Our guest bloggers are Sarah K. Dreier, a graduate student at the University of Washington and a former researcher at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and David Sullivan, Research Associate at the ENOUGH project.

From the satellite mapping of atrocities and data-driven prosecution of war criminals to the use of social networking to mobilize against repressive regimes, advances in science and technology hold unprecedented potential to make human rights a reality across the world.

A new report from the Center for American Progress, “New Tools for Old Traumas,” calls on President Obama — recently dubbed “Scientist in Chief” for his unprecedented commitment to research and development — to lead efforts to use these new tools to bring human rights perpetrators to justice; halt ongoing atrocities; and empower victims to fight against injustice. Cell phone companies have crucial roles to play as well because part of the complexity of this issue is ensuring that these tools do not foster human rights atrocities as well as stop them.

Today, the mobile phone that an activist uses to mobilize protesters in Tehran is made with tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold, whose mining in eastern Congo has fueled the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

All electronic devises — from satellites to smart phones — require these specialized metals. Tin is used to affix components to circuit boards. Tantalum is a vital element of capacitors that store electrical charge. And tungsten is a key ingredient in vibrate alert functions and LCD displays.

Unfortunately, the mines in eastern Congo that produce these mineral ores fuel and support armed groups on all sides of the conflict. These groups — including the Rwandan Hutu rebels who helped commit the 1994 genocide and Congo’s ill-disciplined and predatory armed forces — exploit impoverished miners and extort exorbitant ‘taxes’ from this trade. They use the profits to finance some of the worst human rights abuses in the world, including an epidemic of sexual violence that makes eastern Congo the most dangerous on the globe to be a woman or a girl.

Eastern Congo is the sight of the worst abuses in the supply chain for electronics products, but it is by no means the only one. From extraction in mining to unsafe and exploitative conditions in manufacturing facilities in Asia, the intricate supply chains that produce these products are opaque and electronics companies have yet to fully assume responsibility for the behavior of their suppliers or their suppliers’ suppliers.

Read more

Throughout the health care debate, Republicans have been harping on Democrats for not doing enough to block undocumented immigrants from receiving public benefits. However, it turns out Republicans aren’t just opposed to expanding access to health care for undocumented immigrants, they’re against providing any assistance to all “high risk” seriously ill immigrants, regardless of their immigration status.

The long-awaited health care bill that the Republican House leadership sent to the Congressional Budget Office explicitly states that only US citizens and nationals will be eligible to participate in a State’s “high risk pool.” High risk pools are problematic for a lot of other reasons, but they’re one of the few recourses the GOP is providing individuals who can’t obtain health insurance as a result of a serious illness. States are required to verify citizenship or nationality in a manner consistent with section 1903(x) of the Social Security Act:

Chances are most immigrants wouldn’t be able to afford to buy into pricey high risk pools even if they were eligible. Nonetheless, by explicitly excluding a population that includes legal residents who tend to be healthier than US citizens, use less medical care, and use less expensive care; the GOP is putting its nativist principles before practical common sense. A relatively small number of “high risk” immigrants probably wouldn’t bankrupt the hypothetical pool system, but their participation could upset the GOP’s right-wing base. Republicans already fought in previous years to make sure legal permanent residents don’t qualify for Medicaid until they’ve been in the country for five years and now they’re essentially suggesting that immigrants who get sick and can’t obtain Medicaid or private health insurance should either die broke in the US or go back to their home countries. Many have pointed out that the GOP’s plan is “designed for the healthy while they’re healthy” and for legal immigrants this concept is amplified and downright punitive.

The GOP proposal also prohibits States from including uninsured undocumented immigrants in their calculation of average premiums or number of uninsured.

Sec. 242 and 246 of the Democrats’ health care bill states that only individuals who are not lawfully present in US will be denied health care benefits.