By The Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has provided a federal judge with testimony from 22 separate advocacy organizations detailing how the National Security Agency’s mass telephone records collection program has impeded the groups’ work, discouraged their members and reduced the numbers of people seeking their help via hotlines.
The declarations accompanied a motion for partial summary judgment filed last week in which EFF asks the court to declare the surveillance illegal on two levels – the law does not authorize the program, and the Constitution forbids it.

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Posted on November 11, 2013

By Charles Ornstein/ProPublica

“This is what keeps me up at night,” Tanya Case told me earlier this week.
Case is executive director of the Oklahoma Temporary High Risk Pool, funded by the federal government to sell insurance to people denied coverage by private health insurers. Her worry is about some 300,000 people in her program and others like it who now must quickly find health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
Many of the program are set to close by law on Dec. 31.

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Posted on November 9, 2013

By Charles Ornstein/ProPublica

Kaiser Permanente’s decision to cancel the insurance policies of lifelong Democrats Lee Hammack and JoEllen Brothers generated a flood of interest.
The couple, supporters of President Obama, may have to spend twice as much next year for a health insurance plan that has fewer benefits than the plan they have.
Kaiser explained to them, and to me, that their plan didn’t meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act and therefore had to be canceled.
But how could it be, many readers wondered, that the seemingly inferior plan offered for next year met the requirements of the act while the richer one they currently have does not?

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Posted on November 8, 2013

By Charles Ornstein/ProPublica

San Francisco architect Lee Hammack says he and his wife, JoEllen Brothers, are “cradle Democrats.”
They have donated to the liberal group Organizing for America and worked the phone banks a year ago for President Obama’s re-election.
Since 1995, Hammack and Brothers have received their health coverage from Kaiser Permanente, where Brothers worked until 2009 as a dietician and diabetes educator.
“We’ve both been in very good health all of our lives – exercise, don’t smoke, drink lightly, healthy weight, no health issues, and so on,” Hammack told me.
The couple – Lee, 60, and JoEllen, 59 – have been paying $550 a month for their health coverage – a plan that offers solid coverage, not one of the skimpy plans Obama has criticized.
But recently, Kaiser informed them the plan would be canceled at the end of the year because it did not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. The couple would need to find another one. The cost would be around double what they pay now, but the benefits would be worse.

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Posted on November 7, 2013

Compare and Contrast

At least our mayor doesn’t smoke crack, though sometimes it sure seems like he’s on it.
Rahm: Noted fundraiser.
Rob: Noted funraiser.
Rahm: Closed 50 schools.
Rob: Smoked 50 bowls.
Rahm: Born with silver spoon in his mouth.
Rob: Born with silver spoon on his Bunsen burner.
Rahm: The fix is in.
Rob: Needs a fix.

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Posted on November 6, 2013

By Cora Currier/ProPublica

Nearly six months ago, President Obama promised more transparency and tighter policies around targeted killings.
In a speech, Obama vowed that the U.S. would only use force against a “continuing and imminent threat to the American people.” It would fire only when there was “near-certainty” civilians would not be killed or injured, and when capture was not feasible.
The number of drone strikes has dropped this year, but they’ve continued to make headlines.
On Friday, a U.S. drone killed the head of the Pakistani Taliban. A few days earlier came the first drone strike in Somalia in nearly two years.
How much has changed since the president’s speech?

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Posted on November 6, 2013

Unburying Democracy

Rising from the undead.
1. CPS Students “Go Zombie” At CPS Headquarters And City Hall To Protest Death Of Chicago Education.
From The Chicago Students Union:
Chicago Public School students will be “going zombie” this Friday to represent the death of Chicago’s public education system. They will march at 4 p.m. from CPS headquarters, at 125 South Clark Street to City Hall where they will request a meeting with Mayor Emanuel. They are demanding that CPS funding given to charter schools be re-allocated to public schools; a democratically elected board of education, and; that the TIF surplus be used for public education.

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Posted on October 31, 2013

Scariest Holiday Ever

Boo.
* Pat Quinn going as governor.
* Bill Daley was going to go as a candidate for U.S. senate or governor, but decided to stay home instead.
* Joe Berrios going as himself – can’t think of anything scarier.
* Sheila Simon going as herself – a ghost.
* Bruce Rauner going as Rahm Emanuel – and vice versa.

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Posted on October 30, 2013

By Justin Elliott and Theodoric Meyer/ProPublica

Two weeks after Edward Snowden’s first revelations about sweeping government surveillance, President Obama shot back.
“We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany,” Obama said during a visit to Berlin in June. “So lives have been saved.”
In the months since, intelligence officials, media outlets, and members of Congress from both parties all repeated versions of the claim that NSA surveillance has stopped more than 50 terrorist attacks. The figure has become a key talking point in the debate around the spying programs.

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Posted on October 23, 2013

Another Beachwood Special Report

“Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to balance next year’s budget by asking smokers and cable TV customers to pay more, cutting spending and hoping that a rosier economy will fill city coffers with more tax dollars,” the Tribune reports.
“The picture of what the mayor will say Wednesday when he delivers his annual budget address to the Chicago City Council emerged as top aides briefed aldermen behind closed doors Tuesday.”
The Beachwood has learned Rahm will propose the following measures:

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Posted on October 23, 2013