Quotes from Adam Cohen

Defending Congressional authority should not be a partisan issue.

There was a rule, back when I was an education lawyer in Alabama, about visiting public schools: always go on a rainy day so you can see how badly the roofs leak.

It is hard to imagine an area in which Congress has more express constitutional authority to act than in protecting the right of minorities to vote.

Supporters of tough voter ID laws are not afraid of vote fraud - they are afraid of democracy.

Voter ID laws have a disproportionate impact on groups that lean democratic - including blacks, hispanics and students.

There is no actual need to tighten voter ID rules: there have been extraordinarily few instances of people committing fraud at the polls.

A federal Voters' Bill of Rights could press the states to put non-partisan managers in charge of elections.

Republicans and blacks had an unlikely alliance around 'max black' after the 1990 census. By concentrating black voters in some districts, the strategy elected a record number of black congressmen in 1992. But the remaining 'bleached' districts were more likely to elect white Republicans.

Federal law should hold organizations like the League of Women Voters harmless if they make good-faith mistakes while registering people.

Voting in presidential and congressional elections is a national right - and the national government should protect it.

As long as there have been elections, there have been attempts to keep eligible people from voting.

There is a lot of talk in conservative circles about judicial modesty and deferring to the political branches. That view of judging often overlooks the important role that courts have in protecting people's rights. But if there was ever a time to defer, it is when Congress is protecting voting rights in the exact way the Constitution directs it to.

The minimum wage can play a vital role in lifting hard-working families above the poverty line.

Being unemployed - or working at minimum wage - is rough in the best of circumstances.

As much as possible, location-specific information should not be collected in the first place, or not in personally identifiable form.

If the courts regarded tweets and other social media information as private, it would not prevent the law enforcement from getting information it really needs. But the government would have to get a search warrant, which requires it to show that it has probable cause connecting what is being searched to a crime.

After you pay your E-ZPass bill, there is no reason for the government to keep records of your travel.

We should craft our laws to allow images of criminal suspects to be captured in public - but also to make sure that the government does not unduly infringe on the privacy rights of innocent citizens.

There is no need for neighborhood informants and paper dossiers if the government can see citizens' every Web site visit, e-mail and text message.

Anti-New Deal rhetoric has never disappeared from American political life.

Serving up ads based on behavioral targeting can itself be an invasion of privacy, especially when the information used is personal.

The civil rights and antiwar movements taught Americans to question authority.

Patents have a place in medical science - for new inventions that advance the state of knowledge.

The rich and powerful are less likely, all other things being equal, to be arrested, convicted, or imprisoned. The poor are, holding everything else constant, more likely to be incarcerated, institutionalized, and sterilized.