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Uprising’s guest expert Maya Rockeymoore, President of the Center for Global Policy Solutions, a social change non-profit dedicated to making policy work for people and their environment, analyzes today’s news headlines:

Survivors of extraordinary rendition and torture urge President Barack Obama to declassify a Senate Committee report on the CIA’s practices. A group of 10 people, all of whom were transferred into custody of US allies during the so-called War on Terror, and tortured in captivity before being released, have written a letter to President Obama. They want the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Bush-era torture to be released to the public. Most of them were held captive for years, and now suffer from severe PTSD. Meanwhile, reports have emerged of journalists and other Western captives of the group ISIS in Syria having been water boarded several times. The CIA and US government had defended the use of water boarding as an effective interrogation tool while most people of conscience the world over decried it as torture. Click here for a Guardian newspaper article and here for a Washington Post article about the story.

Even though protests in the Missouri town of Ferguson have calmed, activists who say their civil rights were violated by police during protests are suing their city, county, and police. Six people filed a suit, seeking $40 million in damages. The suit is one of several, in response to a militarized police reaction to those protesting the death of unarmed teen Michael Brown at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson. Meanwhile, urging a nationwide change to the way police operate, civil rights groups and others are pressuring Attorney General Eric Holder to tackle the problems of racial disparity in policing. Several organizations including the NAACP held a rally in front of the Justice Department on Wednesday. Click here for an article on The Hill about the story, and here for an NBC article about the story.

Finally, here in California, state Senators passed a bill that would redefine what sexual consent on college campuses means. In light of the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses, the Senate crafted a bill that would require sexual consent between partners to be explicitly garnered in what is called “an affirmative consent standard.” There is no other bill like it at the state-wide level although many campuses have adopted it as policy. Click here for a Time.com article about the story.