Blog of Rights
Gabe
Rottman

Gabe Rottman is a legislative counsel/policy advisor in the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, focusing on the First Amendment. Gabe served as an attorney in private practice before coming back to the ACLU. Prior to law school, Gabe worked in the WLO as a senior writer and communications specialist. Gabe has a J.D. magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a notes editor of the Georgetown Law Journal, and a B.A. from McGill University in political science and history, where he was on the dean’s honors list.

05/21/2013
First Amendment

Justice Department's Overreaching on Leaks Threatens Freedom of the Press

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:54pm

A week after the Department of Justice notified the Associated Press that it had secretly seized records for more than 20 phone lines...

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05/15/2013
First Amendment

DOJ's AP Phone Logs Grab Highlights Renewed Need for Shield Law

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:31pm

Update: The administration has asked Sen. Schumer to reintroduce the Free Flow of Information Act, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) just announced that he will do so in the House, and Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) introduced a similar bill today. The administration should certainly be commended for taking proactive steps to prevent this from happening again. That said, the administration can’t get in the way this time. The demand in 2009 for a broad exception for national security leaks cases delayed the bill, and tempered enthusiasm among Democrats for the bill in the face of strong opposition by certain Republicans. The 2013 bill must protect against what happened here with the AP, and it’s not clear that the 2009 White House compromise would have done so.

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05/13/2013
Freedom of Expression

IRS Abuses Power in Targeting Tea Party

By Michael Macleod-Ball, Chief of Staff, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:58am

The extraordinary revelation this week that the Internal Revenue Service targeted tea party groups for more aggressive enforcement highlights exactly why caution is needed in any response to the much-vilified Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

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05/03/2013
First Amendment

"Ag-Gag" Not Just About Animal Welfare

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:54am

A story out of Utah this week neatly showcased the rising concerns among civil liberties and press freedom groups around so-called "ag-gag" laws, which, in various ways, make it illegal to document animal abuse on factory farms and other agricultural businesses. In Utah, authorities charged a local woman with taking photographs of animal cruelty from a public vantage point, and then quickly dropped the charges after significant public outcry.

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04/26/2013
Campaign Finance Reform

Thoughts on the Latest Political Disclosure Proposal

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:41pm

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) unveiled a new bill this week requiring all groups that spend money independently of campaigns, candidates, or parties to influence a federal election or nomination to disclose their donors. Although we have concerns with the bill, the senators' hearts are certainly in the right place, and they should be applauded for actively soliciting input during the drafting process from interested parties on all sides of the debate.

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04/12/2013
Campaign Finance Reform

Common Ground on Campaign Finance

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:46am

Earlier this week, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), held a hearing on campaign finance law enforcement. We submitted comments highlighting a few areas of common ground between the ACLU and proponents of campaign finance reform.

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03/12/2013
First Amendment

SimCity and the Digital Divide

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:14pm

I grew up in a non-Nintendo household, and so was weaned on PC games. One of my favorites was the mayor-simulator SimCity. Launched in 1989, the addictive and soon-to-be venerable title became the first name in sleepless nights for kids with limited athletic ability.

After almost a decade, Electronic Arts released a new SimCity title last week, which has drawn critical praise for the game itself and widespread condemnation for extensive EA infrastructure issues that are preventing many purchasers of the game from playing (Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe even weighed with some colorful criticism). You see, SimCity requires a persistent broadband connection to the internet, even when playing single player, and the game's servers are having difficulty handling the load. (I should note that EA claims the always-on feature is integral to the game, though many believe it is simply a form of digital rights management, or "DRM," put in place to prevent copyright infringement and piracy.)

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03/12/2013
First Amendment

New Expansion of Stalking Law Poses First Amendment Concerns

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:55pm

Nestled away in the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA 2013), which was signed last week by President Obama and is otherwise a very good law, exists a provision that may significantly broaden the already overly expansive federal stalking law.

The original statute, interestingly enough, was the law Paula Broadwell was suspected of violating when the FBI investigation uncovered the Petraeus affair last year, which I wrote about here. Right now, the statute covers two different types of conduct.

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03/01/2013
Radically Wrong: A Counterproductive Approach to Counterterrorism

Radically Wrong: The Right to Think Dangerous Thoughts

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:14am

Despite evidence to the contrary, the government continues to embrace a theory that adopting radical ideas is a first step toward terrorist violence. Based on this discredited model, "preventive" policies are being pursued, resulting in discrimination, suspicionless surveillance of entire communities, and selective law enforcement against belief communities and political activists.

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12/21/2012
Police Surveillance

Open Source Intelligence and Crime Prevention

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:00pm

Buried on page A25 of Thursday’s New York Times is a tiny story on what’s likely to become a big problem after the recent horrific mass shooting. According to the report, top intelligence officials in the New York City Police Department met on Thursday to explore ways to identify “deranged” shooters before any attack. One of these tactics would involve “creating an algorithm” to identify keywords in online public sources indicative of an impending incident. In other words, they seek to build an algorithm to constantly monitor Facebook and Twitter for terms like “shoot” or “kill.”

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