Cultivated Compendium

The U.S. Supreme Court, 6-3, has allowed Texas' new voter ID law to go into effect for next month's elections, The Huffington Post reports. In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the law could impose "'an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.'"

U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos found that the law was enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose, HuffPo also reports.

The majority's order was unsigned.

U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl has struck down Wyoming's ban on same-sex marriage, following the cue of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, NBC News reports. The 10th Circuit, which presides over appeals in federal cases in Wyoming, already ruled that same-sex marriage laws in other states are unconstitutional. Thirty-two states now allow same-sex marriage.

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

The rapporteur found that no country has demonstrated with evidence that mass surveillance is necessary. The report also rejected the argument that mass surveillance is justified because there is more protection for Americans than there is for foreigners, Greenwald reports: "'Article 26 of the Covenant prohibits discrimination on grounds of, inter alia, nationality and citizenship. The Special Rapporteur thus considers that States are legally obliged to afford the same privacy protection for nationals and non-nationals and for those within and outside their jurisdiction.'"

The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a state law requiring voters to show photo identification before casting their ballots, the AP reports. The Supreme Court said the requirement was unconstitutional because the "Arkansas Constitution lists specific requirements to vote: that a person be a citizen of both the U.S. and Arkansas, be at least 18 years old and be lawfully registered. Anything beyond that amounts to a new requirement and is therefore unconstitutional, the court ruled."

The Justice Department has moved to halt the plans of a federal judge "for releasing videotapes showing a Guantanamo Bay hunger striker being forcibly removed from his cell, strapped to a restraining chair and force-fed his meals," the Associated Press reports. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler has ruled that classified information about Abu Wa'el Dhiab's detention at Guantanamo Bay, including the 28 videos of his force-feedings should be released after identifying information of government personnel be blocked out.

Self-directed care has become a big trend for people with mental illness, disabilities and other issues. The idea is that consumers know what will help them live healthier lives better than "experts," and many Medicaid programs have built in flexible funds to allow consumers to spend their money as they set fit (subject to some conditions). Consumers often are directing their care to hiring home-care workers.

So the latest development for self-directed care is that home-care workers are going to have to be paid minimum wage and overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week. The U.S. Department of Labor won't be enforcing the rule for the first six months after it goes into effect January 1, 2015, the Kansas Health Institute's news service reports.

Increasing wages for home-care workers won't be without cost. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback "had expressed concern that the rule boosting the pay of personal care attendants hired by elderly and disabled Kansans to help them stay in their own homes would add $33 million to $40 million to the overall Medicaid budget in Kansas, including $15 million from state funds not in the current budget," KHI reports.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the First Amendment rights of protesters to convene at the funerals of soldiers and at abortion clinics, The New York Times' Adam Liptak notes in a Sidebar column. But the right of protest does not extend to the plaza outside the Supreme Court. The D.C. Circuit has heard arguments on whether the law banning protests on the plaza can comport with the First Amendment.

"People with power and connections can use the plaza" for commercial or professional filming or when attorneys and parties address the media on the plaza immediately after oral argument before the justices, Liptak writes. But ordinary protesters cannot.

After Internet TV service Aereo lost its copyright fight in the U.S. Supreme Court to retransmit broadcast TV stations' signals without paying anything, it is seeking a lifeline from the FCC by asking to be defined as a paid TV service, Deadline reports. Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia is arguing his company should be defined as a "multichannel video programming distributor," so that it could negotiate deals with broadcasters.

David Hoffman, writing in a Washington Post opinion piece, notes that the Food and Drug Administration has long wanted to curb the use of antibiotics on farms out of the concern that their overuse will make bactera resistant to the drugs. The agricultural industry has pushed back, especially regarding the use of tetracyclines, antibiotics that are not used in humans as much as it is used in animals. Hoffman notes that "research, by a team that included H. Morgan Scott of Texas A&M University and Guy Loneragan of Texas Tech University, showed that the use of a tetracycline led to 'co-selection,' a process in which the antibiotic expanded the population of bacteria that are resistant to otherantibiotics as well." The FDA now has asked drugmakers to voluntarily stop producing antibiotics for growth promotion and all have agreed. The FDA also will require antibiotic use in livestock to be supervised by veterinarians.