I has made a petition!

Hi,

According to the 14th Amendment, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We believe that this is a wise and proper law, foundational for a truly fair and democratic nation. We agree that it should be the duty of every law maker and every law enforcer in the land to abide by this amendment and this section without exception.

This law has also been assumed to protect the right of return by US citizens. When a US citizen leaves the US, they have a right to freely re-enter their country, and can expect due process of law if there is any question about the circumstances of their return.

In Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958), a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on the right to travel, Justice William O. Douglas, held that the federal government may not restrict the right to travel without due process:

"The right to travel is a part of the 'liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. If that 'liberty' is to be regulated, it must be pursuant to the law-making functions of the Congress. ... Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, ... may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values."

Under current federal actions, we believe that our travel rights need to be made explicit. We have a right to travel from and return to the US, just as surely as we have a right to freedom of speech. We should not feel in danger simply for returning to our country. We should clearly have the right NOT to be locked out or locked up by our country upon re-entry without a fair hearing.

~We have family, who we love, that we have a right to visit and even cohabit with when they are in other countries. This right strengthens good international relations.
~We wish to enrich our understanding of the world, and bring those insights back to our country.
~We hold strong feelings for a beautiful country of ocean shores, rivers, forest, mountains, and plains. These places are part of what has made us who we are. These are why we call the US our homeland.
~And we most assuredly want to rejoin family and friends at home, and thereby are present to comfort and support them.
~We also demand the right to be part of the great good that we as US citizens, regardless of our differences, can offer ourselves and the world when we act as one community of generosity and kindness.

Over 8 million US citizens live abroad. This is of significant concern to our expatriates.

(World Population Review: American Expats by Country 2025)

That's why I created a petition to Senator Alex Paddilla, which says:

We propose the creation of a federal law that explicitly protects citizens rights:

Every US citizen has the right to freedom of movement across state borders within the US. Every US citizen has the right to leave from and return to the US. Any question concerning a US citizen's movements must be addressed through due process.

Will you sign my petition and help me reach my goal? Click here to add your name:

sign.moveon.org/petitions/us-c…

Thanks!

Muse

I am so happy to see this! If you are in Australia, please sign!

Truly social media at Australian universities

We call on universities and other higher education institutions in Australia to shut down their accounts on 'X' (formerly, 'Twitter') as soon as possible. Their presence on X/Twitter is incompatible with the universities' remit to provide factual information because disinformation and political smear campaigns are condoned on X/Twitter. At the same time, a presence should be established on Bluesky, Mastodon, and/or other Fediverse servers, whose decentralised and moderated design is much more compatible with the rules of democratic and sustainable cooperation.

The importance of social media for scientific communication has grown since its inception. However, the negative side effects of the major platforms are no longer negligible. The developments at X/Twitter in particular have prompted many users to turn to open services such as Bluesky and Mastodon.
The current situation offers a good opportunity to pause and ask ourselves what direction university communication has taken without questioning the cultural change in recent years. We want to initiate this process of reflection.

Change needed
We therefore expect universities in Australia to offer an alternative to all those who do not wish to use undemocratic, unfair, and unsustainable social-media platforms. Australian universities should immediately transition to a Bluesky or Fediverse service to disseminate the same information as on the other platforms. Fediverse services offer far more than just an advertising channel: interactive spaces are created via dedicated instances in which science is not only reported, but also discussed and further developed.

Australian universities should therefore also support the development of the Fediverse and set up their own servers/instances, as is already happening elsewhere. Bluesky, Mastodon, and the Fediverse are currently being recognised as an alternative by many groups and institutions, so that an expansion of capacities is required. Universities, with their information science departments and their commitment to sustainable research and teaching, are better placed than any other institution to do this...

Leading lord makes open threat to government in last ditch attempt to save hereditary peers

For weeks now we have watched the bill to remove the 88 remaining hereditary peers make slow progress through the House of Lords. Only last week did the legislation finish committee stage, but not before peers spent five whole days debating it while putting forward over 100 amendments to the short two-page bill.

The affair appeared to be a concerted effort in legislative foot-dragging aimed at eating up as much parliamentary time as possible. This was especially evident in the fact that many of the amendments debated had nothing to do with matter of whether the hereditary peers should be removed.

This weekend, Lord Nicholas True, leader of the Conservatives in the Lords, cleared up any uncertainty as to ultimate motives behind the slow walking of the bill. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the peer warned the government that if the “purge” of the hereditary peers went ahead it would face “very aggressive procedural action” on the rest of its legislative agenda. This could involve filibustering, wrecking amendments and using ‘ping pong’, the process where bills pass back and forth between the Commons and Lords delaying their passing. However, in the article Lord True also made an “offer to the government” for peers to back off delaying its legislation if it allowed a “goodly number” of the hereditaries to remain.

“It’s not a threat. But I think if relations broke down, as night follows day, you would find that a lot of people, perhaps on the back benches, would put down amendments that would slow things down”

“My offer to the Government is that in return for proper respect and understanding and allowing a goodly number of hereditary peers to stay, we should stick to reasonable, sensible, proper constitutional arrangements. That you don’t keep ping·ponging all the time, that you don’t kind of have very aggressive procedural action.”

Peers threaten government with ‘very aggressive procedural action’ if herediaries removed

Let’s be clear what we are witnessing here, this is a case of unelected politicians opening trying to block a government’s manifesto pledge with a democratic mandate behind it. This is a completely back-to-front version of democracy where unelected politicians are attempting to thwart legislation voted on at a general election and that has made its way through the democratically elected chamber.

A counter to this is that these concerns may seem somewhat premature. After all, the government has an unassailable majority in the Commons and the bill is explicitly backed in its manifesto, with Labour pledging at the last election “to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords”. Yet, this was also the case in the late 1990s when the New Labour government commanded an historic parliamentary majority and was armed with an explicit manifesto pledge to “end the hereditary principle in the House of Lords”. Back then it was also the threat from peers opposed to the removal of the hereditaries to hold-up and delay the rest of government’s legislative agenda that ultimately led to ministers backing down and allowing 92 of the then more than 600 hereditary peers to retain their seats in the Lords.

What we are seeing today is as a naked attempt to repeat that same democracy-denying playbook. Peers are in effect abusing their position to pressure the government into folding on its manifesto pledge to remove all the remaining hereditaries.

A back-to-front version of democracy

If this were to happen again it would be a serious indictment of how our democracy is working in practice, with the wishes of unelected and hereditary politicians taking primacy over an elected government and a manifesto pledge backed by democratic mandate.

It feels surreal in 2025 to be having to litigate the reasons why hereditary legislators have no place in a modern democracy. No one should have a job-for-life shaping the laws we all live under gifted to them through birthright.

The behaviour of opposition peers over the hereditaries bill also makes a mockery of the arguments often advanced in defence of having an unelected upper chamber: that it essentially acts as a body of impartial experts gently refining and revising the legislation that comes out of the Commons. This episode reveals the Lords acting in a highly partisan and aggressive way to protect a group of its own members and ward off further attempts to reform it democratically.

The debate around Lords reform can often become very technical, yet there is a simple principle at the heart of the case for reform: the people who shape our laws should be chosen by and accountable to the people who live under those laws.

Peers behaviour over hereditaries makes most compelling case for Lords reform

In 2022, Keir Starmer was unequivocal about where he stood on Lords reform when he described the current undemocratic upper chamber as ‘indefensible’ and pledged to replace it with an elected house. The Bill to remove the hereditaries is just the first stage of the government’s efforts to reform the Lords, with a second stage looking turn it into a modern, democratically accountable chamber.

What has unfolded in the last few weeks is the unedifying spectacle of unelected peers attempting to thwart democratically backed efforts to reform the Lords, in an inversion of how democracy is meant to work. It only underscores the need for the government to be resolute in removing all the remaining hereditaries and move urgently onto the second stage of Lord reform to make sure no part of Parliament is detached and unaccountable to the people it serves.

As in their attempts to thwart Lords reform peers are ultimately making the most compelling argument for it.