As most readers know, I’m a volunteer along with more than a hundred other people at Unbreaking.org, which currently describes itself on the main webpage as
Documenting damage and resistance. Unflooding the zone.
I signed up because I have lots of writing and editing experience, but once I started looking at what needed doing, I realized that a skill I first learned in law school and honed in my years as a legal editor at BNA was particularly valuable: I can look at court documents of all kinds and figure out what’s going on and what’s important about it, if anything.
What this means is that I’ve not only been paying attention to the legal news – which I’d do anyway because looking at legal stuff is the easiest way for me to understand what’s going on – but actually reading about some cases in detail, particularly ones related to the security (or lack thereof) of people’s data.
This is work that is both inspiring and depressing.
It’s inspiring because so many lawyers and judges are working so very hard to combat the ongoing destruction of our democracy and the parts of our government that used to work pretty well.
Every time the grifter’s government does something outrageous, somebody sues. Our attorney general here in California has brought all kinds of cases, usually in company with attorneys general from other states. For example, they’re suing – and winning so far – over efforts to shut down food stamp payments in states that refuse to hand over data on food stamp recipients.
Several clinics and hospitals that do gender-affirming care have fought back when they got subpoenas from the Justice Department demanding that they turn over data on their patients and won.
And 29 states and the District of Columbia refused to provide voter rolls. They’ve been sued for those records, but so far the courts are ruling in their favor.
It’s interesting how many of the cases revolve around the government trying to get their hands on data about citizens and how strongly some of the states and their lawyers are protecting that data.
In a reasonable world, the federal government would be interested in protecting the data of the people who live in this country, but in the mirror world we live in they’re out to exploit it or use it to harm us.
But it’s still depressing. Some of that is just the mind-blowing things we’re having to fight about. It’s also the knowledge that the Supreme Court is packed with right wing extremists.
I mean, I was glad they threw out the tariffs, but that was one small victory from a court that has overwhelmingly ruled in ways that undermine our democracy.
But there are other reasons why legal work can only do so much for the resistance. Continue reading “The Legal Resistance”…