by Grayson Shaw (PO ’25) “One of the main reasons I filed the lawsuit was to try to save my life… It was really horrible being sick, and the only access to water I had was poison” This testimony from Lamar Singleton, along with 18 independent lawsuits from former inmates, illustrates the reality of the Kern Valley State Prison in Delano, California. Prisoners were reportedly forced to...
By Sofia Guimaraes (PO ’24) Three months ago, Elon Musk tweeted, “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?” This tweet sparked debate on the Biden administration’s proposed billionaire bill and cast attention on the growing income inequality in the USA, highlighting the need for a...
By Grace Fan (PO ’23) For many of us, Facebook has been around for as long as we can remember. Though it might have started as an innocuous platform to connect people, it has transpired into a media platform that breeds misinformation, conspiracy groups, and a toxic environment for its users. Its monopolistic reach into almost all aspects of society has proved to be detrimental to not only...
By Kenyamarie Mahone The issue of telecommunications surveillance has become a marker of political freedoms in the 21st century. With increasing technological capacities in the Department of Defense, and the growing role of technology in everyday American life–Americans have become wary of surveillance and its many forms. This has become especially true in the wake of Edward Snowden’s...
Leonora Willet (CM ’25) More than three years ago, whistleblower Christopher Wylie exposed how Cambridge Analytica, a U.K. based consulting firm, accessed Facebook consumers’ data without their consent. As a former employee of the British consulting firm, Wylie witnessed firsthand Facebook’s use of consumer data to target users for disinformation campaigns. The primary means by which...
By Grayson Shaw (PO’ 25) Last weekend, thousands of protestors flooded the streets of Washington D.C. calling on President Biden to act, a sight that Americans have seen nearly every day on the news since election day. However, this protest was not about Medicare for All, Black Lives Matter, or the ongoing climate crisis. The demonstrations surrounded the ongoing conflict in the Tigray...
By Leo Kalb Bourke (PO ’22) On October 29, 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX departing from Jakarta, Indonesia, crashed into the Java Sea 13 minutes after takeoff, killing all 189 people on board. Several months later, on March 10, 2019, a MAX – this time leaving Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – plunged to the ground approximately six minutes after taking flight, killing 157 people. The crash of this second...
By Kenyamarie Mahone (PO ‘23) FOSTA-SESTA: Its Origins In April 2018, Donald Trump signed into law the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), frequently referred to as the FOSTA-SESTA package. The two bills, which had been merged into a single package in 2018, were brought forth to address the alarming proliferation of sex...
By Sumi Vora (PO ‘25) At the beginning of October, an underwater oil pipeline off the coast of Huntington Beach in Southern California ruptured, spewing 144,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean. As horrified Californians watched the toxic, viscous, oil cling to beaches and turn the sea black, many were left wondering: “Why is this still happening?” California had its first...
By Sofia Guimaraes (PO ’24) A few weeks ago, pictures of Haitian migrants being aggressively detained at the Mexico-U.S. border shocked the public and brought attention to Joe Biden’s immigration policies. Even though Biden ran his campaign on the promise of reforming the Trump administration’s immigration policy and made changes to the system in his first months of presidency...
