the other end of the conversation. But since they’re not suspected of any criminal acts, they’ve got more options, including a flat refusal to discuss the conversation. And if the only reason officers are interested in this person because they eavesdropped on a conversation the conversants assumed would be private, they can’t even use this illicit information gain as leverage against the non-suspect.
So, it is held: there’s a reasonable expectation of privacy in some conversations occurring in cop sweat boxes, but probably only in cases where rights have been invoked and cops have been dumb enough to ensure people their conversation would be private shortly before they all put their headphones on and started listening in.
Filed Under: 4th amendment, evidence, expectation of privacy, interrogation, marklyn brown, privacy, rhode island
Today’s most inexplicable legislative news comes to us from the state of Rhode Island, where legislators are apparently accepting (and submitting!) unsolicited pre-written bills from strangers on the street.
[Rep. Grace] Diaz told The Journal she introduced the legislation at the request of a man named Chris who approached her after a State House hearing, wearing what appeared to be a military uniform.
According to Diaz, Chris told her he had been “accused of something,″ and then found not guilty.
Diaz said the man told her the media reported the accusations, but not his acquittal, so he was left with a damaged reputation and no recourse. Diaz said the man gave her a copy of the bill, which appears to echo a bill filed in Mississippi.
Rep. Diaz asked Senator Sandra Cano to introduce the bill in the Senate, promising to do the same thing on the House side. Diaz did not do this and now Sen. Cano is trying to separate herself from a bill that openly threatens First Amendment protections while citing the enshrined right on its way to tarnishing it shortly thereafter.
The “Stop Guilt by Association Act” [PDF] threatens journalists with punishment if they don’t report on the outcome of court cases, civil and criminal. The incredibly stupid act is pure cognitive dissonance that would fine newspapers up to $10,000 for “failing” to report on lawsuit dismissals and dropped charges — supposedly with an eye on maintaining some bizarre level of “fairness” for subjects of news coverage.
In their legislation, the lawmakers acknowledge that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says the government “shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.”
But they make this argument in their bill:
“The state has a compelling interest to compel the press to promote the objective truth for the sake of the viability of democracy and for the safety, health, and welfare of our communities and in keeping with the spirit of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and to stop the press from serving as a slander machine.”
For many reasons, legislators shouldn’t accept pre-written bills handed to them by people outside the legislature. They especially shouldn’t accept legislation written by this particular “Chris,” no matter what he’s wearing.
The man who spoke to Diaz was Chris Sevier, an anti-gay and anti-abortion activist who at one point was accused of stalking country music star John Rich.
This is the idiot behind multiple states’ declarations that porn is a “public health crisis.” This is the same man who once sued Apple because its products didn’t prevent him from viewing porn. He has also previously talked Rhode Island legislators into introducing extremely questionable legislation, so perhaps someone should have called bullshit on this before tossing it into the Senate’s inbox.
While it’s understandable people might not recognize Sevier on sight, despite his insistence on thrusting himself uninvited into the legislative limelight, it’s pretty much inexcusable to take a handful of paper from some rando on the street and ask other legislators to damage their own reputations by association.
Rep. Diaz at least appears to be properly horrified by this experience.
“My feeling is beyond what I can express,″ Diaz told The Journal on Thursday, after learning of Sevier’s history. “If I knew, I would run ten-thousand-million miles away from that guy.”
She said she sympathized with the issue Sevier raised in their very brief conversation, but regrets not doing more homework on him — and the legislation.
“I didn’t do my research,″ she said. “This is an experience that will teach me a lot for the future.”
But Senator Cano — despite withdrawing the bill — seems far too sympathetic to First Amendment-threatening legislation. Calling the lack of followup to indictments and lawsuits by journalists “fundamentally unfair,” Cano says she sympathizes with the intent of the bill, even if she realizes it runs afoul of the First Amendment.
No legislator should feel sympathetic to Sevier or his word salad. His bill is an unedited letter to the editor — one that makes its point about as skillfully and subtly as a Larry Klayman lawsuit.
“There has been a growing trend for individuals to abuse process and maliciously prosecute someone they disagree with ideologically by filing spurious cases and controversies in various government venues for ulterior motives, knowing that certain segments of the media that align with their ideology would serve as an accomplice by engaging in a form of defamation … by selectively reporting on the facts of the original case but not on the actual outcome.”
TIL: reporting on facts is defamation if it doesn’t include the facts someone might prefer to be highlighted. OK, then.
Fortunately, the bill is already dead. Unfortunately, this shows how little due diligence legislators do before submitting bills for consideration. A few minutes of Googling would have seen this headed to the trash receptacle, rather than the state legislature’s permanent record. And even the most cursory glance at its contents would have made it clear the bill was unconstitutional. Better late than never, I guess. But in this case, never would have been the much better option.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, chris sevier, defamation, free speech, freedom of the press, grace diaz, rhode island, sandra cano, stop guilt by association
For years now, a guy by the name of Chris Sevier has been waging a fairly facts-optional war on porn. Sevier first came to fame for trying to marry his computer to protest same sex marriage back in 2016. He also tried to sue Apple after blaming the Cuppertino giant for his own past porn addiction, and has gotten into trouble for allegedly stalking country star John Rich and a 17-year-old girl. Sevier has since been a cornerstone of an effort to pass truly awful porn filter legislation in more than 15 states under the disengenuous guise of combatting human trafficking.
Dubbed the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act,” all of the incarnations of the law would force ISPs to filter pornography and other “patently offensive material.” The legislation would then force state residents interested in viewing porn to pony up a one-time $20 “digital access fee” to whitelist the internet’s naughty bits . The proposal is patently absurd, technically impossible to implement, and yet somehow these bills continue to get further than they ever should across a huge swath of the boob-phobic country.
Rhode Island was the latest state to consider such legislation, their version of the law (pdf) imposing fines up to $500 for each instance of offensive content ISPs failed to filter (costs that would, as always, just be passed on to the end consumer while tech-savvy porn users simply tap-dance around the restrictions). Sevier’s garbage legislation saw some success in the state after Sevier randomly affixed kidnapping-victim Elizabeth Smart’s name to the proposal to help sell it (her name is referenced on his website), something Smart herself has been none too happy with.
Thanks to Smart’s recent disgust at having her name hijacked, the original backer of the law in Rhode Island, State Senator Frank Ciccone, has decided to scrap the proposal after learning about its “dubious” origins:
Sen. Frank Ciccone, D-Providence, said he asked that the bill be killed upon learning that Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped as a teenager and whose name was attached to the bill in legislatures across the country, wanted nothing to do with it.
“In light of recent nationwide reporting about the dubious origins of this bill, I have requested that the legislation be withdrawn from today’s Judiciary Committee hearing,” Ciccone said in a Tuesday news release. “Also, after learning that Elizabeth Smart was in no way involved with this legislation, and the fact that 18 other state legislatures have received the same erroneous information leading to similar bills being sponsored across the country, I am withdrawing this legislation from the 2018 Senate session.”
And while that’s great and all, it would have taken Ciccone all of five minutes of internet research to discover the dubious origins of these proposals, since this bullshit has been going on for several years now. Again, none of these proposals should be getting anywhere close to being seriously considered, and the guy crafting them shouldn’t be writing commercial jingle ideas on cocktail napkins, much less state law.
Filed Under: chris sevier, elizabeth smart, filters, first amendment, frank ciccone, free speech, porn filter, rhode island
It may be time to do some tests of Rhode Island water for heavy metals, as the state is experiencing a spasm of stupid when it comes to lawmaking. You will recall that there have been two recent proposals for new taxes in Rhode Island, one that would target video games rated “Mature” or higher, and one taxing the removal of porn-blocking software from any internet connected device sold in the state. If both sound almost hilariously unconstitutional to you, don’t worry, they are. These laws likely won’t pass and, if they do, the Supreme Court will certainly look upon them the same way a professional golfer looks at a two-inch putt. That the work of the anti-porn law is largely that of Chris Sevier, or Mark Sevier when the mood strikes him, who once tried to marry his own computer in protest of gay marriage and has been charged with stalking people twice, gives rise to one question: why are legislators in several states paying any of this any attention at all?
Sadly, it’s an open question. Mostly unreported in the past is that Sevier is pitching this law, formally the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act, by slapping Elizabeth Smart’s name all over it and promoting it as the Elizabeth Smart Law. Smart, should you not know, was kidnapped when she was a teenager and forced by her captor to do all sorts of inhuman things, including the forced watching of pornography. Smart now often speaks about the harm of some pornography in some situations for some people. What she has not done, apparently, is consented to have her name used to push this particular bill in Rhode Island.
Smart, who was kidnapped from her Utah home as a teenager in 2002, sent a cease-and-desist letter to demand her name be removed from it. And the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, an anti-pornography advocacy group, demanded last year that the man behind the legislation, Chris Sevier, stop claiming it supported his work.
Sevier said he chose Smart’s name because she has spoken about the negative effects of pornography, including saying that pornography during her captivity “made my living hell worse.”
After being told by AP earlier this month that Smart’s lawyer was sending a cease-and-desist letter, Sevier said the name “Elizabeth Smart Law” was an “offhand name” that had been given to the legislation by lawmakers. The bill is also being promoted as the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act.
Cute, but Sevier’s site still has Elizabeth Smart’s name slapped across the top of his website he’s using to push the bill at the time of this writing. Regardless of who came up with the idea to use her name, Sevier has used it, is using it, and by all accounts isn’t intending to stop using it anytime soon.
Asked if he would take her name off the site, Sevier wouldn’t say.
“It’s not that we will take it down or won’t take it down,” he said. “It’s irrelevant.”
And, yet, not irrelevant to the person who’s name Sevier is using so brazenly. Let’s not forget that Smart is herself a victim of horrible, horrible crimes. She has since made a job of advocating for child safety and also contributes to news organizations. Whatever you might think of her stances, she is a smart, courageous woman who has tried to make something meaningful out of an absolutely awful deck of cards she was dealt. This pernicious continued use of her name should certainly qualify as re-victimization.
So, again, why are legislators working with this clown?
Filed Under: chris sevier, elizabeth smart, laws, porn filter, pornography, rhode island, tax
Rhode Island lawmakers are proposing a new law (pdf) that would force ISPs to filter pornography and other “patently offensive material.” It would then force state residents interested in viewing porn to pony up a one-time $20 “digital access fee” to whitelist the internet’s naughty bits for each internet-connected device in the home, the money purportedly going toward helping combat human trafficking. ISPs would be required to build entire new support systems (on their dime) to help combat porn, and would face fines of $500 for each instance of offensive content that ISPs failed to censor.
The bill is worded vaguely enough to suggest that hardware vendors could also be held liable if they failed to help censor said “patently offensive” material:
“If a person who manufacturers, sells, offers for sale, leases, or distributes a product that makes content accessible on the Internet is unresponsive to a report of sexual content or patently offensive material that has breached the filter required by this section, the attorney general or a consumer may file a civil suit. The attorney general or a consumer may seek damages of up to five hundred dollars ($500) for each piece of content that was reported but not subsequently blocked. The prevailing party in the civil action may seek attorneys’ fees.”
Upon initial inspection, this awful proposal would just appear to be garden-variety vanilla stupid. It’s technically impossible, annoyingly expensive, unlikely to ever pass, and (like most filter programs) would likely only cause collateral damage to the access of legitimate content. But the proposal is actually just one of more than a dozen similar proposals winding their way through numerous state legislatures. All of these bills follow the same, absurd playbook, and all falsely try to use child trafficking as a bogus straw man to justify censorship.
And they’re all being spearheaded by a man named Chris Sevier, whose checkered history suggests he shouldn’t be writing love notes on cocktail napkins, much less helping craft state-level legislation:
“Chris Sevier, 40, who sometimes goes by Mark Sevier in court and Chris Severe in communications with state legislators, has a contentious and often intentionally provocative relationship with the American court system that is news to at least some of the bill?s co-sponsors. He once famously tried to legally marry his computer to protest same-sex marriage, and was charged with stalking and harassing both country star John Rich and a 17-year-old girl.”
Lovely. Sevier’s war on porn, and his effort to obfuscate his real agenda by professing to be combating human trafficking, isn’t new. Sevier has also filed suit against Apple in the past for the company’s failure to implement more robust porn filters. Said lawsuit was jam-packed with spelling and other errors, and he claimed that Apple’s failure to police porn resulted him in seeing “pornographic images that appealed to his biological sensibilities as a male and lead to an unwanted addiction with adverse consequences.”
Somehow, Sevier has had some notable success convincing lawmakers to push their own versions of the same draft legislation. We’ve covered previous iterations of these efforts, which all use human trafficking as a bogeyman to justify ham-fisted and technologically unworkable censorship efforts. South Carolina Senator Bill Chumley pushed one-such incarnation of this effort in late 2016. We’ve also covered similar efforts in Virginia. Time and time again, the lawmakers backing these proposals fail utterly in explaining how their legislation actually harms human trafficking in any material way.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation last week did a good job highlighting the scope of this absurdity, noting that more than fifteen states are now pushing some flavor of the ?Human Trafficking Prevention Act? (HTPA). Again, none of the bills actually do anything to stop human trafficking, but do appear to enjoy using the subject to obfuscate the problems inherent in hysterical puritanical hyperventilation and censorship. And as the EFF notes, the fact that these proposals are logistically unworkable doesn’t appear to bother their backers in the slightest:
“The bill would force the companies we rely upon for open access to the Internet to create a massive, easily abused censorship apparatus. Tech companies would be required to operate call centers or online reporting centers to monitor complaints about which sites should or should not be filtered. The technical requirements for this kind of aggressive platform censorship at scale are simply unworkable. If the attempts of social media sites to censor pornographic images are any indication, we cannot count on algorithms to distinguish, for example, nude art from medical information from pornography. Facing risk of legal liability, companies would likely over-censor and sweep up legal content in their censorship net.
Numerous states (like New Mexico) have backed off their own proposals after the EFF raised the alarm, but it remains stunning just how much traction these efforts have seen despite being technologically impossible, hugely expensive, utterly disingenuous, and the intellectual and legislative equivalent of some random internet troll’s epic brain fart.
Filed Under: chris severe, chris sevier, filter, htpa, human trafficking prevention act, mark sevier, porn filter, rhode island
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