News & Commentary

By Shereen Siewert, Gannett Wisconsin

In 2006, Wisconsin Referendum 1 passed, and became Article XIII, Section 13 of the state constitution.  It banned same-sex marriage, saying “Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER

By Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel

Is vote fraud common in American politics? Not according to United States District Judge Lynn Adelman, who examined the evidence from Wisconsin and ruled in late April that “virtually no voter impersonation occurs” in the state and that “no evidence suggests that voter-impersonation fraud will become a problem at any time in the foreseeable future.”

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MADISON, Wis. — A federal judge on Friday put same-sex marriages in Wisconsin on hold, a week after she struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional, a move that allowed more than 500 couples to wed over the last eight days. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb’s ruling Friday means that gay marriages will end while the appeal from Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hol

The American Civil Liberties Union has urged same-sex couples to continue marrying, despite fears that a marriage ban could be put back in place.

Today, June 5, is the anniversary of Edward Snowden's dramatic revelations concerning the National Security Agency's (NSA) massive surveillance programs. On this and succeeding days, Snowden released formerly secret NSA records. These records contradicted the Obama Administration's benign assurances that NSA surveillance initiatives were confined to advancing legitimate security interests. Snowden's revelations, however, have left unanswered two questions: how valuable were these massive surveillance initiatives in uncovering terrorist plots and what uses were made of the intercepted information. Snowden's actions, moreover, were not unprecedented. In March 1971, anti-Vietnam war activists in the Philadelphia area broke into the Media, PA residence agency of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and stole thousands of pages of FBI records. That and in succeeding weeks these activists photocopied and released the pilfered FBI records to the media. These records documented the scope and illegality of FBI surveillance activities and how FBI officials exploited acquired information to "harass, disrupt, and discredit" targeted civil rights and anti-war activists (contradicting FBI officials heretofore benign characterization of their actions).  The break-in, preceding the so-called Watergate affair of 1972-1973, combined with further revelations of FBI (but also Central Intelligence Agency, CIA) abusive practices, triggered investigations conducted by House and Senate special committees in 1975-1976--investigations based on unprecedented access to not only FBI but also NSA and CIA records. The investigations confirmed how secrecy had enabled intelligence agency officials and the White House to abuse power, moving beyond a claimed "national security" purpose to contain political activists and their liberal and radical critics. This now-known history, and the unprecedented opportunity (a seemingly foolhardy burglary of an FBI office) highlights the need once again for an independent inquiry to ascertain the validity of Administration claims that NSA surveillance programs are legal and confined to advancing legitimate security interests.