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Just Look Up: How to Track the International Space Station – PCMag

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

Have you ever looked up at the sky, at dawn or dusk, and seen a bright spot moving swiftly across the sky? It's not a new star shifting out of sequence. Chances are you just saw the International Space Station (ISS).

At 357 feet end-to-end, the ISS is a football field-sized orbital microgravity, solar-powered research laboratory, training facility, and observatory. It travels at 17,500mph, 250 miles above our heads, and orbits the Earth every 90 minutes. If its hard to imagine how fast that is, an airplanes top speed is 575mph.

Contrary to popular belief, the ISS is not the first place humans have ever lived outside of planet Earth (that was NASAs Skylab(Opens in a new window), which orbited the Earth from 1973-1979), but it's a crucial stepping stone toward human space exploration, and our species future habitats on other planets.

If you want to know how to track the ISS, weve got you covered. Here's how to check out NASAs interactive map and sign up for email or text alerts to know the best time to look up.

If you want to track the ISS from home, go to Spot The Station(Opens in a new window) and use the interactive map to find sighting opportunities in your area. There is also the Live Space Station Tracking Map(Opens in a new window), which shows the physical location of the satellite over the Earth.

Potential sightings are marked by blue pins on the map. I live in Los Angeles, so the nearest blue pin on the map is to the Northeast of the city, high up in the San Gabriel Mountains, at Mount Baldy.

Sighting Location map(Credit: Spot the Station)

You can select a blue pin and click the View sighting opportunities link to see when the ISS could be seen from that spot. The data is precise, showing the exact day, time, elevation, and duration of ISS sighting in minutes. NASA also provides links to share each potential sighting occasion via Facebook and Twitter.

All sightings will occur within a few hours before or after sunrise or sunset. This is the optimal viewing period as the sun reflects off the space station and contrasts against the darker sky. Before heading out to any single spot, it should be noted that the ISS needs to be at an elevation of above 40 degrees from the horizon in the nights sky or you wont see anything.

You can also sign up for alerts(Opens in a new window). Click the Sign Up button in the Heads Up Alerts section, and enter your general location by selecting a blue pin on the map and clicking Sign up for this location.

Choose if you want email or text notifications, then enter your email address or mobile carrier and number. Choose whether you want AM or PM alert times, check the boxes so you can agree to the terms, and click Submit. NASA requires a double opt-in to their alerts service. Once you provide the information above, you will receive an 8-digit code (so keep an eye out for it).

Once your code arrives, return to the sign up page and look to the Enter your Code section on the right of the screen. Enter your email or number, and add the code you were sent. Click Process Code to complete the registration process.

The site will then confirm your alerts are active. Check that all the data is correct, with your preferred location (i.e. mine is Mount Baldy as thats the closest one to Los Angeles). This page will also give you the current months sighting options, in your local time zone.

NASA will then notify you when the ISS is in your area and within optimal viewing conditions.

If you opted to receive emails, dont forget to add [emailprotected] to your contacts so you can avoid the notifications slipping into your spam folder. Your alerts will continue to ping your phone or inbox for a year. After that, you will need to sign up again.

The seven-member crew of Expedition 68(Credit: NASA)

Whats life like aboard the ISS? We interviewed astronaut Nicole Stott in 2018 during the press tour for NatGeos One Strange Rock(Opens in a new window). She told us about her 27-year career at NASA, spending 104 days in space and performing a six-hour and 39-minute spacewalk, then returning to Earth on Space Shuttle Discoverys final descent.

Whos up there now? At the time of writing, there are seven astronauts onboard(Opens in a new window), including Nicole A. Mann, the first indigenous woman from NASA to go to space.

There are also robots aboard the ISS. These Astrobee robots are designed to track radiation levels, assist in two-way communications with mission control on Earth, and keep well out of the way of astronauts running experiments.As of April 2022, the Astrobee program "has operated over 750 hours on the space station, completing over 100 activities, from tech demonstrations to assisting in experiments," NASA says(Opens in a new window).

The European robotic arm extending from the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module(Credit: NASA)

If youre an optimist, the ISS is welcome evidence that we can all play nicely together when we have common goalslike, say, the future of life itself. According to the ISS National Laboratory(Opens in a new window), 240 people from 19 countries have visited the station, which has hosted more than 3,000 research investigations from researchers in more than 100 countries.

Not a spoiler alert but, in about 5 billion years, our Sun will die(Opens in a new window), so our descendants need to be long-gone by then. In order to explore the known universe, we need to find out how to equip humans for (very) long distance travel, and learn how they can survive in (extremely) hostile environments.The ISS serves as a micro-gravity testbed for technologies that will enable this.

One of those experiments is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS)(Opens in a new window), a 7.5-ton module containing the first precision particle physics detector in space. We previously spoke with Dr. Samuel Ting, the scientist in charge of the AMS, to find out how it's been sifting space," modeling billions of cosmic rays, and looking for evidence of dark matter, all to discover the origins of the universe.

Other experiments(Opens in a new window) being conducted on the ISS range from biology and biotechnology investigations, to space science (such as experimental chrondule formation, or stardust) and evidence-based human research, including identifying genetic predispositions to physical shifts within microgravity environments.

SpaceX Crew-5 Mission Specialist Anna Kikina from Roscosmos(Credit: NASA)

The ISS was constructed in situi.e. above the Earths atmosphere. The first module launched on Nov. 20, 1998, and the first crew went up on Oct. 31, 2000. Since its inception, 16 countries have been involved, under the cooperation of five space agenciesCSA (Canada),ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), Roscosmos (Russia), and NASA (United States).

In a time of heightened conflict between major players on Earth, its remarkable that everyone involved manages to remain beyond such strife and get on with the job at hand, for the most part. That said, Russia is leaving the ISS at some point this decade, and China is currently building a space station of its own.

Blue Origin NS-22(Credit: Blue Origin)

On a sadder note, the ISS itself will be decommissioned in 2030, so its worth making time to spot it in the nights sky at least once before it goes.

Although not a short read, NASAs transition plan details(Opens in a new window) how the station will be developed for commercial use in the future, with steps being taken to develop both the supply and demand side of the low-Earth orbit commercial economy, and the technical steps and budget required for transition.

For those of us who long to be space tourists, and not just spot space stations from the ground, the transition report confirms that NASA has signed agreements with Blue Origin, Nanoracks LLC, and Northrop Grumman to develop commercial destinations in space.

Until then, look up and imagine what life will be like when we can all go into Low Earth Orbitand then where no human has gone before, boldly or otherwise.

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Just Look Up: How to Track the International Space Station - PCMag

The Russian Space Program Is Falling Back to Earth – The Atlantic

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

The new crew arrived at the International Space Station last week, all smiles and floating hair. There was, as usual, a little welcome ceremony, with heartfelt remarks from the newcomers streamed live for the people they left behind on Earth. A few of the astronauts floated above the others and turned upside down, hanging like bats, so that their beaming faces would fit into the frame.

But this latest trip was different: For the first time, a Russian cosmonaut had traveled to the space station on an American SpaceX capsule launched into orbit from Florida. The ride was the result of a new seat-swapping arrangement between the United States and Russia. Before 2020, when NASA started using SpaceX to reach the ISS, the space agency had relied solely on Russias astronaut-transport system, the Soyuz, paying millions of dollars a seat. Now American astronauts will fly on Soyuz, and Russian cosmonauts on SpaceX, with no money exchanged between the two countries.

The Russian and American space programs have been tangled up since the beginning, and they remain tethered now, even as relations between the two countries deteriorate because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. The two have no choice but to work together: The ISS is a shared space, with the U.S. and Russia its largest partners and Russia responsible for maintaining the stations orbit.

Beyond the ISS, though, Russias space portfolio isnt all that grandiose these days. Although cosmonauts fly into orbit regularly, Russia does not have a rover on the far side of the moon, as China has, or orbiters around Mars, as India and the United Arab Emirates have. It does not have a fleet of space telescopes like the U.S has. The Soviet Union was the first to send a human being to space, decades ago, and its early accomplishments are a distinct point of national pride. But the Russian space program has stalled for years, plagued by sparse budgets. And that was before Vladimir Putins onslaught on Ukraine: Some of the space plans the country still had in the works are falling apart. Now the Russian space effort may be more adrift than ever.

All of the satellites around Earth, thousands and thousands of them, whether the navigation kind or the spying type, can trace their history to Sputnik. When the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite into orbit 65 years ago, it ushered in a new era of technologyand set the tone for the space race. Within a couple of years, the Soviet Union had started launching spacecraft to the moon, where they intentionally crashed into the surface, sprinkling hardware across the regolith in a very explosive first. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel to space, beating Americans to the milestone by less than a month. But by the end of the decade, the U.S. had effectively won the race: When American astronauts launched to the moon, the Soviet Union was still trying to figure out how to stop its rocket from exploding.

Read: The Russian invasion touches outer space

In the following years, the Soviets put the first-ever lander on Mars, which transmitted for about 20 seconds before cutting out, and sent a series of missions to Venus. They built their own space shuttle, which flew only once, and built a space station that operated for 15 years before being ditched into the sea. The fall of the Soviet Union led to a decreased influence on the world stage, but Russia remained a key player in space. By 1998, Roscosmos, the post-Soviet space agency, was helping the U.S. assemble the ISS piece by piece. For years, it was the only nation capable of flying people to the ISS.

These space successes have become a meaningful part of Russias national identity. Space exploration is one of the two reference points in recent historythe other being the Soviet Unions victory in World War IIthat enjoys a broad consensus among Russians and defines many features of Russian political culture, Pavel Luzin, a Russian space-policy analyst, has written. In recent years, after Russias takeover of Crimea and the resulting international backlash, the effort has become less innovative and more militarily focused, while lacking a clear future direction, James Clay Moltz, a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, has written. Last year, Russia conducted a missile test to blow up a defunct satellite, producing debris that passed dangerously close to the ISS. The space program is also running on a dwindling budget. Russia is struggling to find a formula for space success in the 21st century, Moltz wrote in 2020.

Russias full-on invasion of Ukraine has only made matters worse. The fallout from the war has narrowed the countrys space portfolio even more; sanctions have included U.S. measures meant to degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program. Russia has long hoped to rekindle its moon efforts, and eventually put people on the surface, but the European Space Agency, its partner in the effort, has withdrawn its participation because of the war in Ukraine. Europe has also kicked Russia out of the effort to send a new rover to Mars to search for signs of ancient life. National space organizations and private space companies alike have dropped Russian launch services on more than a dozen occasions, seeking other providers. Russia risks being left behind completely in the increasingly competitive commercial space-launch market, Jeremy Grunert, an Air Force lawyer who specializes in military and space law, wrote recently.

Read: Maybe dont blow up satellites in space

Roscosmos seeks to strike out on its own in low-Earth orbit and build a new space station, with the first module launching sometime in 2028, and more going up in 2030the year the U.S. wants to start winding down the ISS. But sanctions have hindered development of Russias space-station hardware, which has to be redesigned, as there will be no access to the Western electronics that the designers initially had in mind, Luzin wrote. It is obvious that the Russian orbital station project is both very ambitious and largely unfeasible given the current circumstances. At a press conference held last week after the cosmonaut Anna Kikina launched on SpaceX, Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who serves as the executive director of Roscosmoss human-spaceflight program, told reporters, We know that is not going to happen very quick. Russia, he said, could discuss extending our partnership in ISS.

If Russia were to jump ship early, it would have no spaceflight program to speak of. We must bear in mind that if we discontinue manned flights for several years, it will be very difficult to restore what we have achieved afterwards, Vladimir Solovyov, a former cosmonaut and the flight director for the Russian side of the ISS, said in a Roscosmos interview this summer. So Russia is likely to stay on the ISS for as long as possible, especially as the rest of its space endeavors wither. Not all of Russias space goals have been thrown into doubt. The country is working with China to build a lunar base by the 2030s. Although China has called for Russia to end its war on Ukraine, it has expressed support for their future cooperation in space exploration.

Read: Why the far side of the moon matters so much

After Kikina arrived on the ISS last week, blasting off in an American-built capsule, sleeker and more spacious than the Russian Soyuz, I wondered whether she might say something about whats going on in her home country. We shouldnt assume that any professional spacefarer shares the beliefs of her president, although earlier this year, a trio of cosmonauts had posed for pictures on the ISS with a flag in support of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine (NASA responded by saying that it strongly rebukes the display). But Kikina, the sole woman in Russias cosmonaut corps, just thanked her family and the crews she worked with, and held up a little handmade doll as tribute to her hometown of Novosibirsk. Meanwhile, 250 miles below, the war raged on, weakening Russias standing as a spacefaring nation.

A force that dominated the early days of humanitys drive to reach the stars, that set the pace for the history books, now risks flaming out because of a land war back on Earth. In the coming years, Russia may no longer be considered a space power at all; in fact, some observers are making that assertion now.

Russias space future matters deeply to Russia itself, of course, but it also concerns the rest of the word. The country, uncomfortable in the shadow of other space powers, could double down on its military uses of space, threatening an already precarious arena. And while space exploration is an image-bolstering activity, it has consequences that transcend national bordersilluminating discoveries about the universe and our place in it, and remarkable demonstrations of what human beings can do with a little bit of rocket fuel and some curiosity, in the skies above Earth and well beyond. With Russias potential downfall as a space power, humanitys potential in the cosmos may shrink, and a once-formidable participant that could have propelled exploration of the cosmos further will be left out of the endeavor instead.

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The Russian Space Program Is Falling Back to Earth - The Atlantic

Muscle and Crop Studies Helping Crews Adapt to Space Missions – NASA Blogs

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

The 11 crew members who lived aboard the station together for eight days pose for a portrait on Oct. 12, 2022.

Today aboard the International Space Station, the Expedition 68 crew explored how to maintain healthy bodies and grow crops in the weightless environment of space. Learning to live long-term in microgravity and farther away from Earth orbit requires astronauts to sustain themselves without relying on visiting resupply missions.

Humans lose muscle and bone mass much faster in space than on Earth due to the lack of gravity bearing down on them. However, the space station crew members work out two hours every day on a treadmill, an exercise cycle, and a resistive device, to offset and counteract the effects microgravity. One experiment called Myotones, worked on today by U.S. and Japanese Flight Engineers Nicole Mann and Koichi Wakata, tracks how a crew members muscles adapt to space. The duo took turns marking their neck, back, leg and arm muscles, while inside the Columbus laboratory module. Afterward, the pair used the specialized Myotones device to measure the biochemical properties of the same muscles, including muscle tone, stiffness, and elasticity.

Mann then went on and partnered with fellow NASA Flight Engineer Josh Cassada strapping sensors to each other and pedaling on the U.S. Destiny laboratory modules exercise bike to measure their aerobic capacity on orbit. Frank Rubio, also a NASA flight engineer, mixed a nutrient solution to nourish vegetables growing inside the Columbus lab for the XROOTS study. The space botany study investigates using hydronic and aeroponic methods to grow crops on spacecraft and space habitats so astronauts can feed themselves in low-Earth orbit and beyond.

Roscosmos Flight Engineer Anna Kikina studied advanced Earth photography techniques that use ultrasound sensors to help target landmarks on the ground. Her fellow cosmonauts, Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin, are preparing for a new cargo mission due to launch from Kazakhstan at the end of the month. The duo tested the stations TORU, or telerobotically operated rendezvous unit, that would be used to manually control an approaching spacecraft in the unlikely event it was unable to automatically approach and dock on its own.

Learn more about station activities by following thespace station blog,@space_stationand@ISS_Researchon Twitter, as well as theISS FacebookandISS Instagramaccounts.

Get weekly video highlights at:http://jscfeatures.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

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Muscle and Crop Studies Helping Crews Adapt to Space Missions - NASA Blogs

ISS Moves to New Orbit in Advance of Cargo Mission – Yahoo News

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

A view of Earth and its glowing atmosphere as seen from the ISS on October 4, 2022.

All seven members of Expedition 68 are now aboard the International Space Station following the arrival of Crew-5 last week. A cargo mission to replenish supplies is expected next week, prompting a necessary orbital adjustment to receive the Russian space hauler.

The Progress 81 cargo vehicle attached to the Russian Zvezda module fired its thrusters for 10 minutes and 30 seconds on Monday, raising the space stations orbit and placing it at the correct altitude to receive the Progress 82 resupply ship, according to a NASA blog post. The uncrewed cargo craft is scheduled to blast off from Russias Baikonur Cosmodrome on Tuesday, October 25 at 8:00 p.m. ET and dock with Zvezda some 26 hours later.

Four spaceships are currently docked at the space station: Russias Progress 80, Progress 81, and Soyuz MS-22, and SpaceXs Endurance Dragon from the Crew-5 mission. Progress 80, attached to the Poisk mini-research module since February, is not long for this world; the vehicle is being filled with trash and obsolete gear in anticipation of its undocking and intentional disintegration over the South Pacific Ocean next week. Progress 82 will serve as its replacement.

A graphic showing the ISS configuration as it appeared on October 14, 2022.

The final four members of Expedition 68 arrived at the orbital outpost on October 6, briefly raising the total ISS population to 11. Crew-5 consists of NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina. Crew-4, consisting of NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, and Jessica Watkins, and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, returned to Earth on October 14. Prior to leaving, Cristoforetti briefly took command of the ISS, becoming the first European woman to do so.

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The now seven-member Expedition 68 crew, in addition to Crew-5, consists of NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev. The latter three blasted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket on September 21 and docked at the Rassvet module later that day. Each member of Expedition 68 will stay aboard the ISS for roughly six months. The crew is already hard at work, performing various maintenance tasks and experiments.

The Expedition 68 crew. From left are, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio; Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata; NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann; and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Anna Kikina.

On Monday, Rubio and Mann worked inside the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, where they organized hardware to be returned on the next SpaceX Dragon mission and gathered air and surface samples for microbial analysis. Kikina spent much of the day training on the computer that controls the newly installed European robotic arm attached to the Nauka module. Meanwhile, Cassada and Wakata took turns with a virtual reality headset to study the effects of microgravity on an astronauts ability to reach and grasp objects. Petelin performed water transfer activities, while Prokopyev ran inventory tasks and packed trash inside Progress 80, which is due to leave next week.

Both Rubio and Kikina took part in a seat-swap agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, in which the astronaut reached space via the Soyuz MS-22 mission and the cosmonaut via Spaces Crew-5 flight. The space agencies continue to work together despite tensions caused by Russias ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Its all very awkward, and even a bit inappropriate, but the space partners have little choice but to cooperate given that the ISS cannot function without the participation of both member states.

More: Whos Going to Regulate All These Private Space Stations?

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ISS Moves to New Orbit in Advance of Cargo Mission - Yahoo News

Astronaut Returns From ISS With Annoying Space Accent – The Onion

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLAdopting an affected speech pattern upon reentering Earths atmosphere, an astronaut aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule reportedly returned from the International Space Station with an annoying space accent Monday. He was only in space for, like, nine months, and that is not long enough to pick up an accent, said NASA mission coordinator Sheila Malone, who told reporters how the astronaut now made unnatural guttural sounds when pronouncing certain vowels and was always telling everyone they just had to go to space the first chance they got. Dude, hes from Ohio. He doesnt need to go on and on about how he cant get use to the food here because its not the same as it is in space, or how they have some expression they use aboard the ISS that he cant possibly explain to us because weve never been there and just wouldnt get it. Worst of all, he keeps making a big deal of dropping things while talking about how crazy it is that objects just fall to the ground here, as if gravity were something he hadnt been familiar with his whole life. Its so fucking obnoxious. At press time, sources reported the astronaut was lecturing co-workers on the proper way to pronounce Andromeda.

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Astronaut Returns From ISS With Annoying Space Accent - The Onion

Tom Cruise Might Become the First Civilian to Spacewalk at the ISS – Smithsonian Magazine

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer on a spacewalk outside theInternational Space Station Courtesy of NASA

Astronauts spend years undergoing rigorous training before they maketheir first trip into space. And before becoming astronauts, they usually already have years of experience in related fields, such as engineering, geology, aeronautics, physics, medicine and biology; many have doctorates or have seen military combat.

But for actor Tom Cruise, a trip to space might just be another day at the office. Cruise hopes to shoot scenes for an as-yet-untitled action film at the International Space Station (ISS) in the near future. If he succeeds, hed become the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station, according to Donna Langley, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.

In a lengthy interview with the BBCs Katie Razzall, Langley reveals a few more details about the proposed movie, which is still an aspiration at this stage, per the BBC.

Tom Cruise is taking us to space, hes taking the world to space, Langley tells the BBC. Thats the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom.

Cruise and director Doug Liman, who worked together on the 2014 movie Edge of Tomorrow, pitched the idea for the new film to Langley on a Zoom call during the pandemic. Though she didnt share too many specific details about the plot, the general gist is that the storyline actually takes place on earth, and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day.

Cruise is already known for doing many of his own stunts, including some potentially dangerous ones, so it comes as no surprise that hes willing to take a rocket to the space station for the sake of cinema. As Daniel Kreps writes for Rolling Stone, its unclear whether Cruise would actually go inside the ISS or just walk around outside of the orbiting laboratory.

NASA, for its part, seems willing to collaborate on the movie. Though he has since deleted the tweet, former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote in May 2020 that the agency is looking forward to working with Cruise. We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make NASAs ambitious plans a reality, he wrote. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, which is working with NASA on a number of projects, replied that the project should be a lot of fun! As Deadlines Mike Fleming Jr. reported at the time, Musk, Cruise and NASA were all reportedly working together to make the film a reality.

Despite his lack of official astronaut training, Cruise does have some cinematic experience with space and aviation. In 2013, he played a futuristic drone technician who must defend Earth against alien invaders in Oblivion. He also narrated the 2002 Imax documentary Space Station 3D. One of his most popular air-and-space-related films, of course, is Top Gun, the 1986 flick about Navy fighter pilots. Cruise also recently starred in the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick.

Since the space stations launch nearly 24 years ago in 1998, ISS crewmembers have made just 253 spacewalksin other words, theyre not something NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), Roscosmos or any of the other major space station partners take lightly. Spacewalks are inherently dangerous and, as such, NASA has a whole slew of rules and guidelines around them. As Paola Rosa-Aquino writes for Space.com, theyre also expensive and time-consumingwhenever possible, crewmembers try to use robotic arms to work outside the ISS.

Sometimes, though, astronauts (and Russian cosmonauts) have to go on spacewalks as a last resort. They typically have very specific reasons for leaving the space station, such as performing maintenance or installing new equipment. NASA calls these adventures extravehicular activities.

Wearing highly specialized suits outfitted with life support gear, crewmembers depart the space station through a special set of airlock doors. They remain attached to the space station via tethers, and they usually spend five to eight hours in space while completing their objectives.

Astronauts must complete special training before they undertake spacewalks. They spend a lot of time at NASAs Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There, theypractice spacewalks in a6.2-million-gallon poolin which they neither sink nor float. For every hour a crewmember will spend on an ISS spacewalk, they must spend seven hours in the pool, per NASA. They also train via virtual reality technologies that simulate extravehicular activities.

If Cruise ever does make it into orbit, there is another thing hell have to keep in mind: remembering to focus in the face of the vast cosmos. And thats not necessarily an easy feat, as NASA astronaut Mike Fincke told CNNs Ashley Strickland last year.

Its really truly breathtaking, he told the publication. The only thing between you and the rest of the universe, seeing the whole cosmos of creation, is the glass faceplate of your visor on your helmet, and its just awe-inspiring.

SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts say their space station work will help get NASA to the moon – Space.com

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

NASA astronauts on the International Space Station are eyeing the moon, and what it would take to get there.

SpaceX's Crew-4 astronauts spoke from the orbiting lab about how their work is linking up with NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission, which could launch in November, and with other lunar sorties in the coming years.

"A really exciting part of what we're able to do up here [is] using the International Space Station [ISS] as a testbed for future exploration," NASA's Jessica Watkins told Space.com during a live press conference on Tuesday (Oct. 11), two days before Crew-4's scheduled return to Earth. (The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying Watkins and her three crewmates is scheduled to splash down Thursday, Oct. 13, at 5:41 p.m. EDT, or 2141 GMT.)

Related: The Artemis plan: Why NASA sees the moon as a stepping stone to Mars

ISS research is gearing up for a big spaceflight leap: sending humans back to the moon for the first time since 1972.

Providing the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission to lunar orbit launches and lands as planned, NASA plans to send Artemis 2 around the moon with astronauts as soon as 2024. Following that, Artemis 3 is scheduled to land on the surface in 2025 or so. Watkins, a Black geologist, may be one of the people making the first lunar bootprints since Apollo 17, for NASA aims to land a woman and a person of color on Artemis 3.

A large chunk of space station research is devoted to human health, and to advancing technologies like life support or growing plants to make sure they are robust enough to take on the demanding lunar environment, Watkins explained.

"We are looking into ways to protect against some of the hazards that are associated with some of this exploration," Watkins said. Plants will need to contend with very different soil and weaker gravity, for example, while plants and machinery alike will need to deal with intense radiation at the moon's surface.

"Radiation is one of the biggest factors that needs to be mitigated as we move forward," Watkins added, which is why Artemis 1 will have so many sensors in the spacecraft to test and assess the environment.

Crew-5 members are testing out a radiation vest, AstroRad, that will also fly around the moon on an Artemis 1 mannequin. With the sun rapidly entering an active phase in its 11-year activity cycle, space radiation is reaching a high point around the solar system.

Putting AstroRad in Earth and lunar orbit at about the same time will allow scientists to compare ISS astronaut radiation exposure with the mannequin's to see how radiation is percolating across Earth's neighborhood and beyond, Watkins explained.

"The ISS is really enabling us to further technologies and understanding that will enable us to go further into the solar system," added Watkins, whose own research about Mars geology was published in a peer-reviewed journal shortly after she blasted into orbit. The topic: rocks studied by NASA's Curiosity rover.

Related: Amazing launch photos of SpaceX's Crew-4 astronaut mission

A typical space station crew looks at 200 or so investigations with the aim of banking reams of data for future crews to draw upon, no matter where they're located. Both Watkins and Crew-4 commander and fellow NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren pointed to the human body's reactions to space as a key frame of their research.

One project on immune system science was "really looking at the aging process of immune cells, to better understand the immune dysfunction that we see in astronauts here on orbit," Lindgren said, adding that a shorter-term benefit will be creating better treatments for patients on Earth. "Truly understanding that at the cellular level that was a lot of fun to participate in."

Crew-4 crewmate Samantha Cristoforetti, who last visited the ISS nearly seven years ago, pointed to big changes in science since she last undocked: a scanning electron microscope, two 3D printers and "all kinds of facilities" to gather information for future crews, she said.

"There is a whole slew of life support technological technology demos that are running on space station, again, something new," said Cristoforetti, a European Space Agency astronaut. "It's an even busier space station."

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter@howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcom (opens in new tab)or Facebook.

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SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts say their space station work will help get NASA to the moon - Space.com

Bizarre blue blobs hover in Earth’s atmosphere in stunning astronaut photo. But what are they? – Livescience.com

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

An astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) has snapped a peculiar image of Earth from space that contains two bizarre blue blobs of light glimmering in our planet's atmosphere. The dazzling pair may look otherworldly. But in reality, they are the result of two unrelated natural phenomena that just happened to occur at the same time.

The image was captured last year by an unnamed member of the Expedition 66 crew as the ISS passed over the South China Sea. The photo was released online Oct. 9 by NASA's Earth Observatory (opens in new tab).

The first blob of light, which is visible at the bottom of the image, is a massive lightning strike somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand. Lightning strikes are typically hard to see from the ISS, as they're usually covered by clouds. But this particular strike occurred next to a large, circular gap in the top of the clouds, which caused the lightning to illuminate the surrounding walls of the cloudy caldera-like structure, creating a striking luminous ring.

Related: Upward-shooting 'blue jet' lightning spotted from International Space Station

The second blue blob, which can be seen in the top right of the image, is the result of warped light from the moon. The orientation of Earth's natural satellite in relation to the ISS means the light it reflects back from the sun passes straight through the planet's atmosphere, which transforms it into a bright blue blob with a fuzzy halo. This effect is caused by some of the moonlight scattering off tiny particles in Earth's atmosphere, according to Earth Observatory.

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Different colors of visible light have different wavelengths, which affects their interaction with atmospheric particles. Blue light has the shortest wavelength and is therefore the most likely to scatter, which caused the moon to turn blue in this image. The same effect also explains why the sky appears blue during the daytime: because blue wavelengths of sunlight scatter the most and become more visible to the human eye, according to NASA (opens in new tab).

Also visible in the photo is a glowing web of artificial lights coming from Thailand. The other prominent sources of light pollution in the image are emitted from Vietnam and Hainan Island, the southernmost region of China, though these light sources are largely obscured by clouds. The orange halo parallel to the curvature of the Earth is the edge of the atmosphere, which is commonly known as "Earth's limb" when viewed from space, according to Earth Observatory.

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Bizarre blue blobs hover in Earth's atmosphere in stunning astronaut photo. But what are they? - Livescience.com

China’s Shenzhou 14 astronauts snap stunning photos of Earth, the moon and more – Space.com

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts have been busy testing a new space station module, conducting spacewalks and carrying out experiments but they've also found time to take some spectacular photos.

China's human spaceflight agency, CMSA, released the photographs taken by the astronauts aboard the Tiangong space station during their ongoing mission, which launched June 3.

Images taken by Cmdr. Chen Dong show one of the station's flexible solar arrays against a backdrop of nighttime cities shining from Earth below, and another photo captures the airglow above our planet that results when sunlight interacts with atoms and molecules in Earth's atmosphere.

Related: China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts mark busy 1st month aboard Tiangong space station

Liu Yang, whose previous mission to space back in 2012 made her China's first woman in orbit, also snapped some pictures, including one of a full moon above Earth. Photos taken by Cai Xuzhe on his first trip to space include an image of Hainan island, just off the Chinese mainland, from where the Tiangong modules launched, and a tomato plant sprouting aboard the station.

Image 1 of 9

Shenzhou 14 is the third crewed mission to Tiangong. During the first, Shenzhou 12, astronauts also returned stunning images.

The Shenzhou 14 crew is scheduled to receive a new visitor later this month, when the third and final module for Tiangong is launched. The Mengtian module will complete the planned T-shaped orbital outpost.

The crewmembers are expected to stay in orbit until sometime in December, when they will welcome the incoming Shenzhou 15 mission astronauts and carry out China's first-ever crew handover.

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China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts snap stunning photos of Earth, the moon and more - Space.com

MACAU DAILY TIMES Audience in space applaud for the 20th CPC National Congress report – Macau Daily Times

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

The Shenzhou XIV crew currently stationed in Chinas space station watched the live broadcast of the opening of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and applauded for the countrys ambitious space outlook.

The Shenzhou XIV mission commander Chen Dong said the crew in the space station about 400 kilometers from the surface watched the live broadcast of the opening and they were very excited and felt inspired.

The female taikonaut Liu Yang commented that when she heard about Chinas space exploration plan in the report, she felt inspired and was more proud of their mission in the space station.

Cai Xuzhe said the Mengtian lab will soon be launched into space and they would stay true to their mission, taking careful operation and cooperating with each other to resolutely complete building the space station. Xinhua

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MACAU DAILY TIMES Audience in space applaud for the 20th CPC National Congress report - Macau Daily Times

New Bay Area attraction takes you on a VR adventure in space. Heres what its like – SF Chronicle Datebook

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

Paul Foulkes observes Ryoji Ikedas audiovisual installation The Universe within the Universe, at Space Explorers: The Infinite immersive experience, which opened at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond on Thursday, Oct. 13. Photo: Salgu Wissmath / The Chronicle

Over the years, Ive posed the same question to different groups of people: If you could fly to the moon at roughly the same cost and level of hassle as traveling to Antarctica today would you?

For me, its a resounding yes. Thats why Im so astonished when so few are as enthused, across a variety of demographics.

Dont you want to see Earth from space? To experience zero gravity? I ask. But most arent persuaded. Some consider it too dangerous; others express no desire to leave Earth.

Space Explorers: The Infinite a new virtual reality experience at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond might change their minds. With more than 250 hours of footage filmed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station, its an intimate experience, a chance to sit down for a meal elbow-to-elbow at their table. But its also sweeping, giving you a sense of the scale and scope as you orbit Earth, dazzled by the glittering lights of the cities below and the stars beyond.

I visited the experience with my family on Saturday, Oct. 15. At the orientation, the guide advised us against making abrupt gestures, running, screaming, sitting and walking backwards in the exhibition which made me and my husband a tad worried for our spirited 11-year-old twins, Didi and Gege. (The minimum age allowed to participate is 8 years old; tickets are currently available through the end of November; no end date has been announced yet.)

As with any new technology, there were a few glitches with the headsets, but the abundance of employees standing by helped and soon we had lift-off. We could walk around a virtual rendering of the space station through walls and into space and touch glowing spheres that queued up short clips, fascinating slices of life while astronauts narrated: getting a haircut, running on a treadmill, preparing a camera for a spacewalk and tending to mizuna greens.

I didnt realize that astronauts wore socks in lieu of shoes onboard theyd fit in perfectly in an Asian household, where we drop our footwear at the door! or that they wore polo shirts and slacks that give them the look of extremely fit Best Buy clerks.

The headsets were surprisingly comfortable. Afterward, taking them off, I had slight eye strain akin to staring at a monitor without my reading glasses but the discomfort quickly faded. Close captioning is available, and for those whod prefer not to wear headsets and wander, they can access the footage via tablets.

Since Gege is scared of heights, he was at times uneasy, feeling as though he might fall into the limitless black. He most enjoyed when we first donned the headsets and interacted with each other, marveling at the sight of our hands, a golden outline speckled with stars. He and Didi played rock paper scissors with their virtual hands, and he and I hugged, pressing our golden hearts together.

Although Didi found parts of the experience dark and spooky, he liked the puzzle of finding the spheres and touching them.

In high school, my husband watched documentaries about the 20th anniversary of the moon landing. With dreams of becoming an astronaut, he majored in physics at UC Berkeley. He was as excited as I was to try out this virtual flight. It allows people to experience something very few will ever get to in real life, he said.

In January 2019, astronauts aboard the ISS began filming for the experience with cameras that capture footage on all axes and orientations. They learned how use the cameras, put on their microphones and transfer a low-resolution version of the data back to Earth that NASA would clear before passing along to the filmmakers, Flix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphal.

They and their team answered any astronaut questions about the technology, and also discussed potential scenes on creative calls. Their objective: to capture the experience from an astronauts moment of arrival on the space station to departure six months later.

VR filmmaking pushes the boundaries of storytelling.

The Infinite is spatially designed, with users choosing their own adventure as they move through the exhibition.

You connect the dots yourself. No one explores the same content in the same order, Lajeunesse said.

The SD cards with the master files returned to Earth as cargo, but ran the risk of getting lost or damaged. It was quite stressful, he said. Every time the bag of SD cards arrived, fresh from space, it felt like something sacred.

Another VR show, Carne y Arena, also just opened at the Craneway. Directed by Alejandro G. Irritu, its based on the accounts of Central American and Mexican refugees as they cross the desert, who re-enact their harrowing journeys. Participants join a caravan led by a smuggler and encounter the U.S. Border Patrol.

These VR experiences are part of a growing trend in the Bay Area and beyond. At the de Young Museum, Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs includes a virtual tour of two monuments, Abu Simbel and Nefertaris Tomb.

At SandboxVR with locations in San Mateo, San Francisco, San Ramon, and Emeryville gamers can battle zombies, defend Earth against aliens, battle on the high seas and explore other worlds.

Facebooks parent, Meta, has bet big on VR. But the number of active users on Horizon Worlds virtual spaces accessed through its headsets has fallen far short of the companys goals, according to news reports. Will the VR fad fizzle or take off?

Maybe the answer is in the stars.

Watching astronauts on a spacewalk was awe-inspiring and moving, as I considered how small they were against the universe, and how long theyd trained to get there. Earth below appeared beautiful and serene.

These days, its a perspective we could all use.

Space Explorers: The Infinite: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Wednesday and Friday; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday. Through November. $24-$54. Craneway Pavilion, 1414 Harbour Way, Richmond. theinfiniteexperience.com/Richmond

Carne y Arena: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. WednesdayThursday; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. Through Jan. 28, 2023. $30-$45. Craneway Pavilion, 1414 Harbour Way, Richmond. phi.ca/en/carne-y-arena/

Vanessa HuaVanessa Hua is the author, most recently, of "Forbidden City." Her column appears Fridays in Datebook.

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New Bay Area attraction takes you on a VR adventure in space. Heres what its like - SF Chronicle Datebook

Musk and Bezos Aside, Space Sector Investment Comes Back to Earth – TheStreet

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

Elon Musk's SpaceX vehicles have rocketed up to the International Space Station and have deployed Starlink satellites by the dozens with every one of their launches. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has Blue Origin expeditions selling trips to wealthy space travelers and guests including William Shatner of Star Trek fame.

In his new book, Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder, Shatner wrote that going to space felt like a funeral. The actor went to space with Bezos last October at 90 years old. He said he saw death up in space and famously compared the feeling of grief in space to the glorious treasure of life on earth within the precious atmosphere.

It seemed for a brief moment in time that the space business was the place to be for investors. To be sure, some are doing well. Others are starting to take another look at economic conditions and wondering whether the money and effort should be expended elsewhere.

Perhaps Shatner's gloomy feelings about space foreshadowed an investing trend.

Space Capital, which describes itself as a seed stage venture capital firm investing in the space economy, released a third-quarter report October 18 that describes a downturn in the investment climate around space ventures.

Expectations for Q3 were high, the report states, with hopes that the Fed would tame inflation and investors would get back to deploying capital, neither of which occurred.

Michael Sias, the Space Capital president, said in an e-mail that a risk averse environment has caused the investment volume in space to have fallen significantly more than the broader market.

"In fact, Q3 is one of the lowest quarters for private investment in space over the last five years," he stated.

Total investment year to date saw a steep decline versus last year, although early-stage investments have increased over that same period. Early-stage infrastructure activity was flat compared to last year, while distribution and applications witnessed declines.

"Space Capital expects the macro environment will continue to disproportionately affect funding across deep tech, including space infrastructure," Sias predicts.

Elon Musk's privately held SpaceX moved to raise $1.7 billion over the summer as it continues to spend heavily on its massive Starship and Starlink satellite projects, CNBC reported. The move pushed the valuation of SpaceX to $127 billion, according to the report.

Investors can be irrational and markets tend to overcorrect, Sias wrote.

"What might get lost in the noise is that space technologies are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy," he explains. "Additionally, the space economy is both countercyclical and resilient to macro market conditions (despite volatile stock prices), as demonstrated by the record revenues for remote sensing companies."

Remote sensing refers to the acquiring of information from a distance. For example, NASA observes our planet and others with remote sensors on satellites.

"Space companies providing data, insights, and critical services to enterprises and governments will be better positioned to grow revenues in the near-term and have a higher likelihood of raising large growth rounds in a more selective market environment," Sias says.

"Anecdotally," he continues, "from the front lines, valuations are normalizing and we are beginning to see deal activity ramp up."

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Harnessing bioengineered microbes as a versatile platform for space nutrition – Nature.com

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

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Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

1964 amendment prohibiting poll taxes

The Twenty-fourth Amendment (Amendment XXIV) of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964.

Southern states of the former Confederate States of America adopted poll taxes in laws of the late 19th century and new constitutions from 1890 to 1908, after the Democratic Party had generally regained control of state legislatures decades after the end of Reconstruction, as a measure to prevent African Americans and often poor whites (and following passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, women) from voting. Use of the poll taxes by states was held to be constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1937 decision Breedlove v. Suttles.

When the 24th Amendment was ratified in 1964, five states still retained a poll tax: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia. The amendment prohibited requiring a poll tax for voters in federal elections. But it was not until 1966 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 63 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections that poll taxes for any level of elections were unconstitutional. It said these violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Subsequent litigation related to potential discriminatory effects of voter registration requirements has generally been based on application of this clause.

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[1]

Poll tax

Cumulative poll tax (missed poll taxes from prior years must also be paid to vote)

No poll tax

Southern states had adopted the poll tax as a requirement for voting as part of a series of laws in the late 19th century intended to exclude black Americans from politics so far as practicable without violating the Fifteenth Amendment. This required that voting not be limited by "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". All voters were required to pay the poll tax, but in practice it most affected the poor. Notably this affected both African Americans and poor white voters, some of whom had voted with Populist and Fusionist candidates in the late 19th century, temporarily disturbing Democratic rule. Proponents of the poll tax downplayed this aspect and assured white voters they would not be affected. Passage of poll taxes began in earnest in the 1890s, as Democrats wanted to prevent another Populist-Republican coalition. Despite election violence and fraud, African Americans were still winning numerous local seats. By 1902, all eleven states of the former Confederacy had enacted a poll tax, many within new constitutions that contained other provisions as barriers to voter registration, such as literacy or comprehension tests administered subjectively by white workers. The poll tax was used together with other devices such as grandfather clauses and the "white primary" designed to exclude blacks, as well as threats and acts of violence. For example, potential voters had to be "assessed" in Arkansas, and blacks were utterly ignored in the assessment.

From 1900 to 1937, such use of the poll tax was nearly ignored by the federal government. Several state-level initiatives repealed poll taxes during this period for two reasons: firstly that they encouraged corruption since wealthy persons could and would pay other people's poll taxes;[3][4] secondly, because they discouraged white voting more than many populist Southern politicians desired. The poll tax survived a legal challenge in the 1937 Supreme Court case Breedlove v. Suttles, which unanimously ruled that

[The] privilege of voting is not derived from the United States, but is conferred by the state and, save as restrained by the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments and other provisions of the Federal Constitution, the state may condition suffrage as it deems appropriate.[5]

The issue remained prominent, as most African Americans in the South were disenfranchised. President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke out against the tax. He publicly called it "a remnant of the Revolutionary period" that the country had moved past. However, Roosevelt's favored liberal Democrats in the South lost in the 1938 primaries to the reigning conservative Southern Democrats, and he backed off the issue. He felt that he needed Southern Democratic votes to pass New Deal programs and did not want to further antagonize them. Still, efforts at the Congressional level to abolish the poll tax continued. A 1939 bill to abolish the poll tax in federal elections was tied up by the Southern Block, lawmakers whose long tenure in office from a one-party region gave them seniority and command of numerous important committee chairmanships. A discharge petition was able to force the bill to be considered, and the House passed the bill 25484. However, the bill was unable to defeat a filibuster in the Senate by Southern senators and a few Northern allies who valued the support of the powerful and senior Southern seats. This bill would be re-proposed in the next several Congresses. It came closest to passage during World War II, when opponents framed abolition as a means to help overseas soldiers vote. However, after learning that the US Supreme Court decision Smith v. Allwright (1944) banned the use of "white primary", the Southern block refused to approve abolition of the poll tax.

In 1946, the Senate came close to passing the bill. 24 Democrats and 15 Republicans approved an end to debate, while 7non-southern Democrats and 7Republicans joined the 19 Southern Democrats in opposition. The result was a 3933 vote in favor of the bill, but a cloture vote to end the filibuster required a two-thirds supermajority of 48 votes at the time, and so the bill was not brought to a vote. Those in favor of abolition of the poll tax considered a constitutional amendment after the 1946 defeat, but that idea did not advance either.

The tenor of the debate changed in the 1940s. Southern politicians tried to re-frame the debate as a constitutional issue, but private correspondence indicates that black disenfranchisement was still the true concern. For instance, Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo declared, "If the poll tax bill passes, the next step will be an effort to remove the registration qualification, the educational qualification of Negroes. If that is done we will have no way of preventing the Negroes from voting." This fear explains why even Southern Senators from states that had abolished the poll tax still opposed the bill; they did not want to set a precedent that the federal government could interfere in state elections.[citation needed]

President Harry S. Truman established the President's Committee on Civil Rights, which among other issues investigated the poll tax. Considering that opposition to federal poll tax regulation in 1948 was claimed as based on the Constitution, the Committee noted that a constitutional amendment might be the best way to proceed. Still, little occurred during the 1950s. Members of the anti-poll tax movement laid low during the anti-Communist frenzy of the period; some of the main proponents of poll tax abolition, such as Joseph Gelders and Vito Marcantonio, had been committed Marxists.

President John F. Kennedy returned to this issue. His administration urged Congress to adopt and send such an amendment to the states for ratification. He considered the constitutional amendment the best way to avoid a filibuster, as the claim that federal abolition of the poll tax was unconstitutional would be moot. Still, some liberals opposed Kennedy's action, feeling that an amendment would be too slow compared to legislation. Spessard Holland, a conservative Democrat from Florida, introduced the amendment to the Senate. Holland had opposed most civil rights legislation during his career.[13] Holland himself had tried several times ever since he entered the US Senate in 1946 to ban the poll tax but was unsuccessful.[14]

Kennedy's gaining his support helped splinter the monolithic Southern opposition to the amendment. Ratification of the amendment was relatively quick, taking slightly more than a year; it was rapidly ratified by state legislatures across the country from August 1962 to January 1964.[citation needed]

President Lyndon B. Johnson called the amendment a "triumph of liberty over restriction" and "a verification of people's rights".[15] States that had maintained the poll tax were more reserved. Mississippi's Attorney General, Joseph Turner Patterson, complained about the complexity of two sets of voters those who had paid their poll tax and could vote in all elections, and those who had not and could vote only in federal elections.[15] Additionally, non-payers could still be deterred by such requirements as having to register far in advance of the election and retain records of such registration.[16] Some states also continued to exercise discrimination in the application of literacy tests.

Ratified amendment, 19621964

Ratified amendment post-enactment, 1977, 1989, 2002, 2009

Rejected amendment

Did not ratify amendment

Congress proposed the Twenty-fourth Amendment on August 27, 1962.[17][18] The amendment was submitted to the states on September 24, 1962, after it passed with the requisite two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate.[15] The final vote in the House was 29586 (13215 in the House Republican Conference and 16371 in the House Democratic Caucus) with 54 members voting present or abstaining,[19] while in the Senate the final vote was 7716 (301 in the Senate Republican Conference and 4715 in the Senate Democratic Caucus) with 7members voting present or abstaining.[20] The following states ratified the amendment:

Ratification was completed on January 23, 1964. The Georgia legislature did make a last-second attempt to be the 38th state to ratify. This was a surprise as "no Southern help could be expected"[16] for the amendment. The Georgia Senate quickly and unanimously passed it, but the House did not act in time.[15] Georgia's ratification was apparently dropped after South Dakota's ratification.

The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states:

The following state rejected the amendment:

The following states have not ratified the amendment:

Arkansas effectively repealed its poll tax for all elections with Amendment 51 to the Arkansas Constitution at the November 1964 general election, several months after this amendment was ratified. The poll-tax language was not completely stricken from its Constitution until Amendment 85 in 2008.[21] Of the five states originally affected by this amendment, Arkansas was the only one to repeal its poll tax; the other four retained their taxes. These were struck down in 1966 by the US Supreme Court decision in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), which ruled poll taxes unconstitutional even for state elections. Federal district courts in Alabama and Texas, respectively, struck down these states' poll taxes less than two months before the Harper ruling was issued.

The state of Virginia accommodated the amendment by providing an "escape clause" to the poll tax. In lieu of paying the poll tax, a prospective voter could file paperwork to gain a certificate establishing a place of residence in Virginia. The papers would have to be filed six months in advance of voting, and the voter had to provide a copy of that certificate at the time of voting. This measure was expected to decrease the number of legal voters.[22] In the 1965 Supreme Court decision Harman v. Forssenius, the Court unanimously found such measures unconstitutional. It declared that for federal elections, "the poll tax is abolished absolutely as a prerequisite to voting, and no equivalent or milder substitute may be imposed."[23]

While not directly related to the Twenty-fourth Amendment, the Harper case held that the poll tax was unconstitutional at every level, not just for federal elections. The Harper decision relied upon the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, rather than the Twenty-Fourth Amendment. As such, issues related to whether burdens on voting are equivalent to poll taxes in discriminatory effect have usually been litigated on Equal Protection grounds since.

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Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

With The Onions support, satirist asks court to revive lawsuit against police who arrested him – SCOTUSblog

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

petitions of the week ByKalvis Golde on Oct 14, 2022 at 6:10 pm

The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions were watching is available here.

In a case that prompted satirical news outlet The Onion to file its first-ever amicus brief in the Supreme Court, an Ohio man sued police for violating his constitutional rights when they arrested him for creating a Facebook page parodying the local police department. This week, we highlight cert petitions that ask the court to consider, among other things, whether those officers are entitled to qualified immunity.

Anthony Novak, a resident of Parma, Ohio, created a Facebook page with the same name, cover photo, and profile picture as the city police departments page. In the 12 hours Novaks page was live, it went viral thanks to six satirical posts announcing, for example, a new hiring initiative strongly encouraging minorities not to apply and a no means no fair at which residents could remove their names from the sex-offender registry by completing a series of puzzles.

After obtaining a warrant to investigate the owner of the page, police arrested Novak under an Ohio law that makes it a felony to disrupt, interrupt, or impair police operations. Novak was acquitted at trial. He then sued the officers who arrested him for violating his First Amendment right to freedom of speech and his Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit granted the officers qualified immunity. Before taking down the page, Novak had copied a disclaimer posted on the departments real Facebook page decrying the fake account and deleted user comments that his own page was a parody. Because no court case has clearly established that those actions are protected speech, the 6th Circuit held, the officers could reasonably believe that some of Novaks Facebook activity was not parody protected under the First Amendment.

In Novak v. City of Parma, Ohio, Novak asks the justices to clarify when qualified immunity is available if the justification for probable cause relies on speech. He argues that his arrest was retaliation for his speech, and that the officers conduct was an obvious constitutional violation not entitled to qualified immunity. Novak also points out that the 6th Circuit originally sided with him at an earlier stage in the case: Imagine if The Onion, Judge Amul Thapar wrote, were required to disclaim that parodical headlines are, in reality, false.

Answering that call, The Onion filed an amicus brief in support of Novaks petition from the court of appeals subsequent ruling for the officers. In urging the court to take up the case, the magazine tells the justices that the 6th Circuits ruling threatens to disembowel a form of rhetoric that has existed for millennia, that is particularly potent in the realm of political debate, and that, purely incidentally, forms the basis of The Onions writers paychecks.

Donziger v. United States22-274Issues: (1) Whether Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 42(a)(2) authorizes judicial appointments of inferior executive officers; and (2) if so, whether such appointments violate the appointments clause in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.

Pavlock v. Holcomb22-282Issues: (1) Whether a judicial taking under the Fifth and 14th Amendments is a cognizable cause of action; and (2) whether a property owner who is deprived of property under the authority of a state court decision may seek prospective injunctive relief in federal court to halt encroachment on their property by state officials acting under the authority of that decision.

Novak v. City of Parma, Ohio22-293Issues: (1) Whether an officer is entitled to qualified immunity for arresting an individual based solely on speech parodying the government, so long as no case has previously held the particular speech is protected; and (2) whether the court should reconsider the doctrine of qualified immunity.

County of Ontario, New York v. Gunsalus22-294Issue: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit erred in refusing to extend the holding ofBFP v. Resolution Trust Corp.to a lawfully conducted tax foreclosure, where New York tax foreclosure law provides for ample notice, opportunity to cure and judicial oversight of the process, and where there is no evidence of a clear and manifest intent by Congress to allow11 U.S.C. 548to impinge upon the important state interests in securing real estate titles and collecting real property taxes.

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With The Onions support, satirist asks court to revive lawsuit against police who arrested him - SCOTUSblog

Trump legal counsel vows ‘Fourth Amendment based’ challenge to Mar-a …

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

Former President Trump's legal counsel said on the Mark Levin Show that he's preparing to file a Fourth Amendment-related legal challenge "very soon" against the Department of Justice in relation to the Mar-a-Lago raid.

James Trusty, a former federal prosecutor, said that Trump's legal team is going to "weigh in very strong and very hard," stating that they are going to be "attacking" the search warrant used in the FBI's raid on the former president's Florida estate.

"It should be something that gets publicly filed. So the whole United States will get to read this thing," Trusty said regarding the action the former president will take. As for the timing of the move, Trusty said Monday is a "possiblity" but added "it's probably going to be more like hours."

"It's coming very soon," he said.

FEDERAL COURT RULES DOJ MUST RELEASE INTERNAL MEMO TO THEN-AG BARR STATING TRUMP DIDN'T OBSTRUCT JUSTICE

Former U.S. President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower to meet with New York Attorney General Letitia James for a civil investigation on August 10, 2022 in New York City. (James Devaney/GC Images)

"You know, the Fourth Amendment requires particularity. It requires narrowness to the intrusion on the person's home. And this warrant had language in it. And keep in mind, all we've seen is a warrant and an inventory. But the warrant has language in it about if you find a classified document, you can take the whole box around, it and you can take any boxes near it. And that's really the functional equivalent of a general search. There's just no limit to that kind of scope in the warrant," Trusty said on the Mark Levin Show.

Trusty said that Trump is "entitled" to a specific inventory list of what was taken from Mar-a-Lago, and went on to say that the property receipt, which was publicly released, is a "very vague document."

"We are way behind in terms of the government playing fair and giving us the details that we're entitled to," Trusty said.

He also called it "perplexing" that FBI agents grabbed items such as attorney-client privileged information and passports belonging to the former president.

Agents from the FBI executed a search warrant on Trump's Florida estate on Aug. 8 and seized items, which include 11 sets of material that are listed as classified, as well as some that were marked as top secret.

Trump has denied that any of the materials in his possession at Mar-a-Lago were classified.

Trump's attorney also called for a "judicial intervention" at the district court level that "can help us vindicate the First Amendment rights of the president," adding "we're going to come out swinging."

JUDGE SCHEDULES HEARING ON UNSEALING FBI MAR-A-LAGO SEARCH RECORDS

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hilton Anatole on Aug. 6, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Trusty called for a third party to get involved with the goal of stopping the Justice Department "in their tracks when it comes to inspecting these documents."

"They shouldn't have anybody filter team or not, looking at these materials right now because of the nature of this search and the misrepresentations, frankly, that we're getting from the DOJ about why they did the search and even how they conducted it," Trusty said on the Mark Levin Show.

He said that this is "bizarre territory" and said that it is "worrisome territory in terms of the historic precedent of it," also stating that there are large amounts of documents that were taken that are subject to privilege.

"We think there's a legitimate large swath of potential documents subject to privilege, and we're not willing to just take it on faith," Trusty said.

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Donald Trump leaves NYC post FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago resort (Felipe Ramales: Fox News Digital)

Trump previewed the legal challenge on Friday in a Truth Social post, stating that a "major motion" would soon be filed.

"A major motion pertaining to the Fourth Amendment will soon be filed concerning the illegal Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago, right before the ever important Mid-Term Elections. My rights, together with the rights of all Americans, have been violated at a level rarely seen before in our Country. Remember, they even spied on my campaign. The greatest Witch Hunt in USA history has been going on for six years, with no consequences to the scammers. It should not be allowed to continue!," Trump said.

Adam Sabes is a writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Adam.Sabes@fox.com and on Twitter @asabes10.

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Utah Court of Appeals reverses sex offender’s conviction, claiming state failed to prosecute case for 2 years – FOX 13 News Utah

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

SALT LAKE CITY The Utah Court of Appeals has reversed a sex offender's conviction after they say prosecutors failed to notify him they'd charged him or were prosecuting him.

In to a 74-page document filed by the Utah Court of Appeals on Friday, Judge Ryan Harris said the appellant, Chad Hintze, wasn't made aware of a charge against him for two years.

The charge, according to the documents, stemmed from an incident in June of 2016 in which Hintze and a teenage girl were eating and sitting on a park bench along the Jordan River Trail. Hintze and the girl were approached by three uniformed officers on bike patrol.

Hintze wasn't permitted to be there because he was convicted of attempted unlawful sexual activity with a minor in 2011. He was required to register as a sex offender following that incident.

For the 2016 incident, Hintze was ultimately charged by the state with one count of violation by a sex offender of a protected area.

Judge Harris' opinion in the documents goes on to say the state did not immediately file charges against Hintze.

In March of 2017, Hintze was charged with forcible sexual abuse, which is considered a second-degree felony. This incident happened in a separate and unrelated case. In August of 2017, Hintze was sentenced to a prison term of zero-to-five years based on that conviction.

"He should have spent separate times in jail for his two separate offenses," said Danielle Ahn, a candidate for Salt Lake County District Attorney.

Instead, Ahn says, he was punished for just the incident that took place in 2017.

It's something Ahn says is unacceptable.

"It's an injustice to the defendant, it's an injustice to the community and to the victim," she said.

FOX 13 News sat down with Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill Monday afternoon. He said the 2016 case involving Hintze was filed in 2018, which is within the two-year statute of limitations.

"When this case was filed, he had apparently been gone to prison, so we filed the charges, we asked for a warrant," said Gill.

Looking back on the case, Gill said Hintze was not served that warrant until the Board of Pardons was reviewing his case, while Hintze was housed in Kane County.

As for the Utah Court of Appeals decision, Gill says another issue brought up pertaining to that 2016 case was the underlying issue of the initial police contact, and whether that violated Hintze's Fourth Amendment rights in terms of probable cause.

"There was a hearing that was done, that at that time, the state prevailed on that," Gill said. "Tthe court ruled and they overruled."

FOX 13 News asked Gill about Hintze's status and if he was a free man at the moment, but the DA said he didn't know whether Hintze was in custody or not.

Bethany Crisp is the outreach coordinator with the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

"We just help, you know, create that statewide collaboration," she said.

Crisp said that in her line of work, victims often have a difficult and traumatic time when reporting crimes against them.

"The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network show that more than two out of every three sexual assaults go unreported," she said.

Crisp said some victims go through a lengthy trial only to then see the perpetrator walk free, which she says also makes it difficult for many of them to decide if they want to want to report that kind of crime or not.

"That's why this matter of reporting and making sure that people feel comfortable reporting is a public health concern," said Crisp.

In a split ruling, judges ruled that Hintze's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was violated. On that basis, they decided to reverse the conviction and remand with instructions to dismiss the charge from 2016.

FOX 13 News also spoke with former federal judge Paul Cassell about the dismissed case.

"So this was a case in which the DA'S office had filed charges and then took no action for two years to move the case forward," said Cassell, who is now a criminal law professor at the University of Utah, "And so if we're looking for who's responsible for the delay here, the Utah Court of Appeals has said the Salt Lake DA'S Office is the one that's ultimately responsible for moving this case forward and failed to do so."

Cassell went on to say that if the charges had been filed properly, it could have prevented the other crime from taking place.

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Utah Court of Appeals reverses sex offender's conviction, claiming state failed to prosecute case for 2 years - FOX 13 News Utah

What is Fog Reveal? A legal scholar explains the app some police forces are using to track people without a warrant – Cobb County Courier

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

by Anne Toomey McKenna, University of Richmond [This article first appeared in The Conversation, republished with permission]

Government agencies and private security companies in the U.S. have found a cost-effective way to engage in warrantless surveillance of individuals, groups and places: a pay-for-access web tool called Fog Reveal.

The tool enables law enforcement officers to see patterns of life where and when people work and live, with whom they associate and what places they visit. The tools maker, Fog Data Science, claims to have billions of data points from over 250 million U.S. mobile devices.

Fog Reveal came to light when the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit that advocates for online civil liberties, was investigating location data brokers and uncovered the program through a Freedom of Information Act request. EFFs investigation found that Fog Reveal enables law enforcement and private companies to identify and track people and monitor specific places and events, like rallies, protests, places of worship and health care clinics. The Associated Press found that nearly two dozen government agencies across the country have contracted with Fog Data Science to use the tool.

Government use of Fog Reveal highlights a problematic difference between data privacy law and electronic surveillance law in the U.S. It is a difference that creates a sort of loophole, permitting enormous quantities of personal data to be collected, aggregated and used in ways that are not transparent to most persons. That difference is far more important in the wake of the Supreme Courts Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision, which revoked the constitutional right to an abortion. Dobbs puts the privacy of reproductive health information and related data points, including relevant location data, in significant jeopardy.

The trove of personal data Fog Data Science is selling, and government agencies are buying, exists because ever-advancing technologies in smart devices collect increasingly vast amounts of intimate data. Without meaningful choice or control on the users part, smart device and app makers collect, use and sell that data. It is a technological and legal dilemma that threatens individual privacy and liberty, and it is a problem I have worked on for years as a practicing lawyer, researcher and law professor.

U.S. intelligence agencies have long used technology to engage in surveillance programs like PRISM, collecting data about individuals from tech companies like Google, particularly since 9/11 ostensibly for national security reasons. These programs typically are authorized by and subject to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Patriot Act. While there is critical debate about the merits and abuses of these laws and programs, they operate under a modicum of court and congressional oversight.

Domestic law enforcement agencies also use technology for surveillance, but generally with greater restrictions. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitutions Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and federal electronic surveillance law require domestic law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before tracking someones location using a GPS device or cell site location information.

Fog Reveal is something else entirely. The tool made possible by smart device technology and that difference between data privacy and electronic surveillance law protections allows domestic law enforcement and private entities to buy access to compiled data about most U.S. mobile phones, including location data. It enables tracking and monitoring of people on a massive scale without court oversight or public transparency. The company has made few public comments, but details of its technology have come out through the referenced EFF and AP investigations.

Every smartphone has an advertising ID a series of numbers that uniquely identifies the device. Supposedly, advertising IDs are anonymous and not linked directly to the subscribers name. In reality, that may not be the case.

Private companies and apps harness smartphones GPS capabilities, which provide detailed location data, and advertising IDs, so that wherever a smartphone goes and any time a user downloads an app or visits a website, it creates a trail. Fog Data Science says it obtains this commercially available data from data brokers, permitting the tool to follow devices through their advertising IDs. While these numbers do not contain the name of the phones user, they can easily be traced to homes and workplaces to help police identify the user and establish pattern-of-life analyses.

Law enforcement use of Fog Reveal puts a spotlight on that loophole between U.S. data privacy law and electronic surveillance law. The hole is so large that despite Supreme Court rulings requiring a warrant for law enforcement to use GPS and cell site data to track persons it is not clear whether law enforcement use of Fog Reveal is unlawful.

Electronic surveillance law protections and data privacy mean two very different things in the U.S. There are robust federal electronic surveillance laws governing domestic surveillance. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act regulates when and how domestic law enforcement and private entities can wiretap, i.e., intercept a persons communications, or track a persons location.

Coupled with Fourth Amendment protections, ECPA generally requires law enforcement agencies to get a warrant based on probable cause to intercept someones communications or track someones location using GPS and cell site location information. Also, ECPA permits an officer to get a warrant only when the officer is investigating certain crimes, so the law limits its own authority to permit surveillance of only serious crimes. Violation of ECPA is a crime.

The vast majority of states have laws that mirror ECPA, although some states, like Maryland, afford citizens more protections from unwanted surveillance.

The Fog Reveal tool raises enormous privacy and civil liberties concerns, yet what it is selling the ability to track most persons at all times may be permissible because the U.S. lacks a comprehensive federal data privacy law. ECPA permits interceptions and electronic surveillance when a person consents to that surveillance.

With little in the way of federal data privacy laws, once someone clicks I agree on a pop-up box, there are few limitations on private entities collection, use and aggregation of user data, including location data. This is the loophole between data privacy and electronic surveillance law protections, and it creates the framework that underpins the massive U.S. data sharing market.

AP investigative journalist Garance Burke explains how she and her colleagues uncovered law enforcement use of Fog Reveal.

Without robust federal data privacy safeguards, smart device manufacturers, app makers and data brokers will continue, unfettered, to utilize smart devices sophisticated sensing technologies and GPS capabilities to collect and commercially aggregate vast quantities of intimate and revealing data. As it stands, that data trove may not be protected from law enforcement agencies. But the permitted commercial use of advertising IDs to track devices and users without meaningful notice and consent could change if the American Data Privacy Protection Act, approved by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce by a vote of 53-2 on July 20, 2022, passes.

ADPPAs future is uncertain. The app industry is strongly resisting any curtailment of its data collection practices, and some states are resisting ADPPAs federal preemption provision, which could minimize the protections afforded via state data privacy laws. For example, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has said lawmakers will need to address concerns from California that the bill overrides the states stronger protections before she will call for a vote on ADPPA.

The stakes are high. Recent law enforcement investigations highlight the real-world consequences that flow from the lack of robust data privacy protection. Given the Dobbs ruling, these situations will proliferate absent congressional action.

Anne Toomey McKenna, Visiting Professor of Law, University of Richmond

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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What is Fog Reveal? A legal scholar explains the app some police forces are using to track people without a warrant - Cobb County Courier

Accused killer sent home in Indianapolis triple murder trial; evidence thrown out – WTHR

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

A Marion County judge gave the order releasing Caden Smith, who is charged with killing three friends on the south side last October.

INDIANAPOLIS A teenager accused of killing three people last year is at home with an ankle bracelet, instead of behind bars.

A Marion County judge gave the order releasing Caden Smith, along with throwing out key evidence in the case.

Family members of the victims call that decision dangerous and say they're frustrated with the courts. They expected to be in a courtroom Monday, watching justice begin to play out.

"He was just a really good person, great father, loyal to his family. He's just truly missed," said Michael James Jr.'s mother, Gladys Larsen.

It's been one year since Larsen was murdered, one of three young men shot multiple times and left in a field on the south side of Indianapolis.

"Surreal," said Michael James Sr. "I've experienced losses, but nothing like this."

His parents are stunned that a judge recently let his accused killer out of jail.

Smith's trial, which was originally supposed to start Monday, has been stalled. The judge in the case released the teenager with a GPS ankle monitor. He's at home and just can't leave the state.

"I'm at disbelief. Really puzzled," James said.

"I just don't understand how and why this is being allowed," Larsen added.

Smith is accused of killing James, Abdulla Mubarak and Joseph Thomas on two separate days last October.

According to court documents, IMPD detectives say they found the gun matching bullet fragments in the boys' bodies in Smith's home on West Thompson Road, along with a bulletproof vest, bags of drugs and several cell phones with internet searches like "Does freezing a gun remove DNA" and "How many deaths is considered a mass murder."

But Marion County Judge Jennifer P. Harrison recently ruled that law enforcement violated Smith's Fourth Amendment rights in the search warrant, even though the original warrant was signed and approved by another judge.

Harrison also suppressed key evidence in the case, including the alleged murder weapon.

Family members, including the mother of Michael's young children, call the decision dangerous.

"I've got kids here and now I've got to sit here and think if this kid cuts off his anklet, is someone gonna get him in time before he's gone?" she asked. "And now I have to worry about my kids."

"I think it is very dangerous," Larsen said. "You find the murder weapon in someone's home and you set them free on GPS? Who's to say this is not going to happen again? Who's to say he's not going to seek revenge on family members? There are a lot of variables here we are very concerned about. I am actually a former Chicago police officer and I do not put anything past Caden Smith."

The Marion County Prosecutor's Office objected to Smith's release and Indiana's attorney general has now filed an appeal in the case. Prosecutors also asked for, and were granted, a stay in the case until the appeal is heard.

Attorneys are set to meet again in January.

Family members of the young men killed say they just want justice.

"We have to put things in motion so we can get Caden Smith back behind bars where he belongs before he hurts someone else," Larsen said.

"I'm just in disbelief, because these three young men don't have a chance to share love and be with their families anymore," James added, "because a lot of families were affected by this heinous act."

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Accused killer sent home in Indianapolis triple murder trial; evidence thrown out - WTHR

Some Texas Lawyers Think Greg Abbott’s Border Initiative Is UnconstitutionalBut They’re Afraid to Challenge It – Texas Monthly

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Danzig

When Jess Alberto Guzmn Curipoma, an engineer in Ecuador, decided to escape rampant gang violence and head to the United States last fall, he did not imagine the legal dragnet that would ensnare him. Curipoma knew a bit about the asylum process in the U.S. and planned to turn himself in to federal immigration authorities at the border. But a few months before he began his journey north, Texas governor Greg Abbott launched a showy initiative, Operation Lone Star, under which Texas law enforcement agents were deployed to arrest thousands of immigrants on state trespassing charges. When Curipoma crossed the Rio Grande into rural Kinney County in September, he was arrested by state troopers, not federal agents. Then, because Kinney County was arresting so many migrants and could not handle its caseload, Curipoma spent weeks in a Frio County jail, about one hundred miles to the east, awaiting a hearing.

Curipomas family contacted Angelica Cogliano and Addy Mir, Austin-based criminal defense attorneys, who secured his release. As his hearing was delayed with no relief in sight in backlogged Kinney County courts, Cogliano filed a writ of habeas corpus in Travis County, home to Austin, arguing that the operation that had imprisoned her client had unconstitutionally violated the preemption doctrine, which holds that state laws cannot interfere with federal authority on matters of immigration or otherwise. A state district judge agreed, finding that Operation Lone Star was indeed preempting federal immigration enforcement. Even the Travis County district attorneys office, our adversary at the hearing, agreed with us, and we were all in tears after that, Cogliano said.

On the heels of the ruling, the future of Abbotts program appeared in peril. Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, a nonprofit providing legal services to those in poverty, filed more than four hundred cases in the Austin court that issued the Curipoma decision. But Kinney County appealed in February on the basis that it, not Travis County, was the proper venue for the hearing. The Curipoma case, along with the hundreds of similar ones, has been held up since then.

As their clients fates remained in limbo, many lawyers representing migrants hoped that constitutional lawyers would bring a larger challenge to Abbotts border security initiative that could offer wholesale relief. Preemption was on the radar of everyone litigating criminal cases in Operation Lone Star, Cogliano said. She reached out to S. Rafe Foreman and Susan Hutchison, Fort Worthbased attorneys, and convinced them to get involved in bringing a larger suit.

In April, Hutchison, who has spent the better part of four decades working on employment discrimination and civil rights cases, sued state officials in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. She brought claims on Fourth Amendment and equal-protection grounds, arguing that Operation Lone Star enforcement constituted an unreasonable search and seizure and targeted her clients because of their race. But, above all, Hutchison built her case on preemption. There was a widely held view among attorneys and other legal experts that Texas officials were in flagrant violation of a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that found that an Arizona show me your papers law interfered with federal immigration authority. In June of 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in a letter to Kinney County officials that state and local officials had no grounds for enforcing federal immigration laws, citing the federal preemption doctrine. In the fall of 2021, more than two dozen members of Congress, including Joaquin Castro, a Democrat who represents much of San Antonio, sent a letter to U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland and Alejandro Mayorkas, head of the Department of Homeland Security, accusing Abbott of violating the Constitutions Supremacy Clause, from which the doctrine of preemption is derived.

And yet, months later, the preemption challenge has not come. Hutchison says that, from the outset, the ACLU privately urged her against bringing forward a case built on preemption, and the Department of Justice never rallied around her lawsuit. While representatives in neither organization granted requests for interviews about their rationales, some legal scholars believe the organizations feared that the federal judiciary had shifted so far to the right that itwould use the Operation Lone Star suit to overturn the Arizona precedent. Everybody and their brother, including the ACLU, was telling us to drop the preemption claim, Hutchison said. And considering the current state of the Fifth Circuit, and the Supreme Court, making a preemption argument might just be giving Texas a chance to overturn Arizona, or at least make it super narrow.

Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, said the refusal to sue on preemption grounds is part of a larger strategy to avoid bringing precedent-setting cases before the Supreme Court with its 63 right-wing majority. To avoid adverse precedents, sometimes you make the decisions you may not like. Thats just how litigation works, Blackman said.

Hutchison has subsequently refocused her case, dropping the preemption argument in favor of the equal-protection and Fourth Amendment ones. Regardless of how her ongoing lawsuit on those grounds resolves, experts think Texas has already won in many respects. Abbott and state leaders have designed a program that made clever use of the states existing criminal infrastructure to avoid a sweeping lawsuit for more than a year and counting. An official in Texas attorney general Ken Paxtons office, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me that Paxton believes Arizona was incorrectly decided, but added with a dash of bravado that the precedent doesnt apply to Operation Lone Star in the first place, since the program simply relies on enforcing Texas laws already on the books, including laws against trespassing.

Cogliano acknowledged that the programs design makes it hard to challenge. Texas wants Arizona reversed, but instead of tackling it directly, and creating state laws that let us litigate them on their face, theyre hiding from it under the blanket of criminal justice, she said. Texas is a mastermind at manipulating the way the legal system is supposed to work.

Many lawyers argue, nonetheless, that Operation Lone Star does, in fact, preempt federal immigration authority, even if not by letter of the law. Geoffrey Hoffman, a former professor and director of the immigration clinic at the University of Houston Law School and a newly appointed immigration judge in Houston, said, While they are prosecuting for trespass, a state-level crime, the actual implementation has been to enforce immigration law, and that interferes with federal policies and the federal statutory scheme. He and other lawyers point to the evidence of who is being arrested on trespassing charges. In Kinney County, for example, officials say that law enforcement agents have arrested just three individuals for trespassing who were not immigrants since Operation Lone Star beganagainst the more than four thousand arrested who had just crossed the border.

Lawyers also note that Abbott speaks of Operation Lone Star as a border enforcement initiative, not one designed to stop trespassing. The governor has repeatedly referred to the program as a way to secure the border despite what he identifies as the Biden administrations refusal to do so, and hes said the policy will senda message to those south of the Rio Grande to not attempt a crossing. He also once tweeted that Lone Star was a program to arrest and jail illegal immigrants. Operation Lone Star prosecutors have spoken of the program in similar terms. When the first migrant defendant arrested under Operation Lone Star was convicted in May and sentenced to a year in jail on a misdemeanor, Tony Hackebeil, the San Antoniobased prosecutor in the case, declared the ruling had sent a message to those considering crossing the border. The trespassing prosecution, he seemed to suggest, was just a means to an end.

The Biden administration sued Texas in July of last year over a specific Lone Star directive that sought to prevent drivers from transporting migrants suspected of carrying COVID-19. And the Texas Tribune and ProPublica reported this July that Justice Department officials are investigating Operation Lone Star for alleged civil rights abuses. But Texas lawyers say the Department of Justices silence on Texass overall enforcement activities appears to acknowledge a legal disadvantage. Others say federal authorities might even be cooperating with Texas. Homeland Security and the Texas Department of Public Safety declined to comment for this story, but according to Amrutha Jindal, chief defender of migrants arrested under Lone Star at the Lubbock Private Defenders Office, the state initiative would not be possible without the support of federal immigration authorities. Were seeing the U.S. Border Patrol apprehend individuals that they later turn over to the Texas Department of Public Safety for prosecution, and then federal law enforcement picks them up after theyve posted bond or their case is complete, Jindal said. And state law enforcement relies on Border Patrol technology, and sharing information over radio dispatch channels.

Meanwhile, as the Curipoma case has been appealed, it has become effectively impossible to pursue habeas corpus relief for migrants.The high [we felt with the release] of Curipoma has been stomped on by our inability to address the real issue, Cogliano said. She added that she understands the risks of challenging Operation Lone Star more broadly, but that playing it safe offers little comfort to her clients. Since his release, Curipoma has settled in Texas and has kept busy working on his graduate dissertation in engineering, but many others like him remain imprisoned while awaiting long-delayed trials. The Biden administration doesnt have to look our clients in the face. They dont see the desperation, or what theyre enduring in prison, Cogliano said. There comes a point when you have to stop being scared.

Originally posted here:

Some Texas Lawyers Think Greg Abbott's Border Initiative Is UnconstitutionalBut They're Afraid to Challenge It - Texas Monthly

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