White supremacist Matthew Hale's bid to practice law in Illinois has received a boost from the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which has filed a legal brief in support of Hale's petition to obtain a law license.

In a legal motion accepted Monday by the state Supreme Court, the ACLU argues that denying Hale a law license on the basis of racist beliefs is a violation of his 1st Amendment rights.

A Cook County Circuit Court judge today dismissed a lawsuit filed by Illinois Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan against white supremacist Matt Hale and his World Church of the Creator.

Ryan filed the suit in July, alleging that Hale's group is an unregistered charity. The civil suit contended that Hale's organization was subject to the state's Solicitation for Charity Act.

But today, Judge Julia M. Nowicki released a written ruling stating that the act is vague and unconstitutional, violating the defendants' 1st and 14th Amendment rights -- freedom of speech and due process, respectively.

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Hale's attorney, Glenn Greenwald, said Hale is very happy with the decision, "but also very surprised that the judge was courageous enough to signify that all citizens, including Matt Hale, have the right to the same constitutional protections." Neither Hale nor his attorney, who practices in New York, was present at today's hearing at the Richard J. Daley Cente

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois attorney general's office and a white supremacist group clashed Wednesday before the Illinois Supreme Court on whether the group is a charity that must register with the state.

The World Church of the Creator, headed by Matt Hale of East Peoria, contended that the state's Solicitation for Charity Act was unconstitutionally vague--a position already upheld by a Cook County judge--and questioned whether Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan selectively enforced the law to quash the group's activities.


Hale's attorney, Glenn Greenwald of New York, argued that provisions in the law that call for patriotic, philanthropic and benevolent organizations to register as charities are ill defined. Greenwald contended that potential penalties for failing to abide by the law--such as a permanent ban on raising funds--are too severe if a group guesses wrong about how the law applies to it.

"Is it constitutional to have a law in which you don't know you have fallen afoul of it until you've been sued, and even then you have severe questions? I don't think so," Hale said after the hearing.

Sadly, despite what major corporations and indie brands alike would have us believe, empowerment can neither be bottled nor sold. Commodification of feminism is not empowerment, and FCKH8 is not empowering girls or women through this video. Instead, they’re using girls as a means to a commercial end: to raise awareness of sexism to sell their t-shirts.

How ironic that a company that positions itself as feminist has no problem commodifying children in this way. Where is their sense of corporate responsibility? The ends don’t justify the means, and they never should have produced this ad.

I would feel differently if a video along these lines had been produced by girls as a way to find an audience for their authentic voices. If a group of young girls were passionate about combatting sexism in the U.S. and had decided to produce a video to raise awareness on the matter, and realized they could get their message out by swearing up a storm, more power to them—I’d applaud them for their creativity and media savvy.

But that’s not the case here. This video was scripted and slickly produced by a t-shirt company that evidently has no qualms about exploiting girls who are too young to understand the implications of the script they’re bringing to life.

The United Nations’ top official for counter-terrorism and human rights (known as the “Special Rapporteur”) issued a formal report to the U.N. General Assembly today that condemns mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple treaties and conventions. “The hard truth is that the use of mass surveillance technology effectively does away with the right to privacy of communications on the Internet altogether,” the report concluded.

Central to the Rapporteur’s findings is the distinction between “targeted surveillance” — which “depend[s] upon the existence of prior suspicion of the targeted individual or organization” — and “mass surveillance,” whereby “states with high levels of Internet penetration can [] gain access to the telephone and e-mail content of an effectively unlimited number of users and maintain an overview of Internet activity associated with particular websites.” In a system of “mass surveillance,” the report explained, “all of this is possible without any prior suspicion related to a specific individual or organization. The communications of literally every Internet user are potentially open for inspection by intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the States concerned.”

Mass surveillance thus “amounts to a systematic interference with the right to respect for the privacy of communications,” it declared. As a result, “it is incompatible with existing concepts of privacy for States to collect all communications or metadata all the time indiscriminately.”

In concluding that mass surveillance impinges core privacy rights, the report was primarily focused on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty enacted by the General Assembly in 1966, to which all of the members of the “Five Eyes” alliance are signatories. The U.S. ratified the treaty in 1992, albeit with various reservations that allowed for the continuation of the death penalty and which rendered its domestic law supreme. With the exception of the U.S.’s Persian Gulf allies (Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar), virtually every major country has signed the treaty.

Citizenfour must have been a maddening documentary to film. Its subject is pervasive global surveillance, an enveloping digital act that spreads without visibility, so its scenes unfold in courtrooms, hearing chambers and hotels. Yet the virtuosity of Laura Poitras, its director and architect, makes its 114 minutes crackle with the nervous energy of revelation.

Poitras, the first journalist contacted by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, mirrors her topic. She rarely appears on news programs or chat shows. She is a mysterious character in her own movie, heard more than she is seen.

But surreptitiously, Poitras has been a commander of a stream of disclosures for 16 months that have forced the NSA into a new and infamous era. Citizenfour demonstrates to the public the prowess that those of us who have worked with her on the NSA stories encountered. Her movie, the culmination of a post-9/11 trilogy that spans a dark horizon from Iraq to Guantánamo, is a triumph of journalism and a triumph for journalism.

We were all overjoyed with President Obama's election. He's had to endure so much crap since. In spite of that he's done many good things. BUT there are still two yrs left -- and there are big disappointments amongst all of us. What would my fellow Obama voters like to see happen in his final two years? To be remembered a hundred years from now as the first African American president -- that's great, but it's not enough. And I know Mr. Obama agrees with that.

In Washington D.C., Sarah Palin delivered the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.

She literally read a children’s book to adults to raucous applause. It was a modified Dr. Seuss book that she got from an email chain letter.

In that other movement, there are meetings like the one today at SXSW. They talked about the complexities of data collection — and how to synthesize it, transparently, for good. It was about exposing data collection programs to scrutiny — to uncover abuse — so it can only be used for people, not against them. It was about, as Snowden said today, “how do you interpret (these communications), how do you understand them.”

All this tech talk is, invariably, filled with compassion.

It’s no longer a question of if we will or will not have a better America. It’s a question of how long it will take the younger and brighter and better to drown out the institution that is impeding American progress with grade school debate, bullying and pettiness. It’s a question of when they will be able to communicate to America that they are the only chance at a productive future.

Those communicators are just starting to surface now. Bill Nye is viewed as a cult hero because we allowed him into our classrooms with VHS tapes, then he refined and strengthened and sharpened his message as we refined and strengthened and sharpened along with him. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, one of the world’s first pop-astrophysicists, debuted a show last night solely about how our world was created. That show was the third-highest rated show on television last night.