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CfA's September 6, 2024 Newsletter

With your support, Campaign for Accountability is working to expose corruption and hold the powerful accountable.

This Week's Updates:

Texas AG Ken Paxton Threatens Counties Planning Mail-In Voter Registration
On Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened to sue two urban, Democratic-leaning counties for sending voter registration information to residents, arguing that doing so would “confuse” individuals who are ineligible to vote and “induce the commission of a crime.” Two days later, Paxton carried through on his threat, filing a lawsuit against Bexar county and claiming that it had “irresponsibly chosen to violate the law.” Paxton’s office has repeatedly endorsed unfounded conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting, and recently ordered a series of raids at the homes of Latino political activists and organizers.

Larry Roberson, chief of the civil division of the Bexar County District Attorney’s office, has described Paxton’s arguments as “misleading at best.” Now, the county will have to fight Paxton in court for mailing voter registration forms to qualified residents – even though the exact same information is available on the Texas Secretary of State’s website.

New Report Finds High Rate of Potential Illegal Activity in Meta Ads Linking to Telegram
A new report from Cybersecurity for Democracy (C4D) suggests that Meta is failing to adequately review ads that link to Telegram, even though the platform is known to attract cybercriminals, drug dealers, and scammers. Meta is certainly aware of the problem; in August 2023, 404 Media reported that the company’s ad network was being used to promote Telegram channels selling a wide range of contraband, from opioids and firearms to counterfeit bills and stolen credit cards.

Now, C4D’s investigation confirms that Meta is still running advertisements on behalf of bad actors. After analyzing a batch of recent Telegram-linked ads, researchers found that a whopping 64% violated the company’s policies, exposing users to harm while generating revenue for Meta. C4D’s report also cited research from TTP, which documented over 450 advertisements on Meta’s platforms – including many linking to Telegram. These issues could be largely mitigated by treating suspicious links with extra scrutiny, but Meta appears reluctant to move away from cheap, automated content moderation and hire more human staff.

Oklahoma Loses Family Planning Funding Over Abortion Opposition
This week, the Supreme Court declined to block a Biden Administration rule which claws back family planning funding from states which refuse to offer women neutral, “nondirective counseling” regarding abortion access. While Title X funding cannot be used to provide actual abortion care, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was briefly able to strike a deal with states like Oklahoma, where abortion is banned; instead of substantial in-person counseling, patients would be given a phone number for a national abortion hotline. Soon, though, Oklahoma’s health department refused to offer even this rudimentary information to women seeking care.

HHS responded by pulling Oklahoma’s $4.5 million Family Planning grant, angering the state’s congressional delegation. In a joint letter, Oklahoma lawmakers claimed that the suspension of funding “[would] result in substantial harm to the very individuals that Title X was enacted to serve.”

Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s legislature recently voted to put $18 million into the “Choosing Childbirth Revolving Fund,” which doles out grants to unregulated pregnancy clinics (UPCs) that do not provide quality reproductive care. The legislation only requires grant-supervising entities to “not encourage or counsel any woman to have an abortion,” and does not require support for family planning services.

As quasi-religious organizations fixated on preventing abortion, some UPCs are unwilling to help women find birth control or family planning resources. In 2020, CfA urged Pennsylvania officials to withdraw funding from an organization called Real Alternatives, which dispersed taxpayer dollars to UPCs that were forbidden to even discuss contraception with patients. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) eventually terminated the contract with Real Alternatives in 2023.

What We're Reading
The FTC should stop tech companies from bricking their products, consumer groups say
Missouri judge says abortion-rights measure summary penned by GOP official is misleading
Alaska governor vetoes expanded birth control access as a judge strikes down abortion limits

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Be on the lookout for more updates about our work in the upcoming weeks. Thanks again for signing up to be a part of CfA!

Sincerely,

Michelle Kuppersmith
Executive Director, Campaign for Accountability

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