Harvard, MIT sue to block Trump administration from stripping student visas amid pandemic

The Hill logoHarvard and MIT filed a lawsuit on Wednesday that seeks to prevent the Trump administration from stripping foreign students of visas if their universities move exclusively to online classes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit comes after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Monday that international students whose courses move entirely online would be required to depart the country, rescinding a previous plan to grant exemptions to student visa holders.

The universities asked a federal court in Boston for a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction against the administration’s new policy. Continue reading.

MIT report exposes Trump campaign app as a deceptive ‘surveillance tool’

AlterNet logoAbout 800,000 people have downloaded the Trump 2020 campaign’s app. According to a study by the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT, users are handing over a massive amount of personal information – and an astonishing amount of access – to the Trump campaign.

MIT, which investigated both the Trump campaign app and the Biden campaign app says the Trump campaign app is a “voter surveillance tool” with “extraordinary power.”

The Biden campaign app also collects data but far less than the Trump campaign app. Continue reading.