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On Wednesday, Congress was treated to the unfamiliar spectacle of highly intelligent people, talking with nuance, about platform regulation. The occasion was a hearing, titled Platform Transparency: Understanding the Impact of Social Media, and it served as a chance for members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider the necessity of legislation that would require big tech platforms to make themselves available for study by qualified researchers and members of the public.

One such piece of legislation, the Platform Transparency and Accountability Act, was introduced in December by (an ever-so-slightly) bipartisan group of senators. One of those senators, Chris Coons of Delaware, led the Wednesday hearing; another, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, was present as well. Over a delightfully brisk hour and forty minutes, Coons and his assembled experts explored the necessity of requiring platforms to disclose data and the challenges of requiring them to do so in a constitutional way.

To the first point why is this necessary? the Senate called Brandon Silverman, co-founder of the transparency tool CrowdTangle. (I interviewed him here in March.) CrowdTangle is a tool that allows researchers, journalists and others to view the popularity of links and posts on Facebook in real time, and understand how they are spreading. Researchers studying the effects of social networks on democracy say we would benefit enormously from having similar insight into the spread of content on YouTube, TikTok, and other huge platforms.

Silverman was eloquent in describing how Facebooks experience of acquiring CrowdTangle only to find that it could be used to embarrass the company made other platforms less likely to undertake similar voluntary measures to improve public understanding.

Above all else, the single biggest challenge is that in the industry right now, you can simply get away without doing any transparency at all, said Silverman, who left the company now known as Meta in October. YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, and Snapchat represent some of the largest and most influential platforms in the United States, and they provide almost no functional transparency into their systems. And as a result, they avoid nearly all of the scrutiny and criticism that comes with it.

He continued: That reality has industry-wide implications, and it frequently led to conversations inside Facebook about whether or not it was better to simply do nothing, since you could easily get away with it.

When we do hear about what happens inside a tech company, its often because a Frances Haugen-type employee decides to leak it. The overall effect of that is to paint a highly selective, irregular picture of whats happening inside the biggest platforms, said Nate Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School who also testified today.

We shouldnt have to wait for whistleblowers to whistle, Persily said. This type of transparency legislation is about empowering outsiders to get a better idea of whats happening inside these firms.

So what would the legislation now under consideration actually do? The Stanford Policy Center had a nice recap of its core features:

*Allows researchers to submit proposals to the National Science Foundation. If the NSF supports a proposal, social-media platforms would be required to furnish the needed data, subject to privacy protections that could include anonymizing it or white rooms in which researchers could review sensitive material.

*Gives the Federal Trade Commission the authority to require regular disclosure of specific information by platforms, such as data about ad targeting.

*Commission could require platforms create basic research tools to study what content succeeds, similar to the basic design of the Meta-owned CrowdTangle.

*Bars social-media platforms from blocking independent research initiatives; both researchers and platforms would be given a legal safe harbor related to privacy concerns.

To date, much of the focus on regulating tech platforms has found members of Congress attempting to regulate speech, at both the individual and corporate level. Persily argued that starting instead with this kind of forced sunlight might be more effective.

Once platforms know theyre being watched, it will change their behavior, he said. They will not be able to do certain things in secret that theyve been able to up till now. He added that platforms would likely change their products in response to heightened scrutiny as well.

OK, fine, but what are the tradeoffs? Daphne Keller, director of the program on Platform regulation at Stanford, testified that Congress should consider carefully what sorts of data it requires platforms to disclose. Among other things, any new requirements could be exploited by law enforcement to get around existing limits.

Nothing about these transparency laws should change Americans protections under the Fourth Amendment or laws like the Stored Communications Act, and I dont think thats anyones intention here, she said. But clear drafting is essential to ensure that government cant effectively bypass Fourth Amendment limits by harnessing the unprecedented surveillance power of private platforms.

There are also First Amendment concerns around these sort of platform regulations, she noted, pointing to the failure in court of two recent state laws designed to force platforms to carry speech that violates their policies.

I want transparency mandates to be constitutional, but there are serious challenges, Keller said. And I hope that you will put really good lawyers on that.

Unfortunately, into every Senate hearing, a little Ted Cruz must fall. The Texas senator was the only participant on Wednesday to exhaust his allotted speaking time without asking a single question of the experts present. Cruz expressed great confusion about why he got relatively few new Twitter followers in the days before Elon Musk said he was going to buy it, but then got many more after the acquisition was announced.

It is obvious someone flipped the switch, the Texas Republican said. The governors they had on that said silence conservatives were flipped off. That is the only rational explanation. (I know the word governors is used somewhat unconventionally here, but I listened to the tape five times and thats what I heard.)

The actual explanation is that Musk has lots of conservative fans, they flocked back to the platform when they heard he was buying it, and from there Twitters recommendation algorithms kicked into gear.

But here even I must sympathize with Cruz, for all the reasons that todays hearing was called in the first place. Absent legislation that requires platforms to explain how they work in greater detail, some people are always going to believe in the dumbest explanations possible. (Especially when those explanations serve a political purpose.) Cruz is what you get in a world with only voluntary transparency on the part of the platforms.

That said, we should still keep our expectations in check there are limits on what platform disclosures can do for our discourse. It seems quite possible that you could explain exactly how Twitter works to Ted Cruz, and he would either fail to comprehend or willfully misunderstand you for political reasons. And even people who seek to understand recommender systems in good faith may fail to understand explanations on a technical level. Transparency isnt a cure-all.

But its a start? And seems much less fraught than lots of other proposed tech regulations, many of which find Congress attempting to regulate speech in ways that seem unlikely to survive First Amendment scrutiny.

Of course, where other countries hold hearings as a prelude to passing legislation, in the United States we typically hold hearings instead of passing legislation. And despite some Republican support for the measure even Cruz said this one sounded fine to him theres no evidence that its gathering any particular momentum.

As usual, though, Europe is much further ahead of us. The Digital Services Act, which regulators reached an agreement on in April, includes provisions that would require big platforms to share data with qualified researchers. The law is expected to go into effect by next year. And so even if Congress dithers after today, transparency is coming to platforms one way or another. Heres hoping it can begin to answer some very important questions.

Originally posted here:
Meta, TikTok, and YouTube may finally have to start sharing data with researchers - The Verge

The leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion this week that would overturn the landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade has raised fresh questions about when, if ever, a court ruling can safely be considered settled law.

One bedrock of American law is the doctrine of stare decisis, the principle that courts are generally bound to abide by past rulings. Yet the Supreme Court has also left itself wiggle room, repeatedly noting that adherence to precedent is not an inexorable command.

The current clash over the fate of Roe is the not the first time the court has wrestled with the tension between deference to past rulings and flexibility to maneuver.

Here are five big historical examples of when the Supreme Court has reversed itself.

The Supreme Court ruled in Plessy V. Ferguson (1896) that race-based segregation was legal, a decision that was not overturned for more than 50 years.

The Plessy decision got its name from Homer A. Plessy, who challenged a Louisiana law that created separate rail cars for Blacks and whites, arguing it violated the 14th Amendments Equal Protection Clause.

In the case, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of segregation, so long as it was separate but equal.

In 1951, 13 parents, with Oliver Brown named as a plaintiff, sued Topekas Board of Education in Kansas in a direct challenge to the precedent.

The court in 1954 ultimately overturned Plessy V. Ferguson, establishing that race-based segregation was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children, wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren in the unanimous opinion.

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone, Warren continued.

The state of New York passed the Bakeshop Act in 1896 in an effort to support labor rights.

The law established limits on workday schedules, including a policy barring an employee in a bake shop from working more than 60 hours in a week.

Joseph Lochner, the owner of a bakery shop, was charged with violating the law, and he took a case challenging it all the way to the Supreme Court.

In Lochner v. New York (1905), the court ruled the law interfered with employer-employee contracts and was government overreach, as well as a violation of the 14th Amendments Due Process Clause.

Until 1937, the rule was the law of the land. Courts adhered to the precedent, striking down similar labor cases.

West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937) brought labor rights into a fresh spotlight.

The case concerned a new minimum wage hike from the Washington governments Industrial Welfare Committee and Supervisor of Women in Industry. They raised the minimum wage to $14.50 for each work week of 48 hours for female workers.

Elsie Parrish, who worked for West Coast Hotel Company, sued the company for not giving her the new basic minimum wage standard.

The Supreme Court, considering whether a minimum wage law violated the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause, ruled it was constitutional to establish a minimum wage law.

The ruling ended the Lochner era and the courts long avoidance of regulating business.

Michael Hardwick was arrested by a police officer in Georgia in 1982 for sodomy and sued, challenging the states law and naming then-Attorney General Michael J. Bowers in ths suit.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that there was no constitutional protection of sodomy and states could outlaw homosexual intercourse.

In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the court reversed the decision entirely. In a 6-3 ruling, justices ruled for John Lawrence, who had been convicted under a sodomy law. The court said making it a crime for two men to have sex violated the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause.

The decision would also pave the way toward the landmark 2015 ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S.

In the 1949 case. Wolf vs. Colorado, Julius A. Wolf, Charles H. Fulton and Betty Fulton were charged with conspiracy to perform an abortion.

Wolf challenged the evidence used against him, arguing it was seized illegally and in violation of his Fourth Amendment right.

The court, however, said illegally obtained evidence did not have to be excluded from court by default.

Years later, Mapp v. Ohio (1961) saw another stunning reversal from Supreme Court precedent.

In that case, justices ruled in favor of Dollree Mapp, who was convicted of possessing obscene materials during an illegal police search of her home for a separate investigation into a missing fugitive.

Mapp had challenged the case and evidence against her based on a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights. The justices concurred with her argument.

The ignoble shortcut to conviction left open to the State tends to destroy the entire system of constitutional restraints on which the liberties of the people rest, wrote Justice Tom Clark in the majority opinion.

Having once recognized that the right to privacy embodied in the Fourth Amendment is enforceable against the States, and that the right to be secure against rude invasions of privacy by state officers is, therefore, constitutional in origin, we can no longer permit that right to remain an empty promise, Clark added.

Pace V. Alabama (1882) concerned Tony Pace, an African American man, and Mary Cox, a white woman, who were charged with adultery and fornication in Alabama under a law that severely punished interracial relationships.

Pace took a legal challenge to the Supreme Court, arguing it violated the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause.

Justices ruled that Alabamas law was not in conflict with the Constitution, despite more severe punishments levied against African-Americans in violation.

In Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court reversed that ruling in another case nearly 100 years later.

Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, and Richard Loving, a White man, were arrested in Virginia and sentenced to a year in jail for violating a law banning inter-racial marriages.

Loving challenged the statute, arguing it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court agreed.

Under our Constitution the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the majority opinion.

Original post:
Five times the Supreme Court reversed a precedent - The Hill

Slim Smith

My dad was not an educated man, at least as far as formal education goes. But neither was he a dummy.

By the time I got my drivers license, my parents were in their late 50s and were not in a mood to stay up late into the night on weekends to make sure I came home at a decent hour.

From wisdom gleaned from raising my five older siblings, my dad settled on a different kind of curfew for me.

I was free to stay out as late as I wanted. The curfew was enforced on the other end. Up by 8 a.m., a curfew applied without exception

Even today, I marvel at the brilliance of that strategy.

For starters, my parents could get a good nights rest. Second, it instilled in me a sense of discipline that every child needs to develop as they approach adulthood. Mom and Dad wont be around forever, after all.

So, on those occasions when I was tempted to stay out until 2 or 3 in the morning, I was forced to make a cost/benefit analysis: a few more hours hanging with my pals versus a few fewer hours of sleep. More often than not, I was home around midnight.

Picking peas on a hot Saturday morning on four hours sleep is pure misery. And staying awake during the Sunday sermon was difficult even for a well-rested teen.

So, in the end, my dads unorthodox concept of curfews achieved what it was intended to do.

I was reminded of this after Tuesdays Columbus City Council meeting, when Ward 2 councilman Joseph Mickens made a passionate plea for the police department to increase enforcement of a curfew for kids under the age of 18, an ordinance that has been on the books since the 1990s but rarely enforced. According to the CPD logs, there was only one citation for violating the curfew so far this year.

According to the ordinance, on weekdays, it is illegal for minors to remain in or upon any public street, highway, park, sidewalk or other public space between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and between 12:01 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday or Saturday nights.

On a first offense, violators will be taken to the Juvenile Detention Center, and they will be released to their parents or guardian without charges. If it happens again, the parents will be fined $50 or will have to complete five hours of community service. A third offense results in a $100 fine or 10 hours of community service. Subsequent offenses face a $500 fine or 50 hours of community service.

Minors with a parent or guardian are exempt. Minors may be out after curfew in a window 30 minutes before to 30 minutes after work, if they are employed, while going directly between home and work. The exemption also applies within 30 minutes of the end of a school- or church-sponsored event.

In making his argument, Mickens quoted former city councilman Bill Gavin, who said Nothing good ever happens after midnight. To that, I will simply respond that Gavin never met Betty Ann Tompkins

I do not mean to sound flippant. The recent shooting death of a 16-year-old in the early morning hours Sunday and the general increase in violent crime is unnerving. We are all searching for answers, and Mickens request for enforcing the curfew is a good-faith response.

I just dont like the idea, for several reasons.

First, it is not the governments job to tell parents how to raise their children. A parent may have their own ideas about what constitutes a decent hour. Those decisions are best made in the home.

Second, I have serious concerns about how the curfew would be enforced. I suspect it would be applied most vigorously among Black children in Black neighborhoods.

Third, I fear the curfew could be used as probable cause to violate Fourth Amendment rights that guard against unreasonable search and seizure.

Fourth, the idea that a kid whose only offense is to be Black in a poor neighborhood after a certain hour can be detained and hauled off to the juvenile detention center seems ridiculously harsh.

Finally, and most importantly, I believe the resources required to fairly and effectively enforce this curfew could be put to a far better use. Hiring more police officers and increasing patrols seems a far better response to the crime issue.

A publicity campaign to encourage parents to establish their own curfews would be a far better approach.

I endorse the out of bed by 8 a.m. model.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [emailprotected]

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [emailprotected]

See the rest here:
Slimantics: Curfew is a well-intentioned, but misguided, response to crime - The Dispatch - The Commercial Dispatch

Bungie announced that they believe murdering infants is a human right as they vowed to safeguard and protect their employees in response to the leaked draft decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that plans to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

RELATED: PlayStation Announces Plans To Acquire Bungie for $3.6 Billion

At Bungie we believe that everyone has a right to choose their own path and that freedom is expressed across all facets of life, the statement began. The leaked draft decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade represents a blow to freedom in America and is a direct attack on human rights.

By creating a divide between those who possess the fundamental right to make healthcare decisions that are right for them, and those who do not possess that same freedom, this decision, should it become final, will have far-reaching consequences that will be felt for generations across socio-economic lines, Bungie proposed.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

Bungie is committed to safeguarding the freedom and privacy of its employees and providing support to all employees affected by this decision. Standing up for reproductive choice and liberty is not a difficult decision to make, and Bungie remains dedicated to upholding these values, the company admitted their bloodthirst.

Bungie then concluded by sharing organizations that support rights to healthcare that fans could donate to; including URGE,Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice,NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, andIn Our Own Voice.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

RELATED: IGN Article Alleges Toxic Culture At Bungie, Bungie CEO Responds

Bungie didnt clarify at this juncture what their support for their employees would involve. On the surface, this may simply mean emotional support for those distressed by the news, rather than financial support for abortion.

For those unfamiliar, a draft U.S. Supreme Court ruling was leaked recently, proposing the Roe v. Wade case will be overturned. In the draft leak written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito it states, We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to todays decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision. We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly.

We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives, Alito asserted.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

RELATED: Shipwright Studios And Torn Banner Studios Come Out In Favor Of Killing Unborn Babies

The original Roe v. Wade case stretched across the early 1970s, as Jane Roe and her lawyers initially argued she should be allowed to have an abortion despite living in a state where it was illegal (Texas).

In January 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that under the 14th Amendments Due Process Clause, the Constitutions right to privacy also protected a womans right to choose to have an abortion across all states.

The Court ruled, A state criminal abortion statue oft he current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

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Justice Rehnquist would write the dissenting opinion where he stated, I have difficulty in concluding, as the Court does, that the right of privacy is involved in this case. Texas, by the statute here challenged, bars the performance of a medical abortion by a licensed physician on a plaintiff such as Roe.

He added, A transaction resulting in an operation such as this is not private in the ordinary usage of that word. Nor is the privacy that the Court finds here even a distant relative of the freedom from searches and seizures protected by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which the COurt has referred to as embodying a right to privacy.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

Rehnquist also noted that the Texas law was actually passed before the enactment of the 14th Amendment.

He wrote, The apparent was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statues when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The only conclusion possible from this history is that the drafters did no intent to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter.

Source: Destiny 2: Beyond Light (2020), Bungie

RELATED: David Simon Pulls Upcoming HBO Series From Texas Over Heartbeat Act, Supports The Killing Of Unborn Babies As A Civil Liberty

Some believe overturning this decision now would result in several states banning abortion. The so-called trigger law states range from 13 to 26 depending on the source, but usually include Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.

Bungies headquarters reside in Bellevue, Washington, which permits abortion prior to 24 to 25 weeks of pregnancy (thereafter the child could hypothetically survive even after being aborted). Abortion was legal in Washington prior to Roe V. Wade, and has no trigger laws should the decision be overturned.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

As highlighted by political commentator and YouTuber Razorfist in his video Constitution v Wade: The End of an Error? A Rant- citing comments by former Chief Justice William Rehnquist- the 14th Amendments creation didnt create a nation-wide permission of abortion.

In short, Razorfist summarized, if the 14th Amendment intended to strip states of the right to determine whether abortion was legally permissible in their own jurisdictions, why the Mary-fck didnt its passage in 1868 immediately nullify the thirty-odd anti-abortion laws that prevailed during the year of its inception?!

RELATED: George Takei Tells People To Take To The Streets, In Reaction To Leaked Supreme Court Draft Overruling Roe vs. Wade, Ambler Tamblyn Calls It A Declaration Of War

Razorfist proposes that Roe V. Wade politicized abortion, turning it from something decided on a state-level, to hysteria. Said hysteria that Razorfist proposed obscured the fact that the abortion law would return to being decided by individual states.

And for the 15th-fg septillionth time- repealing an illegally enacted law is not creating an abortion ban. No one is trying to take your abortions away in a federal level, Razorfist bemoaned.

YOU allowed an illegal decision to pass for law, at the federal fg level. Dont bh now that someone may actually correct the fg mistake. All this does is send the issue back to the states, where frankly it should have been rightfully to begin with.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

RELATED: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Actress Celia R. Gooding Claims Overturning Roe. V Wade Is A Death Sentence For Actual, Living People

Nonetheless, there has been plenty of hysteria over the draft decision, no doubt prompting this statement from Bungie.

Bungie weighing into the white-hot abortion discussion adds to the ever-growing list of corporations taking sides on controversial matters. Multiple entertainment companies and more announced they stopped doing business in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, including Bungie and other gaming companies.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

Disneys pushing of LGBT and opposition of a law to prevent child grooming resulted in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature terminating the companys special tax and governing jurisdiction. Their stance also led to a drastic shift in public opinion as consumers noted they were less likely to do business with them.

Despite, or perhaps because of this, special interest groups and progressives have pushed for US corporations to become human-rights leaders.

Source: Destiny 2 (2017), Bungie

Were Bungie right to speak up in this matter? Let us know what you think on social media and in the comments below.

NEXT: Bungie Sues Individuals Behind Fake DMCA Claims Of Destiny YouTube Content, Condemns Platforms Reporting System As Easily-Gamed

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Grace and Michael Smiths youngest son turned 1 last month, but there were few happy memories from the days after his birth, the couple said.

What should have been a time for the parents to bond with their newborn boy, Julian, became a waking nightmare that still intrudes on the happiness of their family.

Hours after Julian was born in April 2021, staff at St. Lukes Hospital-Anderson Campus took him to the neonatal intensive care unit and accused Grace Smith of abusing methamphetamine while pregnant, launching a monthlong investigation by child welfare authorities that ultimately found no abuse, the couple claims in a federal civil rights lawsuit.

St. Lukes Hospital-Anderson Campus in Bethlehem Township. (April Gamiz / Morning Call file photo)

I wanted to enjoy my sons first birthday, Grace Smith said. Its hard to separate the joy in celebrating him from the pain of having him taken away from us.

The Smiths allege St. Lukes doctors made decisions based on a single drug test that led to their son spending the second night of his life alone in the hospital while they returned in tears to their Monroe County home.

That test was unable to differentiate between the prescription amphetamine Vyvanse that Grace Smith took for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and methamphetamine, which a doctor surmised she got off the street, the lawsuit says.

Methamphetamine, like amphetamine, is a controlled substance that is legally prescribed in some cases but not as commonly as amphetamines such as Vyvanse or Adderall. The two types of drugs have molecular and pharmacological differences but are similar in that they are both stimulants and have the potential to be abused. Vyvanse and Adderall are most commonly prescribed to treat ADHD in both children and adults. When amphetamine is taken by a person with ADHD as prescribed, the risk of abuse or addiction is extremely low, according to Dr. Russell Barkley, an internationally recognized authority on ADHD.

After the Smiths told hospital staff that they intended to leave with their child, they were locked out of the NICU and police arrived, instigating an argument with Michael Smith and blocking his vehicle in the patient pickup area outside. The officers then told the couple that they needed to leave the hospital immediately or they would be arrested for defiant trespassing, the suit says.

The reason given for the ejection of plaintiffs Mr. & Mrs. Smith from defendant St. Lukes Hospital premises was that Mrs. Smith was a methamphetamine addict and that St. Lukes Hospital no longer would tolerate their presence on defendant St. Lukes Hospital property, the suit says.

Although Grace Smith and Julian were reunited in the hospital the following day, the Smiths say the ordeal had a lasting impact on their son and family.

We had pretty much one tradition where our entire family would get together and the siblings would get to meet the newborn baby and that was taken away from us, Michael Smith said. The couple has three other children: Aurora, 8, Anakin, 6, and Ellika, 2.

Michael and Grace Smith spend time with their children Aurora, 8, Anakin, 6, Ellika, 2, and Julian, 1, in their home in Coolbaugh Township, Monroe County. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call)

Julian developed a condition called pyloric stenosis, in which the opening between the stomach and the small intestine becomes constricted, which the Smiths allege was caused by unnecessary antibiotics administered against their wishes. The baby required surgery to correct the condition.

The causes of pyloric stenosis are unknown, but genetic and environmental factors might play a role. Pyloric stenosis usually isnt present at birth and probably develops afterward. The Mayo Clinic lists early antibiotic use as a risk factor.

Now, the Smiths, both lawyers, say they hope their lawsuit will ensure that others like them arent traumatized in the same way. Michael Smith said he drafted the 973-page complaint over the last year and the Smiths are representing themselves. The suit demands tens of millions of dollars in damages and policy changes.

Nobody was listening to us. I just want someone to take us seriously and for them to stop doing this to people, Michael Smith said.

A spokesperson for St. Lukes University Hospital Network did not address the Smiths allegations and said the hospital system maintains full compliance with all federal and state rules and regulations regarding reporting requirements.

The suit also names as defendants nearly two dozen doctors and health care professionals, Monroe and Northampton counties and several of their child welfare employees, and the Bethlehem Township police. Monroe and Northampton counties declined to comment. Bethlehem Township police Chief Greg Gottschall said he is not aware of the suit and could not comment.

Nobody was listening to us. I just want someone to take us seriously and for them to stop doing this to people.

Under Pennsylvania law health care providers are required to give notice to the state Department of Human Services when they determine, based on standards of professional practice, that a child was born affected by substance abuse or withdrawal symptoms resulting from prenatal drug exposure or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

The law explicitly states that the notification to Human Services is not a child abuse report. The purpose of the notification is to allow assessment of the child and family to develop a plan of safe care.

Cathleen Palm of the Center for Childrens Justice said the law is intended to ensure that the baby and family are connected to the resources they need.

The concept behind the law is to make sure that we are attentive to an infant that is in withdrawal and provide the support and treatment it requires, Palm said. The challenges are that it is hard to have the law, which might be well-intentioned, implemented in the way it is intended.

She noted that approach is a relatively recent shift from a mindset that reporting mothers who used illegal substances while pregnant was intended to be punitive. The law was amended in 2018 to remove requirements that health care providers make reports directly to county welfare agencies and include substances other than illegal drugs.

Human factors such as bias or a parents demeanor might lead a health care provider to vary in their subjective assessment of a parent and childs situation, Palm said.

Its challenging in that you can have situations that can spin out of control in a way that the law never intended, Palm said.

Advocates for reforming child welfare laws say experiences like the Smiths are unfortunately common in Pennsylvania.

Emma Roth, an attorney at National Advocates for Protecting Women, said there are widespread misconceptions about what health care providers are required to do in terms of responding to infants who are exposed to drugs in utero. Roth said there are also extreme racial disparities in how doctors and authorities respond. People of color and lower income are more likely to be secretly tested, reported and charged.

This is much more common than any of us would hope given the serious civil rights implications, Roth said.

In addition to civil rights violations, reporting mothers who use drugs while pregnant to child welfare authorities and law enforcement has a harmful effect on the overall health of mothers and children, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

We know that it really undermines the physician-patient relationship by making patients not trust their doctors, Roth said. When mothers dont trust their doctors theyre less likely to seek assistance from their doctors.

Many medical societies encourage doctors to talk with their patients about drug use during pregnancy and, if a patient is using drugs, to make referrals and suggest courses of treatment to ensure the best health and medical outcomes.

The ACOG has said the use of the legal system to address perinatal alcohol and substance abuse is inappropriate. It urges physicians and legislators to work to repeal laws that punish women with substance use disorders and implement programs outside of the legal system to support women with addiction.

Its challenging in that you can have situations that can spin out of control in a way that the law never intended.

The U.S. and Pennsylvania supreme courts have also issued decisions that protect women from being criminally prosecuted for using illegal drugs when pregnant.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that a hospital violated a patients right to be free from unreasonable searches when it tested her without consent in cooperation with police.

The Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina, started testing obstetric patients for drugs in response to a rise in pregnant patients using cocaine. Those who tested positive were arrested.

The women sued and the court ruled in a 6-3 decision that hospital workers cannot test pregnant women for the use of illegal drugs without their informed consent or a valid warrant. The court found regardless of the risks to the fetus posed by the mothers drug use, testing without patient consent was not a reasonable search under the Fourth Amendment.

At the time, 75 organizations including the American Medical Association and the American Public Health Association filed amicus briefs in favor of the plaintiff.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that a mother cant be charged with child abuse against her newborn baby because she used drugs while pregnant.

The state courts ruling was the result of a protective custody case initiated by Clinton County Children and Youth Services against a mother. The county alleged the mother had abused her baby because her drug use caused the baby to be born suffering from withdrawal symptoms. The mother had tested positive for opiates, benzodiazepines and marijuana while pregnant.

The court held under Pennsylvanias Child Protective Services Law a fetus is not a child and therefore cannot be the victim of child abuse.

The Smiths, who were not charged with any crimes, are not alone in bringing a civil lawsuit for civil rights violations.

In 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania sued Jameson Hospital and Lawrence County Children and Youth Services on behalf of a couple from New Castle.

A hospital drug test found Elizabeth Morts urine positive for opiates and she was reported to the county. Mort and her fiance, Alex Rodriguez, took their newborn daughter home, but the next day social workers and police officers showed up and took the baby away for five days.

Sara Rose, the ACLUs deputy legal director and lead counsel on that case, said the test had an extremely low threshold for detecting opiates, seven times lower than what the federal government used when it tested its employees. Because of this low threshold, the test detected opiates in Morts body that came from poppy seeds on an everything bagel she ate.

This case was eventually settled out of court.

The ACLU and Rose are also involved in an ongoing case against University of Pittsburgh Medical Center involving multiple women who were reported by the hospital system to the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families.

According to a court document filed in 2017, Cherell Harrington was investigated for child abuse after UPMC reported she used marijuana while pregnant. Harringtons urine, which UPMC staff took without her consent or knowledge, tested positive for marijuana. A test of Harringtons newborn son showed a negative result and Harrington claimed she hadnt used marijuana during her pregnancy.

Harrington had her home inspected and was told she would have to participate in drug counseling and undergo drug testing.

Another plaintiff, Deserae Cook, also had her urine taken without her knowledge or consent, but she tested negative. However, UPMC reported Cook to CYF for using marijuana while pregnant after Cook told a hospital employee she had previously taken medical marijuana to treat her multiple sclerosis but stopped after she found out she was pregnant. This resulted in Cook having her home inspected by the county along with continued unwanted contact from the county.

Rose said UPMC had a duty to protect patient confidentiality under state law, and it breached that duty by sharing the mothers confidential medical information with Allegheny County. She added St. Lukes had the same responsibility to Smith.

I think this is a clear violation of patient confidentiality, Rose said.

When Grace Smith was allowed to return to St. Lukes the night after she was ordered to leave, she was kept under constant watch by security guards and was not afforded the support the hospital provides to new mothers, such as a wheelchair or meals. She also was not given privacy in the NICU to breastfeed or have skin-to-skin contact with Julian, the suit alleges.

Grace Smith holds Julian. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call)

Nurses told Grace Smith that she would not be permitted to leave with Julian because the family had to be cleared by the Monroe County Children Youth and Family office and because it was a weekend no one was available to handle the case. She also learned that a second report had been made to CYF about Michael Smith, alleging that he was aggressive and violent, the suit says.

When she questioned the hospitals handling of her case, a nurse told her, I dont care if you were the preachers daughter, were required to report it by law, the suit alleges.

The Smiths state in the lawsuit that Grace Smith never ingested methamphetamine and has a well-documented history of ADHD for which she had taken Vyvanse since she was 12. The suit also states that Julian had no signs of methamphetamine withdrawal and no court order was obtained to separate the Smiths from their child.

Although the Smiths say in the lawsuit they never obtained the results of the initial urine test that prompted the welfare report, a test of their sons umbilical cord was negative for methamphetamines. Nonetheless, Monroe County ended its investigation of the Smith family only after Grace Smith paid $300 for a hair follicle test that showed she was not a methamphetamine user.

No one involved has admitted that what they did was wrong, Grace Smith said. It makes it all that much more difficult to get past because theyre still acting this way.

Morning Call reporter Peter Hall can be reached at 610-820-6581 or peter.hall@mcall.com.

Morning Call reporter Leif Greiss can be reached at 610-679-4028 or lgreiss@mcall.com.

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St. Luke's doctors mistook a new mom's ADHD medication for illegal drugs. Then they separated her from her baby, lawsuit claims - The Morning Call