Werd I/O

[Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott at WIRED]

The Holocaust was organized on IBM punch cards. Hitler gave the head of IBM, Watson, a medal for his services; they met in person so that Watson could receive the award. Later, they named their AI tech after him.

Anyway, in unrelated news:

"DOGE is knitting together immigration databases from across DHS and uploading data from outside agencies including the Social Security Administration (SSA), as well as voting records, sources say. This, experts tell WIRED, could create a system that could later be searched to identify and surveil immigrants.

The scale at which DOGE is seeking to interconnect data, including sensitive biometric data, has never been done before, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to disastrous privacy violations for citizens, certified foreign workers, and undocumented immigrants. [...] Among other things, it seems to involve centralizing immigrant-related data from across the government to surveil, geolocate, and track targeted immigrants in near real time."

This is, of course, a database that will track all of us, although we should be concerned about the effect on immigrants alone. It will undoubtedly connect to AI services and resources owned and run by the private tech industry.

Elizabeth Laird, the director of equity in civic technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology, is quoted as saying:

“I think it's hard to overstate what a significant departure this is and the reshaping of longstanding norms and expectations that people have about what the government does with their data.”

The question, as ever, is what people will do about it, and what recourse advocates for immigrants, for data privacy, and for democracy can possibly have.

#Democracy

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[Alec MacGillis at ProPublica]

The statistics that help us navigate our world are under thread:

"Every year, year after year, workers in agencies that many of us have never heard of have been amassing the statistics that undergird decision-making at all levels of government and inform the judgments of business leaders, school administrators and medical providers nationwide.

The survival of that data is now in doubt, as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency’s comprehensive assault on the federal bureaucracy."

Perhaps because:

"Looked at one way, the war on measurement has an obvious potential motivation: making it harder for critics to gauge fallout resulting from Trump administration layoffs, deregulation or other shifts in policy."

Many of these teams aren't coming back. So the question becomes: who will conduct these measurements in their place? How will we get this information now? As the piece notes, even if we do put our ability to measure back together, there will now always be a gap, which will make identifying and understanding trends a great deal harder.

#Democracy

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[Andy Bounds in the Financial Times]

The last few months have radically changed the risk assessment for people traveling to the US from abroad - as well as Americans who plan to cross the US border.

In this case, it's European Commission staff:

"The European Commission is issuing burner phones and basic laptops to some US-bound staff to avoid the risk of espionage, a measure traditionally reserved for trips to China.

[...] They said the measures replicate those used on trips to Ukraine and China, where standard IT kit cannot be brought into the countries for fear of Russian or Chinese surveillance."

The worry is that, particularly at the border, US officials can demand access to devices in order to peruse information or back up their data. This isn't unique to the Commission, or a fully new phenomenon: the EFF has offered printable border search advice for a while now, and a federal appeals court strengthened the power of border officials to do this back during the Biden Administration.

But searches are on the rise under the new administration, as well as stories of people being inhumanely detained for minor infractions. Many countries now have travel advisories for people traveling to the US. The general feeling is that you can't be too careful no matter who you are — and for political officials, as well as journalists, activists, and anyone who might challenge the status quo, the risks are greater.

#Democracy

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[Zoë Schiffer at WIRED]

The Social Security Administration is changing its communications strategy in a surprising way:

““We are no longer planning to issue press releases or those dear colleague letters to inform the media and public about programmatic and service changes,” said SSA regional commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis in a meeting with managers earlier this week. “Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public … so this will become our communication mechanism.””

X is, of course, a proprietary network that is currently owned by Elon Musk. Users with accounts on X are profiled for its advertising systems; given the links between Musk and the current administration, this might yield a significant amount of information to the government. Forcing citizens to check the network, which, again, is privately owned and supported by advertising, also feels like an enormous conflict of interest.

#Democracy

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[Lisa Rein, Hannah Natanson and Elizabeth Dwoskin at The Washington Post]

More "efficiency" from DOGE:

"Retirees and disabled people are facing chronic website outages and other access problems as they attempt to log in to their online Social Security accounts, even as they are being directed to do more of their business with the agency online.

[...] The problems come as the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team, led by Elon Musk, has imposed a downsizing that’s led to 7,000 job cuts and is preparing to push out thousands more employees at an agency that serves 73 million Americans. The new demands from Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service include a 50 percent cut to the technology division responsible for the website and other electronic access."

These benefits are much-needed; people depend on them. In gutting the team that helps provide services, Musk and DOGE are putting peoples' lives at risk.

And this is just poor software development practice:

"Many of the network outages appear to be caused by an expanded fraud check system imposed by the DOGE team, current and former officials said. The technology staff did not test the new software against a high volume of users to see if the servers could handle the rush, these officials said."

But, of course, perhaps destroying the actual utility of these services is the point.

#Democracy

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[Kate Conger in The New York Times]

Here's one way Elon Musk is gaining from his involvement in the current administration:

"The positioning of X as a powerful government mouthpiece has helped bolster the platform, even as the company continues to struggle."

It's worth remembering that xAI just bought X in an all-stock transaction - he's also gaining by pointing his AI engine directly at federal government information in a supposed effort to make it more efficient.

But even the social media endorsement is a big deal. In some ways buying advertising on X is akin to would-be political influencers buying extravagant stays at Trump hotels:

"Conservatives have found that X is a direct pipeline to Mr. Musk, allowing them to influence federal policy. He has responded to viral complaints about the government on the platform, and his cost-cutting initiative has marked users’ concerns as “fixed.”"

It makes real the idea that the social media site isn't about building a business in itself, but about creating a new instrument of power. The comparisons between Elon's strategy and William Randolph Hearst are obvious; it's just, he's far, far dumber.

#Democracy

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[Ernie Smith at Tedium]

Ernie Smith points out the creator-economy platform Gumroad open sourced its platform at a surprising time:

"But if that’s all Gumroad was doing, I wouldn’t feel compelled to say anything. The reason I’m speaking up is because of this Wired story, released on the very same day Gumroad announced its “open source” license, which may have had the effect of minimizing the story’s viral impact.

[...] It’s not even the central point of the piece, but the fact is, if you’re supporting Gumroad—a tool that, notably, has survived as long as it did because of a high-profile crowdfunding campaign—you’re allowing its CEO the financial freedom to work in the Department of Veterans Affairs, at the behest of DOGE, for free."

Leave aside that Gumroad's "open sourcing" is nothing really of the sort (it's source-available until you start making real revenue). Its founder is part of the DOGE mess, having replaced most of his employees with AI, with plans to do the same thing at the VA.

When this is all over, let's not forget that he did that.

#Democracy

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[Laura Hazard Owen at Nieman Journalism Lab]

A good introduction to leaking to a journalist:

"I spoke with eight journalists about how to leak in a safe, smart way. Disclaimer you probably knew was coming: No method of leaking is 100% secure, and the tips here reduce risk but cannot eliminate it completely. “I know it’s appealing to be instrumental in helping a reporter break a story, and god knows reporters love breaking stories,” says Marisa Kabas, an independent reporter and writer of The Handbasket who’s been breaking one scoop after another about DOGE and the Trump administration. “But in almost all cases, your safety and physical and mental health should come first.”"

A lot depends on Signal, although some newsrooms (including my employer) also advertise SecureDrop, which is a very sophisticated tool for large, anonymous leaks.

The complete list is worth your time. If you're a source, consider using these tools. If you're a funder, consider investing in these tools. If you're a newsroom, make sure you know how to use these tools. They've become the currency of privately-sourced stories in the current era.

#Democracy

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[Brian Krebs]

Sobering roundup from Brian Krebs about how each of the five pillars of the First Amendment - speech, religion, the media, the right to assembly, and the right to petition the government and seek redress for wrongs - has been attacked during the first few months of the Trump Administration.

It's a laundry list - and we're only a few months in.

"Where is President Trump going with all these blatant attacks on the First Amendment? The president has made no secret of his affection for autocratic leaders and “strongmen” around the world, and he is particularly enamored with Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort twice in the past year."

The piece concludes with a warning that Trump is following a similar playbook to Orbán by consolidating control over the courts and decimating the free press. It played out there; we will see what happens here.

#Democracy

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[Lubna Kably in The Times of India]

Worrying stuff being reported by the Times of India (and, at the time of writing, under-reported in the domestic US press). AI is being used to flag international students because of their social media activity, among other signals, who are now being sent emails asking them to "self-deport":

"Hundreds of international students in the US are getting an email from the US Department of State (DOS) asking them to self-deport owing to campus activism. Immigration attorneys’ contacted by TOI affirmed this development and added a few Indian students may also be at the receiving end of such emails – for something as innocuous as sharing a social media post.

It is not just international students who physically participated in campus activism but also those who shared or liked ‘anti-national’ posts that are the target of these emails, said an immigration attorney."

Axios previously reported on how this was going to be done:

"Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-fueled "Catch and Revoke" effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups"

From that article:

""This should concern all Americans. This is a First Amendment and freedom of speech issue and the administration will overplay its hand," said Abed Ayoub, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee."

It's a clear First Amendment issue. Whether they've overplayed their hand unfortunately remains to be seen.

#Democracy

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[Makena Kelly at WIRED]

If you know anything about building software, you know that this is an absurd idea:

"The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk."

Moving a 60 million line COBOL codebase to another language (be it Java or anything else) is not a small undertaking, and the SSA underpins necessary benefits for millions of Americans. Doing it in months likely requires using something like an LLM - and anyone who's used an LLM to code will tell you that the output is riddled with mistakes and inefficiencies. It's not a workable plan.

Or, as Dan Hon puts it in the piece:

“If you weren't worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead.”

A project like this should take years. Most of that isn't coding time: it's analysis, writing the tests, rearchitecting, and putting protections in place to ensure that nobody goes without the benefits they need to live. Doing it as a rush job isn't just incompetence; it's indifference to the lives of some of our most vulnerable neighbors. Which, let's face it, is in keeping with everything else going on.

#Democracy

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[Joshua Kaplan and Justin Elliott at ProPublica]

I bet this practice is more common than anyone might think, and certainly isn't limited to China. As always, follow the money:

"In December, [SpaceX investor] Kahlon testified that SpaceX prefers to avoid investors from China because it is a defense contractor. There is a major exception though, he said: SpaceX finds it “acceptable” for Chinese investors to buy into the company through offshore vehicles.

“The primary mechanism is that those investors would come through intermediate entities that they would create or others would create,” Kahlon said. “Typically they would set up BVI structures or Cayman structures or Hong Kong structures and various other ones,” he added, using the acronym for the British Virgin Islands. Offshore vehicles are often used to keep investors anonymous."

The key point here is not that the Chinese investments are illegal - they probably aren't - or that anyone thinks SpaceX is being directed by the Chinese government. What's odd is that the company prefers the obfuscation: it sounds like they don't accept Chinese investment unless it's being channeled through an offshore vehicle designed to hide their involvement from regulatory scrutiny. That obfuscation is particularly important given that Elon Musk is now a part of the US government.

#Democracy

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[Gaby Del Valle at The Verge]

I appreciated this deep-dive on whether it's safe to travel through US borders with your phone. Journalists and anyone who's made overt political statements should take particular note.

"The government maintains that it doesn’t need a warrant to conduct “basic” searches of the contents of a person’s phone. During these searches, Hussain explained, agents are supposed to put your phone on airplane mode and can only look at what is accessible offline — but that can still be a lot of information, including any cloud data that’s currently synced."

The EFF maintains a pretty great pocket guide that is also worth checking out.

The constitutionality of searches is "still an open question" - but that doesn't matter in the moment. My advice at this stage is to sign out of important apps (like your work email and encrypted messaging apps like Signal), turn off biometric logins like Face ID, and switch your phone off. That does mean you need to print out your boarding card, for example, and do a little pre-work to make sure your data is backed up. Clearly, this is a pain. But if you deal with any sensitive information, or have any vulnerable people in your family or community, you need to change your security stance to be a good steward of their safety.

#Democracy

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[Ella Yurman in Teen Vogue]

This interview with Musk's daughter Vivian Wilson is everything.

"The Nazi salute sht was insane. Honey, we're going to call a fig a fig, and we're going to call a Nazi salute what it was. That sht was definitely a Nazi salute. The crowd is equally to blame, and I feel like people are not talking about that. That crowd should be denounced.

But other than that, I don't give a f**k about him. I really don't."

Wilson is a refreshing, no-nonsense voice on Threads, and that same no-BS attitude comes through here like an avalanche.

And this, of course, is vitally important:

"As a trans woman, I am terrified of losing access to guaranteed medical care. If I didn't medically transition at the age I did, I don't know what would've happened. I don't feel like people realize that being trans is not a choice. I'm so sorry to break it to you.

Transitioning as a minor was something that was medically necessary for me to do in order to be not suicidal, and it is really important that we protect access to trans care for trans youth."

Wilson is an example of someone this healthcare not only saved but helped thrive. It's exciting to see her use her insightful, attentive, sometimes hilariously-sharp voice.

#Democracy

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[Jasmine Mooney]

A nightmare account from a Canadian citizen detained by ICE:

"I was taken to a tiny, freezing cement cell with bright fluorescent lights and a toilet. There were five other women lying on their mats with the aluminum sheets wrapped over them like dead bodies. The guard locked the door behind me.

[...] After some research, the reality became clear — ICE detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.

Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain. The more prisoners, the more money they make. They don’t lobby for stricter immigration policies in the name of national security — they do it to protect their bottom line."

There is so much to fix here, but perhaps this is the crux: people are making a profit from tightened immigration rules that keep people detained for months or years without due process. That shouldn't be allowed to happen.

#Democracy

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[Mike Monteiro]

On whether it's always been this bad in America:

"America was born in blood, genocide, kidnapping, and death. Behind every story we were told about America’s greatness, there is a secret second painting. A thing America doesn’t want you to see. Behind every “from sea to shining sea” there is a Trail of Tears. Behind every first pitch at Dodger Stadium there’s the destruction of Chavez Ravine. Behind every moonshot there’s a Nazi V2 rocket. Behind every “liberation of the camps” there’s a Nakba. Behind every interstate highway system there’s the destruction of a thousand Black and immigrant neighborhoods."

Although it's front and center, much of what we're experiencing isn't actually new for lots of communities across America. Treating the current moment as completely new doesn't serve us: it erases those struggles and historic injustices. That's not to say that everything is good right now - it's obviously not - but the road that led us here is clearly marked throughout American history.

#Democracy

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[Erin In The Morning]

While America is destroying the ability for trans people to participate in public life, over in Europe they're (rightly) improving care for trans people.

"In recent years, U.S. politicians have selectively framed European healthcare policies to justify restrictions on transgender care, seizing on a handful of conservative policies to claim that “Europe is pulling back.” The most extreme example, the United Kingdom’s Cass Review, has been wielded to justify a near-total ban on puberty blockers and even cited in U.S. Supreme Court arguments. But new medical guidelines from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland tell a different story. These countries have reaffirmed the importance of gender-affirming care for transgender youth and issued sharp critiques of the Cass Review, calling out its severe methodological flaws and misrepresentations."

They contain this specific recommendation:

“If, in individual cases, the progressive pubertal maturation development creates a time pressure in which health damage would be expected due to longer waiting times to avert irreversible bodily changes (e.g. male voice change), access to child and adolescent psychiatric or psychotherapeutic clarification and medical treatment options should be granted as quickly as possible.”

Once again, a rejection of the Cass Review is good news here: the widely debunked study was essentially propaganda for anti-trans interests and didn't represent broader healthcare perspectives.

But the bigger good news is that Europe is a safer place for trans people to live and be supported. I hope, one day soon, America comes to its senses and puts itself on a more supportive path.

#Democracy

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[Jake Offenhartz, Cedar Attanasio and Philip Marcelo at The Associated Press]

This seems completely in line with the First Amendment's protections against restrictions on speech and assembly by the US government:

"President Donald Trump warned Monday that the arrest and possible deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University will be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on campus demonstrations against Israel and the war in Gaza."

Protesting Israel's right-wing government is not in itself anti-semitic. And Mahmoud Khalil's status as a resident student rather than an American citizen does not make him any less subject to constitutional protections.

"Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents and has an American citizen wife who is eight months pregnant, emerged as one of the most visible activists in the protests at Columbia.

[...] “The Department of Homeland Security’s lawless decision to arrest him solely because of his peaceful anti-genocide activism represents a blatant attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, immigration laws, and the very humanity of Palestinians,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil rights advocacy group."

This seems like the very opposite of what America is supposed to be (or at least purports itself to be). Hopefully applied pressure will work - for this particular person, and as a precedent for American civil rights into the future.

#Democracy

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[Gaby Del Valle at The Verge]

This is dystopian:

"The Trump administration may soon demand the social media accounts of people applying for green cards, US citizenship, and asylum or refugee status. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — the federal agency that oversees legal migration, proposed the new policy in the Federal Register this week — calling this information “necessary for a rigorous vetting and screening” of all people applying for “immigration-related benefits.”"

I'm truly interested to learn how this squares with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which constrains government's ability to restrict speech of anyone on US soil, including immigrants and visitors.

I agree with Beatriz Lopez, the executive director of Catalyze/Citizens, who said:

“Trump is turning online spaces into surveillance traps, where immigrants are forced to watch their every move and censor their speech or risk their futures in this country. Today it’s immigrants, tomorrow it’s U.S. citizens who dissent with Trump and his administration.”

#Democracy

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[Andy Kroll at ProPublica]

Cutting the IRS has nothing to do with government efficiency:

"Unlike with other federal agencies, cutting the IRS means the government collects less money and finds fewer tax abuses. Economic studies have shown that for every dollar spent by the IRS, the agency returns between $5 and $12, depending on how much income the taxpayer declared. A 2024 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that the IRS found savings of $13,000 for every additional hour spent auditing the tax returns of very wealthy taxpayers — a return on investment that “would leave Wall Street hedge fund managers drooling,” in the words of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy."

These cuts will particularly curtail audits of wealthy individuals: people who are more likely to be avoiding paying tax to begin with.

As the article points out:

"“When you hamstring the IRS,” Koskinen added. “it’s just a tax cut for tax cheats.”"

So let's not do that?

#Democracy

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[Andrew Paul at McSweeney's]

"I gotta be honest with you, though. I think the Outer God got the message loud and clear. Our tasteful combination of fashionably coordinated clothes, tiny paper fans with BAD! printed on them, and some of our sternest looks of disapproval to date really drove home the fact that we aren’t jazzed by all this cosmic cruelty. I can’t think of anything we could have done differently to inspire our petrified constituents to rise up and take a stand against Nyarlathotep’s unholy resummoning. Sure, the Dungeon Lich-at-Arms tossed that representative from Texas into a Torment Portal after they booed the President, but there’s no way that will play well to anyone beyond his most devout minions."

It's funny because it's true.

#Democracy

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[Natalie Alms at Nextgov/FCW]

I'd say this was an unbelievable own-goal. But, unfortunately, it's believable:

"The General Services Administration deleted 18F, a government tech consultancy that helps other agencies with their technology, early Saturday morning.

The office has been deemed “non-critical,” Thomas Shedd, director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, emailed staff at 1am. The agency’s acting head, Stephen Ehikian, told GSA staff Monday that the agency, which works across the government on tech, procurement and real estate, would be conducting a reduction in force."

18F has consistently saved other agencies money, and is seen as an example of modern government that other agencies (and governments) should learn from. It's an insane agency to dismantle.

But the way 18F worked - human-centered, in the open, with a real eye for inclusive change that saved real resources - is antithetical to Musk's mindset of believing yourself to be the smartest person in the room and forcing people to use your systems based on your own values.

Likely, Musk believes that these services should be provided by private companies (like his own) that could profit from it. It’s a backwards, profiteering, grifter-first approach to government services.

Of course, 18F is confronting to Musk in another way too: you can't be the smartest person in the room when those people are also in the room.

Yet another loss to hubris.

#Democracy

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[Mel Leonor Barclay and Jasmine Mithani at The 19th]

The impact of this will be severe:

"Organizations that provide services to LGBTQ+ victims of domestic and intimate partner violence expect much of the federal funding they rely on to dry up as the Trump administration’s executive orders target the work they have been carrying out for years.

[...] Groups that focus specifically on LGBTQ+ victims are part of a broader network of federally funded nonprofits that provide life-saving counseling, housing and legal aid to people experiencing violence from spouses, partners or family members. Some nonprofits also train social workers, therapists and lawyers in how to work sensitively with LGBTQ+ victims of violence."

Protecting vulnerable communities from harm is not on this administration's agenda. Instead, it seeks to pursue a restrictive, theocratic vision of society that punishes people who are already suffering. Hopefully other organizations will step up and provide some of the funding shortfall.

#Democracy

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[Dan Sinker]

This story doesn't feel like it's going to end up inspiring, but bear with it:

"George Dale printed their names in his newspaper, part of his unrelenting, unceasing, and unflinching attack on the Muncie Klan.

[...] When he wrote an editorial accusing circuit court judge Clarence Dearth of being a Klansman and stacking his juries with Klansmen, that judge sent Dale twice to perform hard labor on a penal farm. He later fled to Ohio to avoid arrest. When Dale got home, he picked up right where he left off and he and Judge Dearth fought a long and protracted defamation battle that left Dale broke."

But do stick with it, because not only is the entirety of George Dale and the story of what he did in Muncie, Indiana inspirational from start to finish, but the conclusion might be enough fire to power you through and inspire your own acts of democratic heroism.

#Democracy

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[Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou and Kavitha Surana at ProPublica]

My colleagues at ProPublica conducted a first-of-its-kind data analysis on health outcomes after Texas banned abortion in 2021.

Here's what it found:

"The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found.

The new reporting shows that, after the state banned abortion, dozens more pregnant and postpartum women died in Texas hospitals than had in pre-pandemic years, which ProPublica used as a baseline to avoid COVID-19-related distortions. As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, ProPublica found, it rose substantially in Texas."

The abortion ban is leading to dangerous delays in care that is leading to an uptick in maternal death. Which is exactly what patient advocates warned would happen.

#Democracy

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