@johnhaubenreich.bsky.social
Attorney fighting for voting rights and democracy with @protectdemocracy.org and as an @organizetn.bsky.social board member. Teach "Democracy and Voting Rights Litigation" at VLS. Film photography hobbyist. Sorry for the soccer stuff. Opinions my own.
JUST IN: A federal judge has blocked ICE from constructing an immigration detention facility in Hagerstown, MD after the state sued over the lack of a mandated environmental impact review. www.courtlistener.com/docket/72362...
Want to get rid of gerrymandering for good? (yes please!)
Want to make elections more competitive? (absolutely!)
Want to stop wasting your vote if you're in district/state that is dominated by a single party? (that's me!)
I am 100% a proportional representation convert; learn more below.
Initial press coverage:
www.npr.org/2026/02/23/n...
www.politico.com/news/2026/02...
Really proud of my colleagues for filing this lawsuit. It's an incredibly important stand to take against government surveillance, targeting, and violation of our First Amendment rights. #democracy
Using a public AI model for those purposes seems quite inadvisable, but even using a locked-down model that does not store prompts or use them to train its model (including no human review) raises questions. Be careful out there, folks!
/end
The bottom line is that lawyers need to be VERY careful using AI, and think VERY, VERY hard about whether to input privileged or confidential information into an AI model.
/6
"But even if certain information that Heppner input into Claude was privileged, he waived the privilege by sharing that information with Claude and Anthropic, just as if he had shared it with any other third party."
/5
That being said, FN 3 should have lawyers thinking hard:
"At oral argument, Heppner's counsel suggested in passing that the AI Documents may be privileged because they "incorporated information that we had conveyed to Mr. Heppner over the course of our representation." Tr. at 3."
/4
Just as importantly, the client was using a public version of Claude which specifically noted that prompts and outputs would be used to train the model. The privacy policy played a big role in this decision.
/3
This is an issue of first impression according to Judge Rakoff and the lawyers involved, and there are some quirks that distinguish this from a lawyers' direct use of AI. Among them are that it was the *client* who made the queries and they were *not* made at the direction of counsel.
/2
🚨 For AI-using attorneys out there: Judge Rakoff (SDNY) put down an order Tuesday ruling that when a criminal defendant asked Claude legal strategy questions, those queries were NOT PRIVILEGED.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
(but note the nuance in following posts)
/1
This GOOD BOY ran onto the course during the Women’s Cross-Country Skiing Team Sprint event, crossing the finish line and being automatically recorded by OMEGA’s photofinish camera 😆
All-time favorite 🤣
#superbowl
What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss? Anton Chigurh here for FanDuel,
"[W]e're taking the exact same law that local officers are already held accountable for [and]...applying them to federal agents through state law," our own Edgar Lin on states adopting a "Universal Constitutional Remedies Act" so residents can seek remedy if federal agents violate one's rights.
Can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs
“Philadelphia, September 17, 1787:
"Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?" "A republic, if you
can keep it."
With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike,
It is so ORDERED.”
“Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled
power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.”
READ. THIS. ORDER.
“Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.”
Video of the first three days of trial is available below, and I urge anyone interested in learning more about the case or bringing a similar challenge in another state to reach out.
www.tncourts.gov/threejudgepa...
/end
We put on an incredibly strong case, and though we must return on 3/2 to finish the trial, we are already very optimistic about prevailing in this historic lawsuit. Among other causes of action, we are bringing a claim that presents an issue of first impression under the Tennessee Constitution.
/2
Since 2022, I’ve been working to try to overturn Tennessee's felony disenfranchisement regime permanently denying the right to vote to thousands of Tennesseans. Last week, my co-counsel at Arnold & Porter and I traveled to Memphis for trial.
protectdemocracy.org/work/felony-...
/1
I can’t recommend Dr. Holloway‘s book (“Living in Infamy: Felon Disfranchisement and the History of American Citizenship”) highly enough. I relied on it heavily in drafting the complaint and she was a really excellent witness. More to come tomorrow!
Link for Day 2: m.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Wn...
Day 1 of our trial challenging felony disenfranchisement in Tennessee is complete! Some really excellent testimony from our expert, Dr. Pippa Holloway, the preeminent historian of felony disenfranchisement in the South.
Video here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=WQCj...
JUST NOW: Rep. @brotherjones.bsky.social arrives at the start of the new Tennessee legislative session with a huge “ABOLISH ICE” flag
i just watched this video and the fact that they believe this to be exculpatory is genuinely insane
Alongside @protectdemocracy.org, our brief urges SCOTUS to reaffirm what is outlined in both the U.S. Constitution and the Electoral Count Reform Act: States have the responsibility and authority to set rules governing ballot receipt deadlines, subject to modification by Congress.
NEW: We filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold state laws that protect voters against disenfranchisement due to mail delays outside of their control: campaignlegal.org/update/urgin...
