#civil-liberties

[thepersonalwords]

You can control the visibility of my name and my popularity, but you cannot control the frequency at which people are quoting me. Truth always rises with time.

Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

[afloweroutofstone]

Hannah Arendt, who fled Germany in 1933, later wrote that long before Jews, Roma, gays, Communists and others could be herded into death camps, they had to be “denationalized” — excluded from the society that guaranteed their legal rights. Enlightenment thinkers had posited that just by virtue of existing, each person has inalienable rights. Arendt, however, observed that the “right to have rights” could be guaranteed only by a political community. Without a state to claim them as their own, people have no laws, no courts and no political mechanisms for protecting rights.

Arendt once said that “the generally political became a personal fate when one emigrated.” As a stateless person, she experienced that loss of rights — unable to get papers, hiding from the police, interned as an enemy alien in France — before making it to the United States. She was lucky. Her friend Walter Benjamin committed suicide in his eighth year of exile, when the French authorities blocked him from crossing the border ahead of advancing German troops...

A country that has pushed one group out of its political community will eventually push out others. The Trump administration’s barrage of attacks on trans people can seem haphazard, but as elements of a denationalization project, they fall into place...

The message, consistent and unrelenting, is that trans people are a threat to the nation. The subtext is that we are not of this nation...

The rights the Trump administration is taking away from trans people are relatively new. Only in the past few decades, for example, have clear legal procedures existed for changing the gender marker on identity documents, and only in the past few years have federal and some state authorities made the process fairly easy. But before transgender, gender-nonconforming and intersex people were recognized as a group — or groups — of people who had rights, many could blend in, fly below the radar. Now, in their new rightlessness, they are exposed...

Living with documents that are inconsistent or at odds with your public identity is no small thing. It can keep you from opening a bank account, applying for financial aid, securing a loan, obtaining a driver’s license and traveling freely and safely inside a country or across borders. I was once detained in Russia after a routine road check because an officer thought I was a teenage boy using his mother’s driver’s license.

It’s not just American identity documents that are being scrambled. Like all things American, Trump’s denationalization campaign affects people far beyond the United States. In late February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued visa guidelines, ostensibly designed to keep foreign trans athletes from competing in the United States, that seem to direct consular officers to deny entry to anyone whose gender markers appear different from their sex assigned at birth.

The new regulations require visitors, when filling out the paperwork to cross the border into the United States, to indicate the sex they were assigned at birth. Lucien Lambertz, a German curator who is trans and was planning a professional trip to the United States, told me they worried that they would be denied entry if they complied, indicating a birth sex different from the gender marker in their passport, but also if they didn’t comply.

Lambertz emailed the Foreign Ministry in their country to ask for guidance. “The issue is the subject of tense discussions here at the ministry, and your concerns are absolutely understandable,” the response read, in part. Ordinarily, the Foreign Ministry would suggest asking the U.S. Embassy, but by doing so, as the letter noted, Lambertz “would then ‘out’ yourself to them.”

Trans and nonbinary Germans fear that their country’s incoming conservative government may take its cues from the Trump administration. Far-right parties, ascendant in Germany and other European countries, have made the specter of “gender ideology” a centerpiece of their politics.

“Something has changed,” Heinrich Horwitz, a German choreographer, told me. Horwitz, who is nonbinary, was recently assaulted at the main train station in Vienna. The attacker was demanding to know whether Horwitz was “a girl or a boy.” Before they could make out what the attacker was saying, Horwitz instinctively tucked the Star of David they wear around their neck inside their shirt. “I thought that would be safer.” Horwitz, who was born in Munich in 1984, is the child of a Holocaust survivor. “I grew up with this idea that I could always go to the U.S. if the Nazis came back,” they told me. That no longer seems like an option.

You know how this column is supposed to end. I rehearse all the similarities between Jews in Germany in 1933 and trans people in the United States in 2025: the tiny fraction of the population, the barrage of bureaucratic measures that strip away rights, the vilifying rhetoric. The silence on the part of ostensible allies. (Trump spent about five minutes of his recent address to Congress specifically attacking trans people and 10 minutes attacking immigrants; the Democratic rebuttal mentioned immigrants once and trans people not at all.) Then I finish with the standard exhortation: The attacks won’t stop here. If you don’t stand up for trans people or immigrants, there won’t be anyone left when they come for you.

But I find that line of argument both distasteful and disingenuous. It is undoubtedly true that the Trump administration won’t stop at denationalizing trans people, but it is also true that a majority of Americans are safe from these kinds of attacks, just as a majority of Germans were. The reason you should care about this is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others. It is happening to people who, we claim, have rights just because we are human. It is happening to me, personally.

[saywhat-politics]

The United States was added Sunday to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, a research tool that publicizes the status of freedoms and threats to civil liberties worldwide.

The move comes amid President Donald Trump’s “assault on democratic norms and global cooperation,” said CIVICUS—a global alliance and network of civil society groups, including Amnesty International, that advocates for greater citizen action in areas where civil liberties are limited—in a press release. The organization also cited the Administration’s cut of more than 90% of its foreign aid contracts and its crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—which Trump called “illegal and immoral discrimination programs”—through executive action.

[pintadorartist]

ADVOCATES IN CONGRESS HAVE THREATENED TO NOT VOTE FOR ANY SPENDING BILLS UNLESS KOSA IS INCLUDED

While the Continuing Resolutions does not include KOSA, advocates for the bill are still pushing VERY HARD to add it to the package of bills, even going as far as to not vote for disaster relief bills if KOSA is not added to the package of bills.

WE HAVE TO CALL AND MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD. Below are the posts for contact info and call tools to call, email, and fax both representatives and senators to tell them to say NO to KOSA, it's important to keep up the pressure.

STOP KOSA (SENATE VERSION)

STOP KOSA (HOUSE VERSION)

[political-us]

[lassieposting]

Yes, I am an ardent hater of today's "if you feel powerless, don't forget that you can donate :))) even though you can barely feed yourself :)))" culture, where the average person has no power or agency to fight for what they believe in beyond stumping up cash.

Yes, I am going to remind y'all anyway that the American Civil Liberties Union is there to fight for your rights and they could use your support if you have any to spare. If you subscribe to their newsletter they send you regular updates on what they're doing to fight Drumpf and his force of fascist fuckwits.

[unsolicited-opinions]

3/16/25 Reality Check: Mahmoud Khalil

1. Mahmoud Khalil is a spokesperson, organizer, and leader of CUAD.

2. CUAD is not a peace activist organization. It has repeatedly endorsed Hamas, violence towards Jews, and the destruction of Western civilization.

- CUAD endorsed Khymani James saying "Zionists do not deserve to live."

- Said CUAD: "We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance."

- CUAD says it is "fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization" which must "continue to escalate until the empire crumbles," citing the violent takeover of a prison in Bangladesh by Islamists as a model of escalation. It endorsed Casey Goonan's attempt to firebomb federal buildings in Oakland, CA and Goonan setting fires at UC Berkeley.

- This week, CUAD proudly painted the triangular target on the residence of Columbia's interim president Katrina Armstrong and threatened her. The same target has been painted on many US synogogues...by people who dishonestly claim their beef is with Israel, not Jews.

3. Khalil has not been "disappeared," his location is quite public.

4. Khalil does not need to have been convicted of a crime to be deported. Endorsing terrorism is more than legally sufficient grounds for deporting a green card holder.

§1227(a) states:

Any alien (including an alien crewman) in and admitted to the United States shall, upon the order of the Attorney General, be removed if the alien is within one or more of the following classes of deportable aliens...

And section 1227(a)(4)(B) states:

Any alien who is described in subparagraph (B) or (F) of section 1182(a)(3) of this title is deportable.

Section §1182(a)(3)(B)(i)(VII) extends deportability to any alien who:

...endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization

This is not a first amendment issue.

5. It is 100% valid to demand due process for Khalil and oppose any attempts by the Trump administration to skip, subver, or deny die process. Due process must always take place. Without it, we delegitimize our legal system and erode civil rights for all. I'm very glad Khalil is getting his due process.

6. Trump is using antisemitism as an excuse to attack individuals and institutions he opposes.

Trump is also using antisemitism in this way as a political wedge and to deepen the left's growing antisemitism. Hence the "Shalom Mahmoud" social media posts from the White House.

It's working because the leftist antisemites are about as gullible and intellectually lazy as their mirror-image opposites on the right, the MAGA/QAnon/Jan 6 crowd.

Leftist fears about Trump's desire and efforts to turn the US into a Turkey-style autocracy are valid and I share them- but it would have been 100% legal for Biden to enforce these laws. I dearly wish he had done so.

Trump's doing it immediately projects vibes of wrongdoing, worsened by his godawful philosemitic messaging.

[captainxtra]

HEADS UP! HR 9495 HAS BEEN RECEIVED IN SENATE!

Reminder on how to find your Senators!

If you have a GOP/MAGA Senator, use this advice from Reddit in trying to convince them to oppose it:

Do not stop fighting!

[lastcatghost]

[alwaysbewoke]

[faygos]

i made a LOHAC postcard for you to mail to your homestuck pals 🕶🔥

[palatinewolfsblog]

"Justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Martin Luther King.

[political-us]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Reich:

You think I’m exaggerating? This is exactly what happened to Mahmoud Khalil on Saturday night. Khalil, who graduated from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in December, has a green card. His wife, who is eight months pregnant, is an American citizen.

Immigration agents appeared at his apartment building and told him he was being detained. He now appears to be in a detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil did nothing illegal. He has not been charged with a crime. He expressed his political point of view — peacefully, non-violently, non-threateningly. That’s supposed to be permitted — dare I say even encouraged? — in a democracy. So why is he in jail?

Khalil was one of the leaders of last year’s peaceful pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. In a post on Truth Social, Trump conceded Khalil was snatched up and sent off because of his politics. “This is the first arrest of many to come,” wrote Trump. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”

Where, may I ask, are the “First Amendment absolutists” such as Trump First Buddy Elon Trump when it comes to protecting speech that the Trump regime finds objectionable? Where are all the Republicans who for years have accused liberals of “cancelling” their views? Where are the conservatives who have claimed for even longer they only want to conserve traditional American values? Nearly 13 million people in the United States hold green cards. Tens of thousands more are here temporarily as foreign students and professors. Apparently all are now in danger of being arrested if they speak their minds. If this assault on civil liberties stands, Trump could just as well arrest and expel permanent residents who voice support for, say, transgender people or DEI or “woke” or Ukraine, or anything else the regime finds “anti-American” and offensive. If it stands, what’s to stop the Trump regime from arresting American citizens who support any cause the regime doesn’t like — such as, say, replacing Republicans in Congress in 2026 and putting a Democrat in the White House in 2028?

Robert Reich is spot-on regarding the illegal arrest of Mahmoud Khalil on bogus charges of “supporting terrorism”: “If it stands, what’s to stop the Trump regime from arresting American citizens who support any cause the regime doesn’t like?” That could include support for LGBTQ+ rights, defending Ukraine and Canada from attacks on their sovereignty, showing support for pro-Palestine causes, or any other cause that Tyrant 47’s regime opposes.

[saywhat-politics]

The Department of Homeland Security eliminated its Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, firing those responsible for oversight of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

The New York Times first reported the move, indicating that more than 100 staff members of the office were put on administrative leave for the next 60 days.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5208342-dhs-eliminates-civil-rights-office

[priceofliberty]

Racial profiling and the erosion of tribal sovereignty. Many Indigenous people lack proper documentation, leaving them vulnerable to detention despite their citizenship. But the goal is to instill fear in these communities. Trump, Biden, no matter who—it always was the goal.