A friend of mine has been coming over Thursday evening for dinner and to watch The White Lotus, so I haven’t been around when KTK publishes. Not sure if she’ll be here today or not, but if she is apologies ahead of time for being absent. I’ll try to check in when she leaves.
The right to assemble
Since January 1, 41 anti-protest bills have been introduced in 22 states. Thirty-two have been introduced in 16 states since the inauguration, and five federal bills target “college students, anti-war protesters and climate activists with harsh prison sentences and hefty fines – a crackdown that experts warn threaten to erode first amendment rights to freedom of speech, assembly and petition.”
The Guardian reports:
According to Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the slew of anti-protest laws threatens the core of US democracy.
“These state bills and Trump’s crackdown on protected political speech are intended to scare people away from protesting or, worse, criminalize the exercise of constitutional rights,” said Leventoff.
Elly Page, senior legal adviser at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) says the spike is a “clear response to the protests on Palestine and campus protests in particular.”
“The anti-protest bills that have passed into laws since 2017 create a chilling effect and deter people from speaking out – and are incredibly repressive. It is especially concerning that now, when we see other pillars of civil society under attack, lawmakers are also trying to further suppress dissent and foreclose what is a critical means of democratic participation.”
The three federal bills passed since March target campus protestors and include the Unmasking Hamas Act, which can result in 15 years imprisonment for wearing a mask of disguise while protesting in a manner which is seen as “intimidating” or “oppressive.”
A separate bill would exclude student protesters from federal financial aid and loan forgiveness if they commit any crime at a campus protest, even a non-violent misdemeanor such as failing to disperse. In both cases, sponsors have made clear that the bill is a legislative response to pro-Palestinian protesters, many of whom wore masks to avoid retaliation and doxing.
Data Privacy
Also from the Guardian: How to protect your phone and data privacy at the US border details how Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are searching the devices of green card and visa holders at US airports . Under the law, if you are a US citizen you have to be let into the country.
While CBP said it only searched about 47,000 devices of the 420 million people who crossed the US border in 2024, experts the Guardian spoke to say border enforcement has been unpredictable under the Trump administration, so figuring out whether you’re at risk of a device search is not as straightforward as it once was. French officials said a French scientist was recently turned away at an airport in Texas because immigration officers found texts that were critical of Trump on his phone.
“The super-conservative perspective is to assume they are completely unhinged and that even the most benign reasons for travel are going to subject non-citizens to these device searches,” said Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit digital rights group.
In a recent Newsweek article
Immigration lawyers Heather Segal and Ravi Jain, recently spoke with CBC News about their advice to Canadians traveling to the U.S.
They both said they advise Canadians to travel with a burner phone and even to leave their regular phone at home.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), although law enforcement usually needs a warrant to search devices, CBP is different.
Investing
In as string of emails with financial advisors over the past few weeks, I’ve been inquiring about what point they would advise getting out of the markets. I wanted to know if there was a point at which they would encourage selling assets to avoid a complete washout. Tuesday, I received a response which outlined how my portfolio has performed:
… your portfolio is very conservative with only about 10% in public stocks, which are diversified across company size and geography. Your portfolio is built for good markets and bad. Your portfolio is only slightly (-0.66%) down year-to-date so far, with both real estate and fixed income having positive returns for the year:
... “The bigger question seems to be whether any equity exposure is appropriate for your long-term goals and peace of mind.”
I admit, I’ve pestered this folks quite a bit since November. I was confident going into yesterday’s zoom call that they were going to advise me to divest completely. Nope. The advisor reiterated how conservative my portfolio is and that if I wanted to consider my goal of having some money to leave behind it was probably in my best interest to stay invested.
Went into the meeting prepared to bail out and move into laddered CDs. Left the meeting confused as ever. Don’t know what I’m going to do.
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well.
