6 Aug 2014 | Academic Freedom, News and features, United States
(Photo: Georden West)
A women’s university considered to be one of the most restrictive on transgender issues in the US is reconsidering its approach.
Rated as the strictest of any US university on transgender policies by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Hollins University currently forbids students from making any legal or biological step toward becoming male.
But a university official says the school is considering the addition of gender-neutral bathrooms to make the campus more welcoming and to support its students on the transgender spectrum.
Founded in 1842, Hollins University has attracted many now famous names including writers Annie Dillard and Margaret Wise Brown, US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey and White House correspondent Ann Compton.
However, in the past few years its restrictive policy on the retention of transgender students has attracted national attention from activists and academics.
The current policy states that any student who “’self identifies’ as a male and initiates any of the following processes: 1) begins hormone therapy with the intent to transform from female to male, 2) undergoes any surgical process (procedure) to transform from female to male or 3) changes her name legally with the intent of identifying herself as a man,” will not be allowed to graduate from the university. After substantial criticism, Hollins agreed to re-evaluate its policy and drafted a new version in 2013. The current policy also maintains the university’s position against allowing female-to-male students and adds that any student who chooses to undergo sex reassignment “will be helped [by university officials] to transfer to another institution.”
The issue of gender-neutral spaces has become increasingly contentious and polarising with the emergence of a new transgender-equality group on campus called EqualiT*. Its appearance was marked by mysterious flyers in bathroom stalls and on announcement boards calling for the addition of gender-neutral bathrooms. Soon a blog and a Facebook page also appeared, and the group began to stage events, including a candlelight vigil to commemorate Transgender Awareness Day. Due to the sensitive nature of the organisation, the group has remained mainly anonymous in hopes of protecting its transgender members. Some students fear that, if exposed, transgender students will lose their scholarships or be expelled from the university. The university has not taken any action against students who are legally and biologically female, but some students say they self-censor because they are worried about what may happen.
With a student population of less than 600, low retention rates and a high-priced tuition cost of over $46,000 per year, critics question whether the university can afford to alienate any portion of its student demographic.
The forced removal of transgender students from Hollins presents not only financial and academic challenges but a threat to students’ safety. Forty-five per cent of transgender university students in the US reported experiencing verbal, physical or sexual abuse due to their gender identity according to a 2011 study by the National Center for Transgender Equality. Many transgender students attending all-female institutions regard the environment as safe and welcoming and fear for their safety in transferring to a coeducational environment. A study in 2006 revealed that one in twelve transgender people is murdered in the United States, and many more experience severe verbal harassment and physical violence.
“I believe creating gender neutral safe spaces should be at the forefront of the actions Hollins is taking right now,” said Cal Thompson, a transgender student who graduated in the spring of 2014. “Everyone needs a safe space for personal business. We don’t want to use the gendered bathrooms just as badly as the cisgendered don’t want us.”
Despite the relative safety transgender students feel at Hollins, students still find the university a challenging place to explore individual gender identities. Perhaps one of the most substantial of these challenges is in the lack of gender-neutral spaces, specifically bathrooms. Because of the requirement for students to remain female during their time at Hollins, students who identify as transgender are prohibited from using the men’s restroom.
“Using the bathroom at Hollins was uncomfortable,” said Lee Collie, a 2013 graduate, known as Leanna during his time at Hollins. “Even if you flip the sign to ‘male’ when you walk in, girls walked in all the time and said, ‘Oh, it’s just Lee,’ which meant that they didn’t really see me as a male.”
Hollins’ Dean of Students, Patty O’Toole told Index, “As we continue to renovate our facilities, when appropriate we are considering developing gender-neutral bathrooms.” With regards to facilities in residence halls, students in each community can collectively determine facility-usage and associated language, O’Toole said. Bathroom usage in residence halls is indicated by a paper sign for each hall’s bathroom, which can be flipped over to indicate different users. Thus, some facilities may be labelled with “men” and “women,” while others may use “residents” and “guests.” No other official steps have been taken to utilise gender-neutral language.
A number of students disagree with the student organisation’s position, including current student Deborah Birch, class of 2016. “I don’t think that there should gender-neutral bathrooms on campus. You apply to Hollins knowing that it is an all-women’s institution. If want to change your biological make-up to transition from female to male, you should choose to attend another institution.”
Though transgender graduate Lee Collie likes the idea of gender-neutral restrooms, he also worries about respecting the larger campus community, specifically those with opposing ideals. “I would probably limit them to the dorms or specific floors, because we have professors and visitors who may not feel comfortable.”
Hollins is not the only US institution struggling over whether it should create gender-neutral bathrooms. Recently Illinois State University has attracted media attention through its decision to change its family bathroom to an all-gender bathroom. Although the change was not specifically requested by any students or faculty, ISU officials made the change in efforts to remain proactive and to promote inclusivity among all members of campus. Over 150 universities across the United States have instituted similar changes in campus facilities, including New York University, Ohio State University and UCLA. Even fellow women’s universities like Smith College in Massachusetts and Agnes Scott College in Georgia have begun to embrace the issue, with the addition of gender-neutral restrooms and more progressive policies.
Collie, a former vice president of the university’s student government association, stated that the policy at Hollins may be strict, but he is glad that Hollins has a policy and acknowledges the existence of transgender students on campus. Other women’s universities have yet to adopt any policy on the matter.
Dean of Students, Patty O’Toole explained that the 2011 policy was originally created by the university’s Board of Trustees in response to students on the transgender spectrum who were seeking a written policy. “Hollins wanted to support those students. The focus of the policy is not strictness but clarifying our institutional mission.”
Collie supported the university’s actions and its mission as a women’s institution, despite the personal challenges he faced, and related the support and camaraderie he experienced at the university. “Hollins has never punished me for being or identifying as male. It isn’t that they’re trying to stop someone from being who they really are, but it is Hollins standing true to itself as well.”
This article was published on August 6, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
28 May 2014 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Politics and Society, United States
Last week saw a flurry of legislative to-and-fro on the Hill as the US House of Representatives pondered the passage of legislation aimed at ending bulk-collection by the US National Security Agency. The USA Freedom Act, or HR. 3361, was passed on Thursday in a 303-121 vote, and was hailed by The New York Times as “a rare moment of bipartisan agreement between the White House and Congress on a major national security issue”. Congressman Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson (R-Pa.) tweeted that he was the proud cosponsor of a bill “that passed uniting and strengthening America by ending eavesdropping/online monitoring.”
It was perhaps inevitable that compromise between the intelligence and judiciary committees would see various blows against the bill in terms of scope and effect. When legislators want to posture about change while asserting the status quo, ambiguity proves their steadfast friend. After all, with the term “freedom” in the bill, something was bound to give.
Students of the bill would have noted that its main author, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wi.), was also behind HR. 3162, known more popularly as the USA Patriot Act. Most roads in the US surveillance establishment tend to lead to that roughly drafted and applied piece of legislation, a mechanism that gave the NSA the broadest, and most ineffective of mandates, in eavesdropping.
Then came salutatory remarks made about the bill from Rep. Mike Rogers[2], who extolled its virtues on the House floor even as he attacked the Obama administration for not being firm enough in holding against advocates of surveillance reform. There is a notable signature change between commending “a responsible legislative solution to address concerns about the bulk telephone metadata program” and being “held hostage by the actions of traitors who leak classified information that puts our troops in the field at risk or those who fear-monger and spread mistruth to further their misguided agenda.”
Even as Edward Snowden’s ghost hung heavy over the Hill like a moralising Banquo, Rogers was pointing a vengeful finger in his direction. There would, after all, have been no need for the USA Freedom Act, no need for this display of lawmaking, but for the actions of the intelligence sub-contractor. Privacy advocates would again raise their eyebrows at Rogers’s remarks about the now infamous Section 215 telephone metadata program under the Patriot Act, which had been “the subject of intense, and often inaccurate, criticism. The bulk telephone metadata program is legal, overseen, and effective at saving American lives.”
Such assertions are remarkable, more so for the fact that both the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the internal White House review panel, found little evidence of effectiveness in the program. “Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act,” claimed the PCLOB, “does not provide an adequate basis to support this program.” Any data obtained was thin and obtained at unwarranted cost.
Critics of the bill such as Centre for Democracy and Technology President Nuala O’Connor expressed concern at the chipping moves. “This legislation was designed to prohibit bulk collection, but has been made so weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass, untargeted collection of Americans’ private information.” In O’Connor’s view, “The bill now offers only mild reform and goes against the overwhelming support for definitively ending bulk collection.”
Not so, claimed an anonymous House GOP aide. “The amended bill successfully addresses the concerns that were raised about NSA surveillance, ends bulk collections and increases transparency.” Victory in small steps would seem to have impressed the aide. “We view it as a victory for privacy, and while we would like to have had a stronger bill, we shouldn’t let the perfect being the enemy of the good.”
Various members of the House disagreed. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) noted that the bill had received a severe pruning by the time it reached the House floor, having a change “that seems to open the door to bulk collection again.” Others connected with co-sponsoring initial versions of the bill, among them Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) also refused to vote for the compromise.
What, then, is the basis of the gripe? For one, the language “specific selection term”, which would cover what the NSA can intercept, is incorrigibly vague. The definition offers the unsatisfactory “term used to uniquely describe a person, entity or account.” What, in this sense, is an entity for the purpose of the legislation? The tip of the iceberg is already problematic enough without venturing down into the murkier depths of interpretation.
Even more troubling in the USA Freedom Act is what it leaves out. For one thing, telephony metadata is only a portion of the surveillance loot. Other collection programs are conspicuously absent, be it the already exposed PRISM program which covers online communications, Captivatedaudience, a program used to attain control of a computer’s microphone and record audio, Foggybottom – used to note a user’s browsing history on the net, and Gumfish, used to control a computer webcam. (These are the choice bits – others in the NSA arsenal persist, untrammelled.)
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments (FISA) Act, the provision outlining when the NSA may collect data from American citizens in various cases and how the incorrect or inadvertent collection of data is to be handled, is left untouched. On inspection, it seems the reformist resume of the Freedom Act is rather sparse.
Ambiguities, rather than perfections, end up being the enemy of the good. Laws that are poorly drafted tend to be more than mere nuisances – they can be dangerous in cultivating complacency before the effects of power. Well as it might that the USA Freedom Act has passed, signalling a political will to deal with bulk-collection of data. But in making that signal, Congress has also made it clear that compromise is one way of doing nothing, a form of sanctified inertia.
This article was posted on May 28, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
9 May 2014 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Politics and Society, United States
(Image: Free Barrett Brown)
Last Tuesday “hacktivist journo” Barrett Brown pled guilty in a US court after a long-running battle with the FBI. He had reported on a high-profile Anonymous hack as well as posting provocative videos on YouTube baiting FBI officials.
At the hearing, the court reduced his sentence from 105 years to eight and a half years, with lawyers saying he could serve far less time.
Both Brown’s defence team and freedom of speech activists are now worried a precedent has been set in which reporters could be prosecuted for writing stories using hacked information.
“The implications are worrisome in the extreme,” said Kevin Gallagher, director of Free Barrett Brown Ltd.
“It must be noted that Brown’s lawyers worked painstakingly to avoid setting an undesirable precedent—one that would place other journalists at risk for dealing with hackers as sources.
“Yet the dangers of this novel legal construction are clear: journalists may be prosecuted for merely speaking to hackers and having knowledge of their breaches.”
Last month US prosecutors dropped 11 of the 17 charges against Brown, who faces three separate indictments. The abandoned claims all related to a breach of private intelligance contractor Stratfor carried out by Anonymous in 2011.
The ringleader of the Anonymous hackers, Jeremy Hammond, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last November.
Brown’s case was criticised by freedom of speech campaigners because it involved him hyperlinking to stolen Stratfor data which had already been made publicly available. Concerns revolved around how one of the core tenets of the internet – link sharing, could be impacted.
“The attempt to criminalize the act of providing links broke new ground in dangerous official absurdity,” said Norman Solomon, an American journalist associated with media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
No explanation was given by the FBI or prosecutors as to why the charges were suddenly dropped.
Once the gagging order was lifted it was revealed that Brown had in fact advised the Anonymous hackers to redact the data, even contacting the Stratfor CEO to tell him this.
Brown wrote in an email to Anonymous : “It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to tell Stratfor that you guys will consider making any reasonable redactions to emails that might endanger, say, activists living under dictatorships with whom they might have spoken… If they fail to cooperate, it will be on them if any claims are made about this yield endangering anyone”.
According to Gallagher one of Brown’s lawyers commented :”He was very critical of careless releases of data by hackers, but he made efforts to protect his sources; and that’s what he’s being charged for.”
The remaining charges constitute two felonies and one misdemeanour, with one charge of making an internet threat resting on aggressively presented YouTube videos that Brown posted of himself after he grew angry at the FBI’s treatment of his case. One clip was titled “Why I’m Going To Destroy FBI Agent Smith.” A description under the video called for tip-offs about the FBI agent to be sent to a specific email account. Brown pleaded guilty to the charge.
“Barrett expresses deep regret for what he did in making the threat, which he did impulsively at a time when he felt cornered and was unable to make rational decisions,” said one of the lawyers representing Brown, Ahmed Ghappour.
Brown was also prosecuted over obstructing the execution of a search warrant, and being an accessory to unauthorized access of a protected computer. He pleaded guilty to both these charges and will now face up to eight and a half years in prison.
Commenting on the final charge – Norman Solomon also told Index
“Journalists are now facing even more dangerous political terrain in the United States if they want to do real investigative reporting.”
“We should be greatly concerned that U.S. authorities have shown their determination to punish some journalists for putting together pieces of puzzles into coherent pictures.
He added, “In the context of internet journalism, a felony count against linking is akin to legal action against demonstrably thinking in unauthorized ways.”
This article was posted on 9 May 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
7 May 2014 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Politics and Society, United States
(Photo: Shutterstock)
The reforms to the intelligence community that have been advocated by US President Barack Obama are not being taken well in some circles. This is not necessarily because all members of that covert fraternity object to them. There has been, in fact, a general understanding that something had to be done in light of Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding dragnet surveillance. A fundamental feature of Obama’s reform agenda centres on a greater oversight role regarding surveillance applications assessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
Former FISC Presiding Judge John Bates has given, in a fashion, support for proposals that would allow the appointment of a public advocate or lawyers acting in an amicus curiae role. Their role suggests, in spirit at least, a modest attempt to open an otherwise secret court process to scrutiny over surveillance applications, providing direction on privacy and specific legal points. “I think it could have some good elements if done correctly,” suggested the judge before a gathering at George Washington University Law School last Friday.
Reading between the lines, however, the judge is not glowing at the prospect of an increased work load, one affected without little benefit. For one, he claims that an outside advocate is, for the most part, needless in standard court deliberations (pen registers, trap-and-trace orders and individualised search warrants) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Furthermore, surveillance applications tended to be prosaic matters with specific individuals in mind, using such standards as probable cause that would only affect the privacy interests of an individual or set of individuals. Amicus advocates would busy the court without any benefit, they being, for the most part, unqualified to deal with the technical matters at hand.
Where such a “friend” of the court might have some bearing would be on concerns over bulk-collection of data, though the judge was again shaving much relevance over the move. Was this reform a genuine attempt to alter practice, or simply one designed to pacify “public perception”? Those on the FISC are more troubled than pleased.
Many of the concerns made by Judge Bates were outlined in his January 13 letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence. It is worth reading carefully, given the role Bates has played as chief judicial officer over FISC matters. A vigorous, conceptual tussle between secret deliberations and transparency is undertaken, much of it fundamental over the role of the court in “oversight” matters.
If workloads were to increase, then this should be “accompanied by a commensurate increase in resources.” Adding a number of administrative subpoena-type cases in excess of 20,000 “would fundamentally transform the nature of the FISC to the detriment of its current responsibilities.” But even such an increase of work would not necessarily be remedied by the mere addition of personnel and resources. It would “prove disruptive to the Courts’ ability to perform their duties, including responsibilities under FISA and the Constitution to ensure that the privacy interests of United States citizens and others are adequately protected.”
Like it or not, Judge Bates suggests that the secrecy function of the FISC should continue. In this, the judge slips into his paternalistic voice, suggesting that publishing Court decisions for public consumption would limit rather than “enhance the public’s understanding of FISA implementation”. Unless classified information is provided with those decisions, confusion was bound to happen.
A real bruiser comes in his detailed observations over what role the public advocate would actually play in FISA proceedings. First and foremost, there will be no constructive adversarial role to speak of, as the advocate will be “unable to communicate with the target or conduct an independent investigation”. Privacy protection will not be assured by involvement of the advocate in “run-of-the-mill FISA matters” and might “undermine the Courts’ ability to receive complete and accurate information on the matters before them.”
Much of the concern stems from who has the authority over appointments. A court appointed advocate might well be more palatable for judges, but it will hardly satisfy the privacy reformists, who wish to open the FISC door to some form of public accountability. But according to Judge Bates, a “standing advocate with independent authority to intervene at will could actually be counterproductive” while a court appointee may well maximise assistance while minimising disruption. He also fears the “constitutional” implications of the move.
Some of Bates’ concerns on the public advocate may be uncalled for. They are already considered in the Leahy/Sensenbrenner and Blumenthal bills. Both make the point that the special advocate only appear in set cases, and never in those touching on individualised search warrants. They would only deal with novel matters affecting subjects of surveillance targeting persons outside the United States (FISA, s. 702) and American subjects under s. 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Judge Bates’ overview suggests that some reforms to the hearing and granting of surveillance applications are not only modest but cosmetic, in so far as they hope to improve privacy protections. The impact will be to actually hamper judicial oversight, rather than improve it. The adversarial element that would improve representation would actually be absent, despite the presence of the public advocate, making the reform one of bluff rather than effect. No change, however, would have been intolerable.
Speaking to a gathering of national security lawyers organised by the American Bar Association, Judge Bates had a prediction. “My guess is nothing will happen legislatively until after the mid-term elections – if then.” There will be congressional disagreements about matters of form and substance. If care is not taken, enacted reforms may well be the bunting without the product.
This article was published on April 7, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
