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Social media network Parler LLC filed an antitrust complaint against Amazon.com Inc on Monday after Amazon banned the service from being hosted on its servers.
In the complaint, which was filed with the US District Court in Seattle, Parler said Amazon Web Services had delivered a “death blow” to its business by suddenly cutting off its web-hosting services on Sunday night. The move followed shortly after Apple and Google removed the Parler app from their mobile stores.
“AWS false claims have made Parler a pariah,” the company said, accusing Amazon of politically motivated hypocrisy and asking the court for a temporary restraining order against Amazon to reverse the decision.
In its own statement, Amazon said that the Parler lawsuit had “no merit”.
"It is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and that Parler is unable or unwilling to promptly identify and remove this content, which is a violation of our terms of service," said an Amazon spokesperson. "We made our concerns known to Parler over a number of weeks and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of their services Sunday evening."
In a letter to Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff on Saturday, Amazon Web Services said that it had reported 98 examples to Parler of “posts that clearly encourage and incite violence” in its recent weeks of operation, including several screenshots.
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Amazon’s decision to suspend Parler from its services comes amid a widespread social media crackdown on disinformation and violent rhetoric following the 6 January riots where Trump supporters laid siege to the US Capitol building, leaving five dead.
President Trump and several of his most high-profile supporters have been banned indefinitely from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The US presidential elections came to an end on November 3, 2020. With the results now certified, Democrat candidate Joe Biden will take over the Oval Office in the White House from the incumbent Donald Trump on 20 January.
As has been the case for nearly two centuries and a half, the results of the US presidential elections do not affect only the United States but also the entire planet. A sudden change in external policy could impact international relations on a global scale and tilt the balance of power across the world.
The outcome of last year's US presidential elections is especially important in Canada. The "upstairs" neighbour of the US has been a crucial ally for years, and the two states share an agenda of crucial topics, one of them being immigration.
Today, we will take a closer look at how the 2020 US presidential elections might impact Canadian immigration, and whether you will need to pass by the immigration lawyer's office now that the results have been made official.
First things first, we should refresh our memory with a short guide on how the US presidential elections work.
In the US, voters do not elect their president directly. Instead, they are part of the US electoral college system, which designates various electors across the country. In total, 538 electors are representing the population with the right to vote in the United States. The person who becomes US President has to earn at least 270 electoral votes first.
The 2020 US presidential elections have kept every immigration lawyer office in Canada breathlessly anticipating the results. Their enthusiasm regards the candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, both of whom have almost opposite views on immigration policies from their counter candidate.
The 2020 US presidential elections have kept every immigration lawyer office in Canada breathlessly anticipating the results.
Donald Trump has been in office since 2016 and has had a very restrictive view on immigration. The Trump administration has systematically increased the requirements for work permit applications and the number of restrictions for visa applications as well.
The incumbent President of the US is world-famous for his ambition to build a wall on the southern border of the US to diminish the entrance of illegal immigrants. His speech is often rich in nationalistic slogans that also hint at a gradual reduction of immigration free passes for people from other nations.
Joe Biden is a popular politician in the Democratic sphere of US politics. He is the former vice-president of Barack Obama and a staunch opponent of Trump’s administration.
Biden has already vowed that he will repair the debacles of Trump’s rule and reverse the restrictions imposed on immigration. He has also promised to devise a quick immigration process for those who want to become US residents but do not have the necessary documents.
Almost every immigration lawyer office in the US and Canada hopes that the new US President will reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), reverse the travel ban on certain Muslim-majority countries, and increase the number of refugee admissions to 125,000.
Trump’s administration and the increasing division in the United States have made many American citizens choose to emigrate to Canada. Additional factors that convinced them to take this decision include free healthcare, a more reliable education system, gun control, and welcoming immigration policies.
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The Express Entry system is especially advantageous since it reduces the processing time to as little as 6 months.
Also, Canada aims to attract more immigrants than the United States in the next three years. The new policies aim to combat the aging population in Canada and rejuvenate the population. The new immigration levels for 2021-2023 plans to register:
The future residents should also help Canada recover from the economical drawback that resulted from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the United States is facing a historically high rate of unemployment, it is expected that many US citizens will look once again to their “upstairs” neighbour for a chance at a better life through immigration regardless of the newly arriving administration
Canada is already making giant leaps ahead to make up for the job loss due to the pandemic. So far, the government has covered more than 75% of the positions that initially entered unemployment. If the country reaches its goals for immigration levels in the next few years, the adverse side effects of the pandemic will most likely disappear.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions eight Chinese-owned apps, citing cybersecurity concerns.
The apps affected by the order are Ant Group’s Alipay, CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay and WPS Office. The ban will go into effect in 45 days, after Trump’s term as president has ended.
“By accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information,” the order reads, adding that this data collection would enable China to “track the locations of federal employees and contractors, and build dossiers of personal information”.
In addition to banning transactions using the named apps, the order also bans transactions with “persons that develop or control” the apps.
The order is reminiscent of previous executive orders that Trump levied against prominent Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok in 2020. Both orders have been blocked by federal courts, with US users still able to download and use the targeted apps.
As an unexpected parting shot against China, the order is likely to further heighten tensions between the US and Chinese governments. In a statement on Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying called the move an example of US “bullying” and accused the Trump administration of “stretching the concept of national security.”
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Alipay, a mobile payments app with more than 1 billion users, and most of the other named apps did not comment on the executive order. Kingsoft, developers of WPS Office, said in a statement published by state media that it did not expect the order to substantially impact its business in the short term.
The attorneys general of the four battleground states whose presidential election results are being challenged by a Texas lawsuit asked Supreme Court justices on Thursday not to take up the case.
Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin wrote in unusually sharp briefs that hearing out Texas’s unprecedented suit would “disenfranchise millions” of voters and “do violence to the Constitution”.
“What Texas is doing in this proceeding is to ask this court to reconsider a mass of baseless claims about problems with the election that have already been considered, and rejected, by this court and other courts,” Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania attorney general, wrote in a filing to the court.
At the same time, Washington DC attorney general Karl Racine filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the District of Columbia and 22 states and territories defending the electoral process in the states targeted in the Texas lawsuit.
The letter was issued in response to a long-shot lawsuit filed directly to the Supreme Court by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. In the suit, Texas accused election officials in the four named battleground states of failing to safeguard mail-in voting against fraud, thereby diminishing “the weight of votes cast in states that lawfully abide by the election structure set forth in the constitution”.
Texas is asking the Supreme Court to block the 62 total electoral college votes in the four states from being counted. All four have already certified their election results.
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Texas’s lawsuit comes on the back of numerous other suits pursued in the four targeted states and elsewhere, alleging widespread election fraud. More than 50 of these suits have been dismissed by judges appointed under Democratic and Republican administrations.
The Supreme Court currently sits at a 6-3 conservative majority, with three conservative justices having been appointed by President Trump.
The UK government said on Tuesday that it would drop clauses in legislation that breached the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement after reaching a deal with the European Union on future management of the Ireland-Northern Ireland border.
Cabinet Minister Michael Gove announced that he and European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič had come to “agreement in principle on all issues, in particular with regard to the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland”.
The Withdrawal Agreement, which the UK and EU signed in January, included a protocol that would keep Northern Ireland as part of the EU’s single market and customs union at the end of the Brexit transition, which was intended to prevent the return to a hard border with the Republic of Ireland and the possibility of renewed sectarian violence.
The draft Internal Market Bill released by the UK in September contradicted this arrangement by allowing for the UK to make all decisions relating to declarations of goods and customs arrangements in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis admitted at the time that the clauses would break international law “in a specific and limited way”.
While separate to wider trade negotiations, the removal of the controversial Internal Market Bill clauses in the new agreement removes a significant point of contention between the UK and EU. The European Commission had previously issued a legal challenge against the UK over its refusal to alter the legislation, which it called “a breach of the obligation of good faith”.
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Amanda Pinto QC, Chair of the Bar Council, said the organisation was pleased by the government’s U-turn, but added that it should not have been necessary. “We are disappointed that the initiative was ever adopted, but this course of action should demonstrate to all – including our potential trade partners – that Britain holds itself to the rule of law,” she said.
Ongoing trade talks between the UK and EU have yet to find a solution for managing almost $1 trillion of annual trade. The temporary arrangements that currently exist will expire at the end of the year.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s conditional approval for the first offshore oil-drilling project in federal Arctic waters off Alaska, ruling that it violated environmental requirements when it issued approval in 2018.
Hilcorp Alaska was approved to build and operate the Liberty project, a nine-acre artificial drilling island and underwater pipeline that caused controversy for its potential to create oil spills in the Beaufort sea, threatening polar bears and Arctic communities.
A three-judge panel found that the Bureau of Ocean Management “acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to quantify the emissions resulting from foreign oil consumption”. The panel also found that the Bureau had not bothered to estimate the number of polar bears that might be harmed by the project before granting permits, instead relying on a “flawed and unlawful” biological opinion from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The suit was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Pacific Environment, all represented by Earthjustice. Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, hailed Monday’s decision as “a huge victory for polar bears and our climate”.
“This project was a disaster waiting to happen that should never have been approved,” Monsell said. “I’m thrilled the court saw through the Trump administration’s attempt to push this project through without carefully studying its risks.”
Kara Moriarty, head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association in which Hilcorp is a member organisation, said the decision was “disappointing”.
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“(The project) will have to go back to BOEM to be reworked, adding delay and uncertainty, at a time when Alaska could use as many projects on the books as possible to get us back to some type of economic recovery,” she said.
Moriarty also said that, should the project not be taken up by the incoming Biden administration, the oil industry could sue for its advancement. Biden promised during his campaign that he would halt new oil and gas permits on federal lands, beginning from his first day in office.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Saturday dismissed a bid from Representative Mike Kelly and other Republicans to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results in the state.
Kelly’s case argued that a 2019 law mandating mail-in voting in Pennsylvania was unconstitutional, proposing two solutions: the invalidation of all mail-in ballots cast during the election or allowing the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania general assembly to appoint presidential electors, rather than allocating them according to the popular vote.
The seven-member court agreed unanimously that the suit came too late, having been filed more than a year after the mail-in voting law was enacted. The court also overturned a lower court injunction blocking Pennsylvania from moving ahead with the certification process.
The case’s dismissal marks the latest in a string of legal defeats for Republicans and affiliates of President Donald Trump’s campaign in an ongoing attempt to dispute the legitimacy of the 2020 election results.
In Pennsylvania last week, two Republican suits aimed at halting the certifications of the state’s election results. Stephanos Bibas, a Trump-nominated judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote in a 21-page unanimous decision on Friday that the president’s lawsuit challenging the results had “no merit.”
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“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Bibas wrote. “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”
The US government on Wednesday granted Chinese tech company ByteDance a seven-day extension of an order to sell US operations of its flagship video-sharing platform, according to a court filing.
The Trump administration has been attempting to ban TikTok for some months now, citing security concerns over the potential for ByteDance to pass user information to the Chinese government.
An initial executive order directing ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days was issued on 14 August. ByteDance was also recently issued a 15-day extension that was set to expire on 27 November. The newest extension will expire on 4 December.
In September, it appeared that ByteDance was set to sell TikTok to US-based Oracle Corp and Walmart Inc, though the companies seemed to offer different explanations of the deal. The Committee on Foreign Investment, a panel led by the Treasury Department, did not ultimately sign off on the sale.
A US Treasury spokesperson said that the extension was granted to allow time for a “revised submission” to be reviewed by the Committee.
TikTok remains one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the world. To date, it has been downloaded more than 100 million times in the US.
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ByteDance has filed a number of legal challenges against the ban, with deadlines in certain proceedings set to arrive after January. Several judges have blocked the ban from taking effect, and it is not yet clear what penalty will be issued to ByteDance should it fail to comply with the order.
In the aftermath of the US presidential election, the executive order banning TikTok may lapse once President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, unless he chooses to enforce the previous administration’s order in court.
Daniel Fleming, Jeff Li, Kat McKay and Brittany Parisi, with assistance from paralegal Sabrina Piotrowski, offer Lawyer Monthly an analysis of the ongoing litigation surrounding the results of the US election.
President Trump continues to tilt at windmills and lob Hail Mary passes to stay in the White House. Here is a survey of election litigation, which is highly unlikely to change the result that Biden won.
What is the lawsuit about?
In Wood v. Raffensperger, the plaintiff alleged that the presidential election in Georgia was defective based on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s unauthorised oversight of the balloting process and sought a court injunction against certification of the results.
How was the lawsuit decided?
On 20 November, 2020, the court denied the relief sought by Plaintiff. The court ruled that Plaintiff had no standing as a private citizen to overturn millions of votes. As the court noted, “Just because the right to vote is fundamental does not mean that individual voters have the right to direct the manner in which votes will be cast, accepted or rejected.”
What’s the likelihood the Supreme Court will hear the case?
None. This lawsuit was for an injunction stopping certification. An audit was already completed on November 19, 2020, which did not change the winner, and the Secretary of State and Governor certified the results on November 20, 2020.
Can the lawsuit delay the election results?
Not this lawsuit. The Secretary of State has already certified the results, showing former Vice President Biden won by more than 12,000 votes.
What is the lawsuit about?
In Constantino v. City of Detroit, the plaintiffs sought, based on allegations of fraud, an injunction to stop the certification of the votes in Detroit’s home county, and for the court appointment of an election results audit to delay certification of the vote in Michigan.
Is the lawsuit credible?
No. Wayne County Chief Judge Timothy Kenny found that the plaintiffs’ supporting affidavits of fraud were replete with “generalised statements” of “speculation” and unfounded “sinister motive” but nothing more. He ruled that granting the requested relief would be “an unprecedented exercise of judicial activism for this Court to stop the certification process” and “could disenfranchise Michigan voters from having their state electors participate in the Electoral College vote.”
This is just the latest of six lawsuits in Michigan, including a federal lawsuit, all of which failed.
What’s the likelihood the US Supreme Court will hear the case?
Nil. Plaintiffs’ state court appeals have all been denied.
Can the lawsuit delay the election results?
This case, like the others, is dead on arrival. Now that Wayne County has certified its votes, all that’s left is for the State of Michigan to certify all votes on 23 November, 2020 (as it now has). Recount votes must be filed with the Secretary of State within 48 hours after the State has certified all votes. Trump faces an uphill battle on any recount since he must first prove he has a reasonable chance to win to be entitled to a recount. That’s a tall order, given that he lost in Michigan by more than 157,000 votes.
What is the lawsuit about?
In Donald J. Trump for President v. Boockvar, plaintiffs seek an emergency order prohibiting the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from certifying the results of the Presidential General Election. On 18 November, 2020, plaintiffs filed a Second Amended Complaint alleging there are 682,807 ballots that should be invalidated because the Trump campaign had not been allowed to watch the counting process as closely as they wanted to. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss.
Is the lawsuit credible?
No. Trump’s re-election campaign admitted in court that plaintiffs are not alleging voter fraud or impropriety and agreed to sign a stipulation to memorialise same at the 17 November, 2020 court appearance.
This is just one of several election lawsuits filed by the Trump Campaign in Pennsylvania, many of which have been unsuccessful.
What’s the likelihood the US Supreme Court will hear the case?
Slim. The evidentiary hearing originally scheduled for 19 November, 2020 was cancelled. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss which the Honorable Matthew Brann granted on 21 November, 2020. Plaintiffs will have a difficult time obtaining certiorari from the United States Supreme Court seeing that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rule that an election observer in Philadelphia was not entitled to stand within a particular distance from employees who were processing mail-in ballots, overturning a lower court’s ruling on the matter.
Can the lawsuit delay the election results?
Unlikely. In the unlikely event the Trump campaign can whittle away Biden’s advantage to 0.5%, Pennsylvania law would trigger an automatic recount. However, even if Pennsylvania’s vote did go to a recount, and even if that recount resulted in President Trump winning Pennsylvania, this alone would not change the outcome of the Presidential General Election because all of the other states have been called and President-Elect Biden has collected at least 290 electoral votes. Therefore, overturning Pennsylvania’s result, alone, would not pave the way for a second Trump term.
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There are no pending lawsuits in Arizona because they have all been dismissed. The last lawsuit involved only two ballots, which the court dismissed. All other lawsuits were dismissed voluntarily, including one challenging the right of election officials to use sharpie marker pens. None of the lawsuits had any merit, none will reach the Supreme Court, and none will delay the presidential election.
What is the lawsuit about?
In Langenhorst, LeMay and Fifrick v. Pecore, plaintiffs sought an injunction to stop Wisconsin’s certification of the votes for Joe Biden because they alleged that election officials included illegal ballots in Democratic-leaning counties, thereby diluting proper ballots.
Is the lawsuit credible?
No. Plaintiffs made no specific allegations of wrongdoing.
What’s the likelihood the US Supreme Court will hear the case?
Impossible. Plaintiffs have already voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit.
Can the lawsuit delay the election results?
No, but at Trump’s request, there will be a partial recount in the Democratic-leaning counties of Milwaukee and Dane. Trump has paid $2,809,682.12 for this recount.
In a letter seen by the Observer, UK immigration minister Chris Philp condemned immigration lawyers for issuing last-minute challengers to the deportation of asylum seekers, marking the latest in a line of government attacks on the legal profession.
In the letter to SNP MP Mhairi Black, dated 10 November, Chris Philp wrote that immigration lawyers “take advantage of their position and abuse the court process by playing politics”.
Amanda Pinto QC, chair of the Bar Council, condemned the comments from the immigration minister as deeply disturbing.
“This latest criticism of lawyers yet again exposes the lack of understanding of the role lawyers play in our immigration and wider justice system, as well as a gap in the minister’s knowledge of the Home Office’s own operations when it comes to immigration,” she said, adding that it was often near impossible to avoid last-minute challenges as lawyers responded to late or immediate deportation decisions by the Home Office.
“The government should not make general, unwarranted attacks on the reputation of the legal profession. To do so undermines the whole system,” Pinto said.
This statement is only the latest development in a series of attacks on immigration lawyers by senior members of the UK government. Home Secretary Priti Patel slammed the legal defenders of asylum seekers as “lefty lawyers” during a speech at a Conservative Party conference, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has echoed her language in separate remarks. The Bar Council and other UK legal bodies have called on the two to apologise for their comments.
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Last Wednesday, lord chancellor Robert Buckland QC claimed that “activist lawyers” had eroded the reputation of the legal profession and “vaunted their political views” on social media in order to “generate some work”.
