RSN: Steven G. Calabresi | Trump Might Try to Postpone the Election. That's Unconstitutional.

01 August 20 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News Steven G. Calabresi | Trump Might Try to Postpone the Election. That's Unconstitutional. Steven G. Calabresi, The New York Times Calabresi writes: "I have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980, including voting for Donald Trump in 2016."  I wrote op-eds and a law review article protesting what I believe was an unconstitutional investigation by Robert Mueller. I also wrote an op-ed opposing President Trump’s impeachment. But I am frankly appalled by the president’s recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate. Here is what President Trump tweeted: With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 READ MORE Portland police knocking a woman down. (photo: Alex Wittwer/Willamette Week) Burns, Bloody Wounds, Broken Bones: Portland Protesters Describe the Injuries Caused by Trump's Federal Officers Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, Noelle Crombie and K. Rambo, The Oregonian Excerpt: "Weeks of restive demonstrations in Portland are leaving an indelible mark on protesters as the nightly cries against police violence and racism have often ended with an aggressive show of force by local and federal officers."  loody wounds. Seared skin. Broken bones. Police have fired chemical agents and less-lethal rounds into crowds, at times indiscriminately, to scatter or subdue them after some protesters have lobbed fireworks or bottles at officers, flashed lasers in their eyes or tried to dismantle protective barriers. They’ve used batons on body parts and hurled people onto pavement. Sometimes the combative acts become national news. Donavan La Bella, 26, was hospitalized with a fractured skull after a deputy U.S. marshal with the agency’s tactical unit shot him in the head with an impact munition while La Bella was holding a stereo over his head across the street from the federal courthouse. Federal officers pepper-sprayed and used batons to beat another protester, Christopher David, a 53-year-old Navy veteran, as he tried to speak to them. A lone federal officer directed pepper spray into the eyes of an unarmed Vietnam War vet as the man loudly lectured other officers standing guard at the courthouse. It’s difficult to determine precisely how many people have been injured after 60-plus consecutive days of protests. Brian Terrett, a spokesman for Legacy Health, said two of the system’s hospitals have seen one or two patients a night. Wounded protesters also have received treatment from volunteer street medics or at other hospitals across the city. Portland police and federal officials this week said their officers have also been injured during the protests, in some cases seriously or permanently. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said since July 24, about 19 deputies with the agency have sustained “multiple traumatic injuries” from hammers, lasers and other items that some at the demonstrations have used as weapons. The agency said its employees have been “doused” with “unidentified chemicals” and hazardous waste, including bleach and human waste. Federal court records detail some of the more serious injuries among the officers, including broken bones, hearing and eye damage and chemical burns. One federal officer was struck in the head by a man armed with a two-pound sledgehammer; another suffered a deep leg wound from a marble or ball bearing shot from a high-powered wrist rocket or air gun, court records say. Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told Fox on July 26 regarding lasers: “We have two to three different officers. We are waiting on final results to see how much their eyesight will permanently be lost because of the activity of these criminals.”  A spokeswoman for the Portland police on Friday said she did not know the number of officers who have been hurt but said injuries range from bruises and cuts to broken bones and concussions. The following stories are from some of the untold numbers among thousands who come to the heart of the city and leave as an example of how physical harm and combustible conflict have become a hallmark Portland’s latest protest movement. Trip Jennings, 37, of Northeast Portland A barrage of pepper balls struck Trip Jennings while he clutched a camera in his hand. One of the rounds ripped through the Plexiglas lens of his gas mask, lacerating his left eye and cheek, he said. “I would love to say that it was just a bad shot,” said Jennings, a filmmaker and soon-to-be father. “But it does seem like the feds were aiming for my head.” Jennings said he was one of dozens of people retreating up Southwest Salmon Street early Sunday morning after federal officers ordered them to leave the area near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse downtown. Protesters, journalists and other observers were all following the directive and moving quickly, he said. The federal officers fired anyway, unleashing a fusillade of pepper balls, rubber bullets and stun grenades. “It did not feel like a dispersal tactic, it felt like a tactic to inflict pain,” said Jennings, who has covered conflicts around the world, including Israel’s West Bank and Chiapas, Mexico. “It felt like a last-ditch attempt to use one of the last elements of control that governments have to stay in power.” Several injured protesters were at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center when Jennings arrived a short time later, he said. A doctor had to wear a respirator while she tended his wounds because chemical agents coated his body. “It now looks like I’m an extra in a zombie movie,” he said. “It’s just gross.” But Jennings said he has no regrets trying to document a movement in support of Black lives and against police violence. “There are so many people of color putting themselves at more risk than I am and it’s inspiring,” he said. “They’re creating a world I want my son to live in far more than the one we had three months ago.” — Shane Dixon Kavanaugh Andre Miller, 36, of Southeast Portland Andre Miller and Danielle Anderson’s 5-year-old son sobbed and backed away from his father when he returned home from the hospital. “He kept looking at his dad and just crying and backing up,” said Anderson, 35. “He was scared, and he didn’t know what was going on. He saw the blood all over his dad’s face and was confused.” Miller had attended protests against racism and police brutality in Portland since they began after the May 25 death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. Known to friends and family as “Dre,” Miller has been involved in activism and volunteer work in Portland for years. Not long after midnight on July 22, federal officers fired a riot munition striking Miller in his head as he filmed the officers and backpedaled away from them. Miller and Anderson have four children together. She said she was with him when he was shot. “He thought he was losing his life,” Anderson said. “He was saying his last words because he really thought that this was it.” He lost consciousness multiple times on the way to meet the ambulance. He had to ride in it alone because of coronavirus concerns. He was wearing a helmet when he was hit, but the munition struck him just below the coverage of his helmet, said Anderson. Anderson said Miller’s CT scan lit up with metal shrapnel in his head. Miller is in a lot of pain while recovering at home but did not experience internal bleeding or bone damage and is expected to make a full recovery physically. Anderson said he has suffered significant emotional trauma as a result of the incident. “He absolutely cannot bring himself to watch any of the videos,” Anderson said. “The minute he hears his video … he can’t. It makes him sick to his stomach.” — K. Rambo Jessie-Uyanik was struck in the head on July 25. It was just before 11 p.m. when she heard a “boom” and felt something hit her above her eye. While she said she wasn’t ready yet to talk publicly about her injury, she wrote a Facebook post the day after and said that stands as her account. Jessie-Uyanik said in the post that she and other women she was with had lined up on Southwest Third Avenue, about 10 feet from the fence in front of the federal courthouse at the time. She pulled on her safety goggles and wore a helmet. “I remember some confetti had been launched on the far right side of us,” she wrote. “I could hear a marching band playing in the intersection to our left. I didn’t notice anything in particular happening around me or in front of me in those moments. I was looking around, looking forward, and taking it in.” That’s when she was struck, she said. The impact left an open wound on her forehead near her eye. She does not know what was fired at her. In a follow-up message to The Oregonian/OregonLive, Uyanik said she didn’t hear a dispersal order before she was fired on. “No announcement whatsoever,” she said. “The feds were completely silent as far as I could tell.” According to her account, she said he was pulled backward, then picked up by someone who carried her through the crowd to a medic vehicle. She said the street medics stopped the bleeding. She said she was eventually taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where she received seven stitches. She said doctors told her it looked like “tiny fragments” had pierced her skin. Jessie-Uyanik said she has taken part in several Black Lives Matter protests since late May. “I was inspired to use not only my voice, but also my body, to defend our First Amendment right to protest and send a clear message that Black lives are worth fighting for,” she wrote. — Noelle Crombie Michael Weisdorf, 38, of Southwest Portland Weisdorf, a longtime activist, found himself with a fractured elbow and disfigured face the night of July 18. He said Portland police are to blame. “They didn’t try to arrest me or anything,” said Weisdorf, 38, a graduate student at Portland State University. “They just broke my arm and left me in the street.” Weisdorf’s evening began at a Black Lives Matter rally at Peninsula Park in North Portland. He and other protesters later marched to the Portland Police Association headquarters on North Lombard Street. Someone broke into the office that evening and set fire in the lobby area. Police declared a riot and began to disperse the crowd that had gathered. Weisdorf said officers in riot gear moved in on him and other peaceful demonstrators, forcing them to the south and east for at least eight blocks. They had just crossed over Interstate 5 on North Rosa Parks Way when Weisdorf was thrown to the ground at least two times by officers who surrounded him as his walking slowed, video of the encounter shows. Weisdorf was eventually able to get up and stagger away, according to the video. He later underwent surgery at Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center. “I found out my elbow had a bad compound fracture,” Weisdorf said. “I didn’t see it poking through the skin, but it was bleeding.” Numerous abrasions and contusions covered his face from being slammed into the pavement, Weisdorf said. He spent the next two days in the hospital. “This sort of really confirms my feeling that this is not an institution we can reform,” he said. “The entire approach to public safety needs to be rethought if we see this kind of behavior from the police,” Weisdorf continued. “I was exercising my constitutional rights. This is real basic First Amendment stuff.” — Shane Dixon Kavanaugh Nat West, 43, and Beck West, 16, of Northeast Portland West and his teenage daughter set out to protest Saturday night, as they had done numerous times in the weeks after George Floyd’s death. They returned to their Northeast Portland home later that evening with burns, welts and contusions. Federal officers launched explosive crowd control munitions at those assembled outside the federal courthouse around 11:20 p.m. as a small handful of protesters threw water bottles and other projectiles, West said. One of the crowd control munitions detonated next to the heads of West and his daughter Beck, he said. Days later, Beck remains nearly deaf in her left ear, according to West. But her support for the Black Lives Matter movement has only strengthened. “That’s the real message the Portland Police Bureau and the feds need to hear,” said West, the founder of Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider. “Our children are not scared. Our children believe in the mission. Our children understand what’s at stake and the opportunity.” While the use of force by federal officers against Portland protesters continues to receive scrutiny, West said he hopes it will not distract people from the aggressive tactics long used by the city’s own police. “I don’t think the feds are doing anything that the Portland police haven’t done already,” he said. “They’ve been doing this, often to Black protesters, for years with the same level of violence.” But West is also optimistic that the current movement will lead to lasting reforms in policing. “I really think we can solve the problems of the Portland Police Bureau,” he said. “Hopefully, we can be a model for the rest of the country.” — Shane Dixon Kavanaugh Nate Cohen, 30, of Chicago Saturday night was Cohen’s third night at the Portland protests. Cohen lived in Portland from 2008 through 2017, then went to Chicago for graduate school. He said he tracked Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Portland and decided to travel here to put his emergency medical technician training to use as a street medic. As Saturday night stretched into Sunday morning, Cohen watched as federal officers emerged from the federal courthouse and pushed people out of Lownsdale Square across the street. The officers fired tear gas and pepper balls, he said. Cohen walked among a couple dozen demonstrators, flushing irritants from their eyes. At one point, he saw a tear gas canister land behind a group of legal observers and journalists in the area of Southwest Third Avenue and Salmon Street. He rushed over to douse it with water and check on two people who were closest to the canister. That’s when he was struck in the chest with another tear gas canister the size of an Izze drink. He said the canister was fired from a grenade launcher and emitted sparks and gas after it struck him. He collapsed in pain and struggled to breathe. He didn’t get a glimpse of who fired at him. “It knocked the air out of my lungs,” he said. “I went down on my hands and knees and was trying to suck in breath.” He said his friends grabbed him and led him to another medic. He was lucid enough to describe his symptoms to the medic, he said, and even guided her through a check of his ribs to see if any were broken. Another demonstrator, a stranger, drove him to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center. Cohen was a licensed emergency medical technician for about six years and in 2012 performed field medicine with a non-governmental organization in East Africa. He said he has volunteered as a street medic at protests in Portland, Chicago and Minneapolis. Now he is a theater director wrapping up his master’s degree in fine arts at Northwestern University in Chicago. The bruise remains painful and makes it difficult to move his arm and shoulders. Freedom and justice, he said, are “core tenets” of “what it means to be American.” Being fired on by a federal officer, he said, “feels so clearly wrong to me.” — Noelle Crombie Dominique Bouchard, 26, of Southeast Portland Bouchard was injured June 5, before federal officers responded with force to Portland protests. She said she decided to take part to support demands for police reform. “There wasn’t a lot of thought for me to go out there and participate,” she said. “It’s really important that the police are defunded to keep communities safer.” Bouchard said Portland police were moving in formation and pushing the crowd away from the Justice Center after declaring the gathering unlawful and ordering the crowd to disperse. She doesn’t know what prompted the order from police other than the late hour. “No one was doing anything,” she said. She was amid a throng of people moving west on Southwest Main Street. It was after midnight, she said. She said she was trying to follow police directions to disperse. “They kind of came out of the crowd of flash bang and the smoke from that and it was surreal,” she said. She was struck with something that stung and left a fist-sized bruise on her thigh. She did not see what hit her. She kept running, she said, and was in the area of Fourth or Fifth Avenue when a Portland police officer “just came out of nowhere.” She said he didn’t say anything as he “body-slammed” the right side of her body, knocking her into the street. “I caught my fall with my hands, which was a bad idea,” she said. “The impact was so great that I broke my right wrist and my left wrist was sprained.” She said the injury was “extremely painful.” She went to Providence Portland Medical Center for treatment that morning. The injury required surgery. She said doctors told her to expect a six- to nine-month recovery. She said she hasn’t returned to protest out of fear she’ll further injure her wrists. “With the injury, it’s been a lot of adapting,” said Bouchard, a Portland Community College student and mother of a toddler. “The first few weeks, I couldn’t do much of anything. To not be present as a parent was hard for me.” “I know the feds are here,” she added, “and that’s awful but the Portland police were acting out in brutality before the feds showed up.” — Noelle Crombie Mac Smiff, 39, of Southeast Portland Longtime activist Fahiym Acuay, who goes by Mac Smiff, has taken part in the demonstrations to demand police reform. In the early morning hours of July 25, he was fired on with some sort of impact munition. Smiff said he was about 50 yards from the federal courthouse and looking at his phone. “I was tweeting and I was shot in the face,” he said. He said the object hit his forehead. The impact, he said, was similar to “a really bad football hit.” “It dropped me straight to my feet,” he said. “I was face down on the ground. I had no idea what hit me.” Smiff could not identify the projectile but said it contained a paint-like substance. It caught the corner of his face shield and helmet. It left him with a “chunky bruise on my forehead and a concussion,” he said. He got checked by street medics and later was evaluated at home by his wife, who is a nurse. He said he suspects he suffered a concussion. He experienced headaches in the days that followed. “It still hurts today,” he said. “If I touch it, I can still feel that pain. It’s still tender there.” He said his immediate reaction to being fired on was shock. “I was so far from the action,” he said. “I wasn’t anywhere near the action. That was pretty strange to me. It just felt horrible.” READ MORE The Postal Service, which runs more than 31,000 post offices in the United States, has struggled financially for years, in part because of its legal obligation to deliver mail everywhere. (photo: Paul Ratje/AFP/Getty Images) Mail Delays Fuel Concern Trump Is Undercutting Postal System Ahead of Voting Michael D. Shear, Hailey Fuchs and Kenneth P. Vogel, The New York Times Excerpt: "Welcome to the next election battleground: the post office." The president’s long campaign against the Postal Service is intersecting with his assault on mail-in voting amid concerns that he has politicized oversight of the agency. President Trump’s yearslong assault on the Postal Service and his increasingly dire warnings about the dangers of voting by mail are colliding as the presidential campaign enters its final months. The result has been to generate new concerns about how he could influence an election conducted during a pandemic in which greater-than-ever numbers of voters will submit their ballots by mail. In tweet after all-caps tweet, Mr. Trump has warned that allowing people to vote by mail will result in a “CORRUPT ELECTION” that will “LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY” and become the “SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES.” He has predicted that children will steal ballots out of mailboxes. On Thursday, he dangled the idea of delaying the election instead. READ MORE Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (photo: Getty Images) Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Calls for End to Federal Funding for Military Recruitment in Schools John Bowden, The Hill Bowden writes: "Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has introduced a pair of amendments to a defense appropriations bill that would bar the military from using funding to maintain a recruiting presence in U.S. schools or on digital streaming platforms such as Twitch." READ MORE An immigrant looks on with his children as they wait to hear if their number is called to apply for asylum in the United States at the border in Tijuana, Mexico, Jan. 25, 2019. (photo: Gregory Bull/AP) The Trump Administration Will Start Charging Immigrants Fees for Applying for Asylum Hamed Aleaziz, BuzzFeed Aleaziz writes: "The US will become just one of just four countries to charge asylum-seekers a fee to apply for protections, according to a finalized policy announced Friday." The US now joins the ranks of Iran, Fiji, and Australia in charging the fee, which one asylum officer called "disgusting." The move is just the latest by the Trump administration to target and restrict protections for those fleeing their home countries. The US now joins the ranks of Iran, Fiji, and Australia in charging a fee. In the US, asylum-seekers will be charged $50 on asylum applications starting in October. “A $50 fee is in line with the fees charged by these other nations,” the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) explained in the final rule posted Friday. However, one asylum officer who spoke with BuzzFeed News on condition of anonymity said the fee was discouraging. “The larger problem is that humanitarian applications by their nature should be free,” the officer said. “The idea of charging people who are fleeing — and not helping if they don't pay up — is disgusting.” Another asylum officer said it will cost the agency more to collect the fee than $50, “which doesn’t come close to covering the cost of adjudicating an asylum application.” “This is a penalty against asylum applicants,” the officer added. The asylum fee is just one of many changes included in the rule issued by USCIS, which is primarily funded by immigrants’ applications, such as filing for a green card or work permit. The agency is required to review its fee structure every two years. The final rule will make it so immigrants seeking to naturalize and applying to become US citizens will have to pay upwards of $1,170, a jump from $640. Agency officials said Friday the rule was increasing fees for many applications to recoup money it needs to remain functioning. “USCIS is required to examine incoming and outgoing expenditures and make adjustments based on that analysis,” USCIS deputy director for policy Joseph Edlow said in a statement. “These overdue adjustments in fees are necessary to efficiently and fairly administer our nation’s lawful immigration system, secure the homeland and protect Americans.” The agency has been in the midst of a financial crisis for the last several months, warning that it will furlough upward of 70% of staff if it does not receive emergency funding from Congress by the end of August. The reasons for the funding shortage, though have been debated — agency officials cite a massive decline in immigration applications due to the pandemic, while immigrant advocates and experts argue that the Trump administration’s restrictive policies have played a part in the budget issues. READ MORE A protest in Chile. (photo: BBC) Chile Takes to the Streets Against President Sebastian Piñera teleSUR Excerpt: "Chile's social leaders and activists condemned President Sebastian Piñera's omission of human rights violations and mishandling of the pandemic in his administration's public account presentation to Congress on Friday." "Eye mutilation continues in Chile. Military officers shoot people in the face in Santiago," Chilean correspondent Paola Dragnic tweeted. During Piñera's presentation in Valparaiso, protests took place throughout the country. The demonstrations were repressed by the Chilean police (Carabineros). "Eye mutilation continues in Chile. Military officers shoot people in the face in Santiago," Chilean correspondent Paola Dragnic denounced on Twitter. The repression occurred "while President Piñera was finishing his public account in which he did not refer to human rights violations," Dragnic said. "We regret that Piñera has not mentioned the victims of the serious human rights violations that have occurred since October," Chile's National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) director Sergio Micco assured. Piñera missed this moment, "which would have been ideal to express his commitment to truth, justice, to ensure that these mistakes do not happen again," Micco added. Chile's Christian Democracy (CD) also denounced the lack of introspection into the failure in the government's strategy against COVID-19. READ MORE An orca. (photo: wildestanimal/Getty Images) Endangered Orcas at Risk From US Navy, Activists Warn Jeff Berardelli, CBS News Berardelli writes: "In the Pacific Northwest, an endangered community of killer whales has been on the decline for years due to a variety of factors, all related to human activity."  Now, advocacy groups are warning of another looming threat which could further weaken the killer whale population: the U.S. Navy.  The Southern Resident killer whales are a small, close knit community of animals — more accurately known as orcas, the largest species of dolphins — which live primarily along the coast of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. When they were listed as endangered in 2005, there were 88 Southern Resident orcas — but now, due to declines in their favorite food, Chinook salmon, as well as other manmade threats like toxins, shipping traffic and warming waters due to climate change, their numbers have dwindled to 72. That's why a recent request from the U.S. Navy seeking authorization for 51 "takes" of killer whales in the region each year for the next seven years alarmed many environmental groups.  A "take" does not mean to physically take the animals, and it does not mean the Navy intends to hunt or kill them. The term is defined in the Endangered Species Act to include any activities that "harass, harm, pursue … wound [or] kill" a protected animal. An "incidental take" means the impact is "unintentional, but not unexpected." These authorizations are required by NOAA Fisheries under the Marine Mammal Protection Act for activities that may disturb or harm marine mammals, such as disruptive underwater sound from energy exploration, construction or even scientific research. Since the Navy's current incidental take permits expire in 2020, they're asking NOAA for authorizations to enable future training and testing activities in the Pacific Northwest. "The Navy is not anticipating any Southern Resident Killer Whale injuries or mortalities from these activities," a spokesperson emphasized in an email to CBS News, adding that any disturbances are expected to be of the "lowest level." The request for 51 takes could mean activities that impact 51 individual orcas once in the course of a year, or a smaller number of animals that are disturbed a few times each.  Requesting takes is a normal procedure for the Navy, but its request recently increased from 2 to 51 per year, which unnerved Dr. Deborah Giles, a killer whale researcher at the University of Washington's Center for Conservation Biology who is also a member of Wild Orca, an advocacy organization. Giles says, like all orcas, the Southern Residents share a compassionate, cultural bond with each other — a connection which in many ways mimics our own human relationships. They play together, feed together and maintain lifelong, loving bonds with their immediate families and the clan they travel with.  "There are only 72 individual Southern Resident killer whales in this entire population and they are distinct genetically and culturally. If this population is lost ... it's the equivalent of losing a unique tribe of individual humans." The Southern Residents are some of the most well-studied animals on the planet, spending most of their time in the Pacific Northwest. They travel as far south as Monterey, California, and as far north as southeast Alaska. The Navy inevitably crosses paths with these orcas from time to time during training or testing activities. And since the orcas use soundwaves to navigate, communicate and hunt, it makes them particularly sensitive to Navy acoustics from sonar to sonic booms. "Sound carries better in water than it does in the air and very loud explosions like thousand-pound explosions can have a physical impact on the body of a killer whale," Giles said. The video below, from 2003, was captured by the Center for Whale Research in the Salish Sea, near Seattle. Using a hydrophone to record audio underwater and a video camera up above, researchers simultaneously caught the screeching Navy sonar down below and the disturbed and erratic behavior of the Southern Residents at the surface. Giles says intense underwater sound like this can compromise the orcas' ability to forage or communicate with one another — a foundation for their community's survival. Giles' organization and 28 others wrote a letter to NOAA Fisheries expressing their concern about the Navy's plans.  The controversy in part revolves around how NOAA evaluates the impact on the species. NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service made a preliminary determination that 51 takes would have a "negligible impact" — meaning it's unlikely to adversely affect the species. Since NOAA estimates there are 50,000 killer whales worldwide, 51 takes could be seen as a negligible figure. But advocates for the animals argue that since the 72 Southern Residents are unique from other orcas, any extra pressure on their diminishing population is not negligible at all. To try to minimize potential impact from the Navy, the 29 organizations are asking NOAA Fisheries to change its determination of negligible impact and to require an extra layer of protection.  When asked about protection for these orcas, NOAA Fisheries confirmed to CBS News in an email that measures were in place to reduce potential harm, but did not say whether any additional steps would be required.  "NOAA Fisheries' proposed regulations and subsequent Letters of Authorization include required mitigation and monitoring measures that are expected to reduce adverse impacts to marine mammal species or stocks and their habitats," the administration said.  The Navy says it only expects the lowest level of impact: Temporary disturbances that might, for example, lead to a change in the orcas' rate of vocalizations, or prompt them to interrupt foraging to swim away. In an email to CBS News, the Navy said it is "keenly aware of the challenges faced by the Southern Resident Killer Whales resulting from a multitude of human activities. Our plans include numerous efforts to avoid or minimize potential effects on the species throughout the region."  Asked if it was open to taking additional steps to help protect the orcas, the Navy replied that it is "currently in consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service, and will continue these active discussions to review practicable measures that could reduce further potential effects to Southern Resident Killer Whales." In the email, the Navy outlined the types of training and testing activities it expects to conduct, which include "the use of underwater acoustic systems, or sonar on Navy vessels or on unmanned underwater vehicles," and said it is "committed to being good stewards of the environment while meeting our national defense mission to maintain, train, and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, and maintaining freedom of the seas." While Giles acknowledged the Navy does take steps to minimize impacts, she said more needs to be done to track and monitor the orcas.  She also said she's concerned about the potential for long-term harm — a risk she feels is not worth taking. "Just the loss of one whale or the harm to one whale could have population level impacts," Giles said. In an email to CBS News, NOAA Fisheries says it's targeting November 2020 for a final decision.  READ MORE Contribute to RSN Update My Monthly Donation