Political MoJo

On Tuesday, judges on the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Arizona law that would have banned abortions at 20 weeks. The judges called the law "unconstitutional under an unbroken stream of Supreme Court authority." This is the first 20-week ban to be struck down in court.

The judges wrote that Arizona "may not deprive a woman of the choice to terminate her pregnancy at any point prior to viability," echoing the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade 40 years ago that abortion should be legal up to the point that a fetus is can survive outside of the womb, which is usually construed as 24 weeks.

Anti-abortion state legislatures have passed a number of laws in recent years shortening the period in which abortion is legal. Arizona's 20-week ban was not the first in the US, but it was the first one that national reproductive rights groups challenged in court. It was, at the time, the strictest in the country, as it dated the 20 weeks from a woman's most recent menstruation rather than from the date of conception. (Taking basic biology and math into account, the bill actually banned abortion 18 weeks after the woman became pregnant). But after the Arizona law was passed in April 2012, other states passed even stricter rules; Arkansas banned abortions at 12 weeks in March 2013, and North Dakota banned them at 6 weeks a few weeks later.

Meanwhile, an anti-abortion lawmaker from Arizona has been trying to export the law. Republican Congressman Trent Franks introduced a bill last week that would impose a 20-week ban in Washington, DC as well.

Reproductive rights groups hope that Tuesday's ruling sends a warning to other states that might consider similar restrictions. "Today's decision is a huge victory in the fight to protect women's fundamental reproductive rights, and it should send a clear message to anti-choice politicians that their attempts to deprive pregnant women of critical health care are clearly unconstitutional and will not hold up in court," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which joined with the ACLU to challenge the Arizona law.

The Center for Reproductive Rights also filed suit against another anti-abortion law in North Dakota earlier this month, and is expected to challenge the state's 6-week ban as well. CRR and the ACLU also won a preliminary injunction last week blocking Arkansas' 12-week ban from taking effect.

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On Monday, Guatemala's Constitutional Court overturned the conviction of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, an army general who ruled as de facto president from 1982 to 1983. On May 10, Ríos Montt, 86, was found guilty by a three-panel tribunal on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 80 years in the slammer; he is the first former head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. But less than two weeks later, Guatemala's highest court threw out all proceedings in the case dating back to April 19, in part thanks to an aggressive lobbying effort by the nation's most influential business federation. Due to the court's 3-2 decision, the way forward—for Ríos Montt's opponents, for his supporters—has been thrown into question. After Monday's ruling, Ríos Montt was sent back to house arrest, where he had been since the case started in January 2012.

Here's a quick reminder of who Efraín Ríos Montt is, and what he did.

1. During his 17-month stint as military dictator, he oversaw the genocide by his armed forces of at least 1,771 members of the indigenous Maya Ixil population. Roughly 100 survivors testified during the course of his trial.

This Guatemala City newspaper reads, "Ríos Montt charged with 11 massacres." Via Granito: How to Nail a Dictator/Facebook

2. Along with the mass murder, his military regime carried out a policy of forced displacement, forced assimilation, torture, systematic rape and sexual assault, starvation, and arbitrary execution against those labeled as political opponents.

3. Due to his staunchly anti-communist attitudes during the Guatemalan Civil War, the general received plenty of financial, military, and political support from President Ronald Reagan's administration and friends in the United States. (Ríos Montt is an alumnus of the School of the Americas, a Department of Defense-owned institute and notorious tyrant-mill at Fort Benning, Georgia that taught torture, blackmail, death-squad tactics, and counter-insurgency to numerous Latin American strongmen and human rights abusers.)

Here's Reagan speaking to reporters following his meeting with Ríos Montt in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on December 4, 1982:

Well, ladies and gentlemen, President Ríos Montt and I have just had a useful exchange of ideas on the problems of the region and on our bilateral relations...I know that President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. His country is confronting a brutal challenge from guerrillas armed and supported by others outside Guatemala. I have assured the president that the United States is committed to support his efforts to restore democracy and to address the root causes of this violent insurgency. I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice. My administration will do all it can to support his progressive efforts.

For all the accusations of obscene human rights violations, Reagan maintained that Ríos Montt was simply getting a "bum rap" from naïve activists.

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On Friday, I wrote a piece for Mother Jones speculating that government spying on press communications may not be "unprecedented," as Associated Press head Gary Pruitt put it, but simply rarely disclosed. The rules requiring disclosure of such surveillance, after all, only appear to apply to "subpoenas" for "telephone toll records"; they do not cover other secret tools deployed by federal law enforcement, such as National Security Letters. Even outside the shadowy world of intelligence, as federal magistrate judge Stephen Smith has observed, court orders granting government access to electronic communication records routinely remain secret indefinitely. I suggested that there could be quite a few other cases like the AP story that we've never learned about, even if the Justice Department has been scrupulously following its own rules, because such cases might not involve grand jury subpoenas for phone logs.

It is rare for someone who writes about the intelligence community to have speculation of this sort confirmed almost instantly, but a report in the Washington Post Monday has shined a spotlight on another hitherto unreported leak investigation in which the Justice Department obtained a warrant to read the email of Fox News reporter James Rosen. The warrant in that case was sealed for over a year; it appears to have remained publicly unnoticed until today—nearly three years after the search of Rosen's email was authorized. Should anyone believe this is the only such instance of the government snooping into a reporter's email that hasn't yet come to light?

The Rosen case is especially unsettling because the warrant affidavit suggests that Rosen himself could be subject to prosecution under the Espionage Act, on the grounds that his alleged encouragement to a source to provide classified information amounted to "conspiracy." The attempt to redefine a routine and necessary part of national security reporting as crime is unprecedented.

Whether Rosen is prosecuted or not, the Justice Department targeting a reporter as a possible "co-conspirator" is troubling. The case against National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake—who revealed massive waste in the agency's deals with intelligence contractors—ultimately collapsed. The information he'd revealed was embarrassing to the government, not dangerous to national security. But Drake's life was shattered, and a clear message sent to others who might seek to embarrass the government. A similar dynamic is at play in this case. Reporters are already feeling the chilling effects of the AP leak investigation. The government may or may not succeed in jailing leakers (or, perhaps at some point, reporters), but the point is to ensure that government sources are too scared to talk to press without approval.

That might sound like a fine idea if at risk were only vital national security secrets whose publication would endanger the United States. But as even top intelligence officials have acknowledged, overclassification is rampant in government. Much basic information, without which effective national security reporting would be impossible, is reflexively classified, whether or not it poses any realistic security risks, and reporters routinely discuss such information with sources. In practice, that means the government can pick and choose which leakers to go after—and which ones to wink at, because they're serving the administration's interests. No doubt, the government does have an interest in—and an obligation—to protect legitimate secrets, but an aggressive campaign that targets reporters and subjects them to broad and secret intrusions (and maybe prosecutions as well) will undermine a necessary check on government power and prevent the public from learning crucial information about what is done in its name.

A version of this post was first published on Cato at Liberty.

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The site where Mark Carson was shot on West 8th Street, New York. Police say the killing was a hate crime. James West

Blinding afternoon sun lit the biggest gay rights demonstration in years in New York's West Village Monday. The LGBT community and its supporters, including a couple of mayoral candidates, marched in the wake of a murder that has capped a month-long spate of homophobic violence.

Demonstrators—police say 1,500, organizers say many hundreds more—marched through the leafy streets that gave birth to the gay rights movement to the  corner where Mark Carson, 32, was shot in the face and killed Friday night as he walked with a friend. Police have charged Elliot Morales, 33, with second-degree murder and a hate crime, accusing him of hurling homophobic slurs at Carson.

Flourine Bompars, Carson's aunt, addressed the crowd, calling Carson "a loving and caring person" who will not be forgotten.

The audience applauded and cheered loudly after Bishop Zachary Jones of Unity Fellowship Church of Christ, East New York, shouted, "There is room for everyone at the table of love... and we will march and we will come closer together to make sure everyone has the right to be who they are."

Protestors march through New York's west village. Police and community groups say there has been an upwing in "bias" crimes. James West

The randomness of Carson's death has sent a  jolt through the gay community. "It's clear that the victim here was killed only because and just because he was thought to be gay," the police commissioner, Ray Kelly, said on Sunday.

Community leaders say Carson's death is part of a worrying citywide trend: an uptick in violence against gay people, with five incidents this month alone. Police say "bias crimes" have risen this year compared to the same period last year, from 13 to 22, and advocates say that was on top of rising reports of violence from the previous year.

"The most pain is emotional," said Nick Porto, a 27-year-old fashion designer from Brooklyn, who was assaulted this month with his boyfriend Kevin Atkins, 22, as they walked near Madison Square after a Knicks game. (Police have released a video of the suspects).

"Mark is not going to die in vain. We are not going to get beat up in vain," Porto said after the rally. "Gay rights, we're still fighting for them, and the fight is not over. We need to protect each other."

Nick Porto (L) and Kevin Atkins, a couple, were assaulted after a Knicks game on May 5th. James West

But the source of the increase in violence is hard to pin down, say community leaders. Some who spoke at the rally blamed the increased visibility of gay rights: With a greater presence comes greater pushback, the reasoning goes. Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York Anti-Violence Project, says victims are also feeling more comfortable reporting such crimes.

"But I also think we're still living in a country where it's lawful to discriminate against LGBT people, and that sends a message that it's OK to be hateful towards LGBT people," she said.

The protest also formed the backdrop to the race for New York City mayor. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, herself a lesbian, marched alongside relatives of Mark Carson at the head of the rally, but did not speak to the crowd. John Liu, the hyperactive city comptroller who is also a candidate, was at the rally shaking hands and introducing himself.

Nick Porto, the assault victim, admitted he was moved when he looked out across the crowd that filled 8th Street, "My knees got weak, I almost fell, I was just a mess," he said. "It's proof, it's absolute hope in our community, that we will survive this."

"Gay rights isn't just about gay marriage," he told the cheering crowd. "We need to live long enough to share in that opportunity."

John Liu (L), and Christine Quinn with members of the Carson family. Both are running for New York City mayor. James West

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