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Console game

A console game is a type of video game consisting of images and often sounds generated by a video game console, which are displayed on a television or similar audio-video system, and that can be manipulated by a player. This manipulation usually takes place using a handheld device connected to the console, called a controller. The controller generally contains several buttons and directional controls such as analogue joysticks, each of which has been assigned a purpose for interacting with and controlling the images on the screen. The display, speakers, console, and controls of a console can also be incorporated into one small object known as a handheld game.

Console games usually come in the form of an optical disc, ROM cartridge, digital download or, in the case of dedicated consoles, stored on internal memory. The global console games market was valued at about $26.8 billion in 2018.

The differences between consoles create additional challenges and opportunities for game developers, as the console manufacturers (e.g. Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Sega, Atari) may provide extra incentives, support and marketing for console exclusive games. To aid development of games for consoles, manufacturers often create game development kits that developers can use for their work.

Early console games
The first console games were for the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972, and consisted of simple games made of three white dots and a vertical line. These hardware limitations, such as the lack of any audio capability, meant that developers didn't have freedom in the type of games they could create. Some games came packaged with accessories such as cards and dice to enhance the experience and make up for the shortcomings of the hardware.

The second generation of consoles introduced more powerful capabilities, less hardware limitations than the first generation, and coincided with the golden age of arcade video games. Developers had access to the console's basic graphical capabilities, allowing them to create sprites of their choosing and more advanced sound capabilities. Controllers were beginning to include more buttons giving developers more freedom in the type of interactions they could provide to the player.

Due to the success of arcades, several games were adapted and released on consoles. In many cases, the quality had to be reduced because of the hardware limitations of consoles, but their popularity persisted: Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, a port of the original arcade game of the same name, was the best selling game for the console.

The second generation of games introduced a number of notable gaming concepts for the first time. Adventure for the Atari 2600 introduced the concept of a virtual space bigger than the screen for the first time, with the game consisting of multiple rooms the player could visit as opposed to a single static screen. Video Olympics was one of the first console games to have a computer controlled opponent in its "Robot Pong" game mode and genres such as platforming and graphical adventure games emerged.

Video game industry crash
By the end of 1983, consoles had become cheaper to develop and produce, causing a saturation of consoles which in turn led to their libraries becoming saturated too. Due to this saturation of the market, the prices of games were low and, despite good sales figures, developers weren't making enough profit from sales to justify staying in the market.

Despite heavy marketing, the quality of the games could not back up their claims, causing many companies to go out of business. The effects of the crash were primarily felt in the North American market but it still had an impact, albeit smaller, on the Asian and European markets.

In the years following the crash, console development was significantly reduced in the North American and European markets. Personal computers rose in popularity and began to fill the gap in the market that consoles had left. They had become affordable, were technologically superior, and had multiple other functions beyond gaming.

Third and fourth generations
The release of new consoles from Nintendo, Sega and Atari signified the start of the third (and fourth) generations, which also saw the introduction of notable franchises such as The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Metroid.

The console manufacturers took back control of third-party development and regulated the market. Measures were introduced to ensure saturation did not happen again, including limiting the number of games a developer could release a year, controlling the manufacture of game cartridges, demanding payment for cartridges upfront, and ensuring newly developed games adhered to a set of rules set by console manufacturers. This put pressure on publishers and added a risk to development. It meant developers were forced to concentrate on the quality of their games more so than the quantity and speed at which they could be made.

Atari and Sega incorporated backward compatibility in the Atari 7800 and Master System respectively, elongating the lifespan of their early console games. Both companies never released another backward compatible console, with the partial exception that Master System games can be played on the Sega Genesis using a separately sold peripheral.

During this time, Metroid became notable for its open world the player could traverse in all directions, while most similar games were still primarily side-scrolling in a single direction. It also featured a strong female protagonist who is often credited for improving the portrayal of women in gaming. Star Fox was Nintendo's first use of polygonal graphics and Sonic the Hedgehog introduced a rival to Nintendo's mascot, Mario, who became a long-standing character for Sega in a number of different types of media.

From 2D to 3D
The fifth generation of consoles saw the move from 2D to 3D graphics and the change in storage media from cartridges to optical discs. Analogue controllers became popular, allowing for a finer and smoother movement control scheme compared to the directional pad. The use of full motion video became popular for cutscenes as optical discs allowed for the storage of high quality video with pre-rendered graphics that a game couldn't render in real time.

Games released during the fifth generation took advantage of the new 3D technology with a number of notable franchises moving from 2D, such as Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Mario and The Legend of Zelda, the latter being considered influential not only to its genre but to video games as a whole. Other games that were released during this generation, such as Crash Bandicoot, GoldenEye 007, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, and FIFA International Soccer, were influential in their own genres and started their own franchises that would span multiple generations and consoles. Resident Evil founded the genre of survival horror, while Metal Gear Solid popularised the stealth genre as well as storytelling through cinematic cutscenes rendered in game. Gran Turismo and Sega Rally Championship popularised realism in the racing genre with different surfaces and realistic features such as tire grip.

Internet capabilities
By the sixth generation the console market had become larger than the PC market.

While earlier consoles did provide online capabilities, it wasn't until the sixth generation that online services became popular. Games introduced online features such as downloadable content, social features, and online multiplayer. Online networks were created by console developers such as PlayStation Network and Xbox Live providing a platform for games to utilise. Online multiplayer allowed players to play together from almost anywhere in the world, the social features of the platforms giving players the means to organise over these long distances.

Downloadable content became more prominent, allowing developers to release updates after a game was launched and include new content or fixes to existing issues.

Inputs
Console games receive commands from the player through the use of an input device, commonly called a controller. Unlike a PC which uses a keyboard and mouse or a mobile device that uses a touch interface, console games are limited in their control schemes by the hardware available for the console. They usually include a method to move the player character (joystick, d-pad or analogue stick) and a variation of buttons to perform other in-game actions such as jumping or interacting with the game world. The type of controller available to a game can fundamentally change the style of how a console game will or can be played.

The limitation of the amount of buttons compared to a PC keyboard or a custom arcade cabinet means that controller buttons will commonly perform multiple different actions. For example, The Witcher 3 Xbox One controls uses the same button, the "A" button, to interact with the world when pressed and sprint when held, whereas the PC control scheme can separate these functions into separate buttons. The limitation of input keys can allow developers to create a more refined and succinct control scheme that can be learned by the player more easily. Different games in the same genre tend to use similar control schemes, allowing players to easily adapt to new games.

There are games that require additional accessories to act as alternative ways to control the game and to bypass the limitations of a standard game controller. Such items can include light guns, electronic instruments or racing wheels.

Display
Consoles commonly use a television as their visual output device: optimal for viewing at a greater distance by a larger audience. As a result, many video games are designed for local multiplayer play, with all players viewing the same TV set, with the screen divided into several sections and each player using a different controller.

Console games have generally had access to less computing power, less flexible computing power, and lower resolution displays, than games played on a PC. However, dedicated consoles were advanced graphically, especially in animation, as video game consoles had dedicated graphics hardware, were able to load data instantly from ROM, and had a low resolution output which would look better on a television, due to it naturally blurring the pixels.

Storage
Storage mediums play an important role in the development of a console game as it creates a fixed limit on the amount and quality of content that a game can have. Unlike arcade games but similar to PC and handheld games, console games are generally distributed separately from their platforms and require a form of storage to hold their data. There are 3 primary types of storage medium for consoles – cartridges, optical discs, and hard disk drives, all of which have considerably improved over time and provide more storage space to developers with each improvement.

Cartridge
Early cartridges had storage limitations which grew in size as the technology developed. They provided more security against third-party developers and the illegal copying of games. Some could be partially re-writable allowing for games to save their data to the cartridge itself meaning no extra saving media was required.

While cartridges became less popular with the introduction of disc based media, they are still popular to use for handheld consoles and are still in use on consoles in later generations such as the Nintendo Switch.

Disc
Discs became popular as the storage medium for console games during the fifth generation due to the ability to store large amounts of data and be produced cheaply. The increase in space provided developers with a medium to store higher quality assets, the downside being that progress could not be saved directly to the disc as it could with a cartridge. Most consoles that used discs had a means of saving games either on the console or in the form of a separate memory card, meaning developers had to control the size of their game saves.

Console storage
It is common for games after generation six to be stored partially or fully on the console itself, most commonly on a hard drive. Similarly to how a PC game can be installed, the console game can copy key files to the console's storage medium, which is used to decrease load times but still requires the original game storage medium to play. The second method is for the game to be fully stored on the console and run directly from it, requiring no physical media to run at all. This offers players the opportunity to have games which have no physicality and can be downloaded through the Internet to their console, as well as giving the developers the ability to provide updates and fixes in the same manner, effectively meaning development on a game doesn't have to stop once released.

As there is only a fixed amount of space on a console by default, developers do still have to be mindful of the amount of space they can take up, especially if the install is compulsory. Some consoles provide users the ability to expand their storage with larger storage mediums, provide access to removable storage and release versions of their console with more storage.

Cloud gaming
Cloud gaming services allow players to access games as a streaming service. Specialist hardware is not usually required to access these services and can be run from most modern PC operating systems, negating the need for a dedicated device for console gaming. The question of ownership is the biggest difference in comparison to other storage mediums for console games, as they could be considered only a method of renting the game.

OnLive is a cross between a console and other game streaming software. They provide hardware, considered to be a microconsole, that would connect to their service but only as means of displaying streamed content.

Emulation
To play console games on any other device than the console it has been developed for, emulation of that console is required whether it is software or hardware based emulation and some console developers will provide this as a means to play games from their older systems on newer devices. For example, the Xbox 360 provides some access to Xbox games and the Wii's Virtual Console has a customised emulator with each game tweaked to provide the best performance as opposed to a single emulator to do everything.

Games' effect on console sales
While a PC is multi-functional and will be purchased to perform tasks other than gaming, a dedicated gaming console must have games available for it to be successful. A good library of games will give a consumer reason to purchase the console and in turn create opportunities for more games to be created for it. Console developers will lower their profit margins on devices to encourage sales of the games as more profit can be obtained from software royalties than the sale of the consoles themselves.

Games are frequently used to market a console and can do so either by exclusivity to a specific console or by using existing popular intellectual properties (IPs) that already have a strong following. Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was already a well known arcade game and was expected to help the sales of 2600 devices due to its popularity despite it being heavily criticized.

Mascots
A strong mascot can come organically from a game and can play a large part of a console's marketing strategy. A well designed and popular mascot will naturally generate further games. A good example of a mascot who has come from an existing game is Nintendo's Mario. He was created as a character for the Donkey Kong arcade game and wasn't expected to become popular yet has gone onto become one of the most iconic gaming characters in history.

A character from a game can be designed to serve as a mascot, such as Sonic the Hedgehog. He was created with the intent to rival Mario and was designed with abilities to counter Mario's weaknesses.

Both mascots exist outside of their respective video games and have become a part of the identity of each company, appearing in various types of media such as TV shows, books, and movies, as well as a large number of other video games.

Following the emergence of mascots during the late 1980s and early 1990s, for a few years it was considered essential to a console's sales that it have a game starring a popular mascot. However, video game mascots became increasingly unimportant to console sales during the mid-1990s, as the gaming industry's main demographic grew older and thus less likely to find mascots appealing, with consoles' increased performance as well as cross-licensing demonstrating higher selling power. A number of once-successful mascots such as Bonk, Gex, Bubsy, and Zool were dropped from usage in both marketing and software releases during this time. The few surviving mascots remain relevant due to their value in increasing brand awareness.

Development
The core development process for a console game is very similar to its counterparts and primarily differs in the high level concept due to demographics and the technical back-end. Consoles developers will usually make a development kit available to game developers which they can use to test their games on with more ease than a consumer model.

Early console games were commonly created by a single person and could be changed in a short amount of time due to the simplicity of the games at the time. As technology has improved, the development time, complexity and cost of console games has increased dramatically, to where the size of a team for an eighth generation game can number in the hundreds. Similarly, the programming languages used in video game development has changed over time with early games being developed primarily in assembly. As time went on developers had more choice on what they could use based on the availability on the console but some languages became more popular than others.

First and third party development
Many console developers have a branch of the company that develops games for their console and are considered "first party" developers, a concept that isn't seen in PC development due to the variation of hardware configurations and lack of complete ownership of a system by a single manufacturer. First party developers have the advantage of having direct access to the console's development, which allows them to make the most of the hardware they are developing for.

Companies that are separate from the console manufacturer are considered to be "third-party" developers. They commonly have restrictions placed upon them and their games by the console manufacturers as a way of controlling the library of their consoles.

Comparison between arcade, PC and handheld games
The primary differences between arcade game development and game development for other platforms are the fact that players are required to pay a small amount per play session, and that arcade games are mostly found at external venues. Arcade games are ultimately developed to try to get a continuous stream of revenue from the player and to keep them playing over the life of the machine. By comparison, console games have a high cost up front, meaning they have to guarantee a different experience for the player, primarily more content.

Handheld games, on the other hand, need to be accessible and enjoyable on a portable device, and should usually playable within a shorter time frame. This ultimately affects the type of games that are developed for portable consoles. Games that rely on long, unbroken sessions of gameplay or long cutscenes are not ideal for handhelds, whereas a console or PC player is expected to have longer play sessions. On handheld consoles of a smaller size, developers need to consider the amount of detail that will be visible to the player whereas console developers can safely assume their games will be played on a larger screen such as a television.

In comparison to PC and mobile games, console game developers must consider the limitations of the hardware their game is being developed for, as it is unlikely to have any major changes between the development phase and release. PC and mobile technology progresses quickly and there are many different configurations of their hardware and software. This is beneficial at the start of a console's life cycle, as the technology will be cutting edge, but as the console ages, developers are forced to work with ageing hardware until the next generation of consoles is released. Earlier consoles games could be developed to take advantage of the fixed limitations of the consoles they were developed for, such as the MegaDrive's capability of fast scrolling influencing design decisions made for Sonic the Hedgehog. Due to these hardware limitations the requirement of development kits and licenses required for development on a console is commonplace.

Developers of console games are also required to pay royalties to the console developers, while there is no centralised hardware developer for the PC equivalent.

Development kits
Early consoles didn't have development kit versions; it was only around the fifth generation of consoles that development kits became common. Unlike PC games, console game development usually requires the use of a development kit for the console that the game is being developed for, as the hardware is often proprietary and is not freely available. The use of a development kit allows developers to access more detail about how their game is running on the kit and other advanced debugging options. The downside of needing access to specialist hardware such as a development kit is that it limits accessibility for hobbyists creating homemade or custom content. This grew into a benefit for PC games, as there is a more open environment for hobbyists to create and modify content even without developer support.

Some console developers have provided tools, such as the Net Yaroze software development kit, in an attempt to provide an avenue for hobbyists to create content.

Remakes and re-releases
Console games primarily started off as ports of arcade games. The timing of early consoles coincided with the golden age of arcade games which gave developers a good opportunity to maximise on their popularity, despite console hardware not yet being strong enough to run the games as they were originally. Arcade games effectively had to be remade for consoles, which usually meant lowering the quality in some way to make up for any hardware limitations. As technology improved and arcades reduced in popularity, it became console original games that would start to be ported to other devices.

Some consoles lack the ability to play games from previous generations, which allows a developer to release older games again but on the new consoles. The re-released game may be unchanged and simply be the same game but run on the new technology, or it may be changed by the developer to have improved graphics, sound or gameplay, a process known as remastering. Some re-releases can have added features, such as Final Fantasy VII, which added functions to speed the game up and turn off random enemy encounters.

When high definition technology was released, many games received high definition remakes. These can vary in terms of features, but usually include higher resolution textures, re-rendered videos, higher quality audio, and compatibility with newer display technologies. High definition remakes offer an additional revenue stream for a console game that was potentially at the end of its life. The developer of the remake is not always the same as the developer of the original game and some developers and publishers, such as Double Eleven, specialise in ports and remakes of other games.

Additional content
The development of additional content prior to the internet was limited due to limited distribution methods; more often than not, content had to be released as a new game entirely as opposed to an add-on to an existing one. For example, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City used the same mechanics and engine but was released as a separate game from Grand Theft Auto III, whereas a PC title such as Total Annihilation offered downloadable content from 1997. While some Dreamcast games offered downloadable content, they were severely limited by the storage space of the console.

The first console games to offer downloadable content properly were for the Xbox. Downloadable content can range from small content additions like extra items to larger ones that may include significant plot additions and extend the game considerably.

It wasn't until the seventh generation, that console games began to support mods or custom content to the same extent as PC games.

Ratings and censorship
Several systems exist worldwide to regulate the video games industry. Some, like the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) are composed of members of the industry themselves, while others, like Pan European Game Information (PEGI), are government-backed. The ESRB was started in 1994, was adopted as standard 10 years later, and is rated on the interactive experience as well as the content.

Criticism
From time to time, video games have been criticized by parents' groups, psychologists, politicians, and some religious organizations for allegedly glorifying violence, cruelty, and crime, and exposing children to these elements. It is particularly disturbing to some that some video games allow children to act out crimes (for example, the Grand Theft Auto series), and reward them for doing so. Concerns that children who play violent video games may have a tendency to act more aggressively on the playground have led to voluntary rating systems adopted by the industry, such as the ESRB rating system in the United States and the PEGI rating system in Europe. They are aimed at educating parents about the types of games their children are playing, to let them make an informed decision on whether or not to allow them to play. Studies have shown that most parents who complain about their young children acting increasingly aggressive and violent on the school playground due to video games do not follow the ESRB and PEGI rating systems. Many parents complain about their children, as young as 8, acting out violence depicted in Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, even though their ratings indicate the recommended age as 18 and above. Most studies, however, reached the conclusion that violence in video games is not causally linked with aggressive tendencies. This was the conclusion of a 1999 study by the United States government, prompting Surgeon General David Satcher to say, "[...] we clearly associate media violence to aggressive behavior, but the impact was very small compared to other things. Some may not be happy with that, but that’s where the magic is." This was also the conclusion of a meta-analysis by psychologist Jonathan Freedman, who reviewed over 200 published studies and found that the majority did not find a causal link between violent tendencies and violence depicted in entertainment. Video game consoles were banned in China between June 2000 and July 2015.

Game sales
The lists of best-selling games by platform, organized by the respective console generations, are given below:

 * Second generation
 * Atari 2600

 * Third generation
 * NES

 * Fourth generation
 * Sega Genesis
 * SNES
 * Game Boy

 * Fifth generation
 * PlayStation
 * Nintendo 64

 * Sixth generation
 * PlayStation 2
 * GameCube
 * Xbox
 * Game Boy Advance

 * Seventh generation
 * Xbox 360
 * PlayStation 3
 * Wii
 * Nintendo DS
 * PlayStation Portable

 * Eighth generation
 * Wii U
 * PlayStation 4
 * Xbox One
 * Nintendo Switch
 * Nintendo 3DS

title: Console game


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Homeland Security Advisory System

In the United States, the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS) was a color-coded terrorism threat advisory scale created in March 2002 under the Bush administration in response to the September 11 attacks. The different levels triggered specific actions by federal agencies and state and local governments, and they affected the level of security at some airports and other public facilities. It was often called the "terror alert level" by the U.S. media. The system was replaced on April 27, 2011, with a new system called the National Terrorism Advisory System.

History
The system was created by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 3 on March 11, 2002, in response to the September 11 attacks. It was meant to provide a "comprehensive and effective means to disseminate information regarding the risk of terrorist acts to federal, state, and local authorities and to the American people." It was unveiled March 12, 2002, by Tom Ridge, then the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. However, responsibility for developing, implementing and managing the system was given to the U.S. Attorney General.

In January 2003, the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began administering the system. The decision to publicly announce threat conditions is made by the Secretary of Homeland Security in consultation with the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, according to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-5.

On January 27, 2011, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that the Homeland Security Advisory System would be replaced by a new two-level National Terrorism Advisory System in April 2011. Napolitano, who made the announcement at George Washington University, said the color-coded system often presented "little practical information" to the public and that the new system will provide alerts "specific to the threat" and that "they will have a specified end date."

Description

Inspired by the success of the forest fire color system, the scale consists of five color-coded threat levels, which were intended to reflect the probability of a terrorist attack and its potential gravity.

 * {|class="wikitable"

 * bgcolor=red| ||Severe (red)||severe risk
 * bgcolor=orange| ||High (orange)||high risk
 * bgcolor=yellow| ||Elevated (yellow)||significant risk
 * bgcolor=blue| ||Guarded (blue)||general risk
 * bgcolor=green| ||Low (green)||low risk
 * }
 * bgcolor=blue| ||Guarded (blue)||general risk
 * bgcolor=green| ||Low (green)||low risk
 * }
 * bgcolor=green| ||Low (green)||low risk
 * }

The specific government actions triggered by different threat levels were not always revealed to the public, although the government had provided general guidance for civilians and federal agencies. Actions previously included increasing police and other security presence at landmarks and other high-profile targets, a closer monitoring of international borders and other points of entry, ensuring that emergency response personnel were ready, and, in some cases, deployment of members of the National Guard and State Guard were sent to assist local law enforcement on security details.

Some of the actions taken as a result of the threat levels have been challenged as being illegal under the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment. For example, in November 2002, the city of Columbus, Georgia, forced all people wishing to protest at the School of the Americas to first submit to a metal detector search. The advocacy group School of the Americas Watch asked a federal trial court to enjoin the mass searches, but the court refused and simply dismissed the complaint. When the protestors appealed, the city justified the metal detector searches in part because of the "yellow" threat level. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit found that this was merely a post hoc justification for the searches, because the city had not even mentioned the terror alert system in its arguments at the trial court level. Even if the city did in fact rely on the alert system at the time it acted, said the court,

"We ... reject the notion that the Department of Homeland Security's threat advisory level somehow justifies these searches. Although the threat level was 'elevated' at the time of the protest, '[t]o date, the threat level has stood at yellow (elevated) for the majority of its time in existence. It has been raised to orange (high) six times.' Given that we have been on 'yellow alert' for over two and a half years now, we cannot consider this a particularly exceptional condition that warrants curtailment of constitutional rights. We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War on Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over. September 11, 2001, already a day of immeasurable tragedy, cannot be the day liberty perished in this country. Furthermore, a system that gave the federal government the power to determine the range of constitutionally permissible searches simply by raising or lowering the nation's threat advisory system would allow the restrictions of the Fourth Amendment to be circumvented too easily. Consequently, the 'elevated' alert status does not aid the City's case."

Bourgeois v. Peters, 387 F.3d 1303, 1312 (11th Cir. 2004) Incidentally, this was also the first time that Wikipedia was quoted in a published decision of a federal appeals court.

The published terror alert notices urged American citizens, especially those traveling in the transportation systems, to "be vigilant, take notice of their surroundings, and report suspicious items or activities to local authorities immediately." In addition, DHS advised the public to prepare an emergency preparedness kit and a family emergency plan.

Objective criteria
There were no published criteria for the threat levels, and thus no independent way to tell whether the current threat level was accurate. The threat levels Green (low risk) and Blue (general risk) were never used. The evidence cited to justify changes in threat levels had been stated vaguely (see below) and its sources were seldom revealed. Supporters of the system defended this by stating that providing detailed, current intelligence about terror organizations would endanger the ability to gather similar information in the future.

Some critics worried that the absence of clearly defined, objective criteria had allowed the baseline threat level to be established as elevated (yellow), thus precluding the system from ever dropping down to low (green) or general (blue). That limited the communicative value and options of the system to the three highest values. As persons become habituated to the threat level being perpetually elevated, they were increasingly likely to pay less attention to warnings issued.

Political manipulation
The lack of disclosure made the system vulnerable to manipulation by government officials. These attributes had been criticized by cartoonists, journalists, entertainers, and security experts.

The alert level was raised once in 2004, an election year, leading some critics to speculate that the Bush administration used them for political rather than strictly security reasons. In 2009, Ridge alleged in his book The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege ... and How We Can Be Safe Again that top aides to President Bush (including defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and attorney general John Ashcroft) pressured him to raise the alert level on the eve of the November 2004 presidential election. Ridge refused. "After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector," he said.

In December 2004, the Homeland Security Advisory Council voted to review the color-coded system. One panel member suggested that it had outlived its usefulness. In a public forum, Ridge conceded the system had invited "questions and even occasional derision." Ridge also said that he had not always agreed when others pushed to raise the threat level. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment," Ridge said. "Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on [alert]. ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?'"

On its terror alert page, DHS made clear that "Raising the threat condition has economic, physical, and psychological effects on the nation." A study published in the January 2009 issue of the American Journal of Public Health found that the mentally ill, the disabled, African Americans, Latinos, Chinese Americans, Korean Americans, and non-U.S. citizens were likelier to think that the HSAS alert level was higher than it was, and to worry more and change their behavior due to those fears.

Finding of flawed and bloated target list
The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) found that the list of terrorist target sites contained in the DHS "National Asset Database", the sites that are supposed to receive extra security in response to heightened terror alerts, included many sites “whose criticality is not readily apparent” and should not be included on the list. For example, the list included a beach at the end of a street, a popcorn factory, a doughnut shop, and a petting zoo. By July 2006, the list included 77,069 target sites. The inspector general's report found other wild discrepancies, for example, that the State of Indiana had 8,591 potential terrorist targets, 50% more targets than New York State with 5,687 targets, and more than twice as many as the State of California, which had only 3,212, even though New York and California are larger than Indiana and include more prominent American landmarks. DHS officials denied that there was anything wrong with the list.

Task force
A September 2009 report from the HSAS Task Force found that the "current system had functioned reasonably well" for institutional audiences, but that the "system's ability to communicate useful information in a credible manner to the public is poor", and that "there is a disturbing lack of confidence in the system." The task force recommended that future threats be more narrowly targeted by "specific region and sector under threat", rather than "elevating the alert status of the nation as a whole", and that the number of levels be reduced from five to three to acknowledge that "the new baseline for the United States is guarded." The task force was divided on whether to recommend abandonment of color-coding in the system, but asserted that if such a coding remains in use, "substantial reform is required."

Threat level changes

The HSAS threat level changed 17 times. In August 2004, DHS began identifying specific sectors under possible threat, including aviation, financial services, and mass transit.

Severe (Red)
The threat level was raised to Severe only once, which applied only to flights coming from the United Kingdom:

 * August 10–September 14, 2006, in response to British law enforcement announcing it had disrupted a major terror plot to blow up aircraft, DHS raised the threat level for commercial flights from the United Kingdom to the United States to Severe. The alert was extended into mid-September 2006 to coincide with the 5th Anniversary of the September 11 Attacks. Other noticeable recent attacks are the targeting of U.S. military and Frankfurt Airport.

High (Orange)
New York City's threat level was High from the system's introduction. On a nationwide level, it was raised to High five times:

 * September 10–24, 2002, the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
 * February 7–27, 2003, near the end of the Muslim religious holiday Hajj. Intelligence reports suggested the possibility of terrorist attacks against "apartment buildings, hotels, and other soft or lightly secured targets."
 * March 17 – April 16, 2003, around the beginning of U.S. and Coalition military action in Iraq.
 * May 20–30, 2003, after the Riyadh compound bombings and the Casablanca bombings. According to Tom Ridge: "The U.S. Intelligence Community believes that Al Qaeda has entered an operational period worldwide, and this may include terrorist attacks in the United States."
 * December 21, 2003 – January 9, 2004, citing intelligence information suggesting large-scale attacks around the holiday season. Since New York City's level was already at High, NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly characterized this increased threat level as "Orange Plus".

In addition, the alert was raised to High on a select or partial basis three times:

 * August 1 – November 10, 2004, for specific financial institutions in northern New Jersey, New York, and Washington, D.C., citing intelligence pointing to the possibility of a car or truck bomb attack, naming specific buildings as possible targets.
 * July 7, 2005 – August 12, 2005, for mass transit systems only. The DHS secretary announced the level after the 7 July 2005 London bombings despite the absence of "specific, credible information suggesting imminent attack" in the United States.
 * August 10, 2006 – April 27, 2011, for all domestic and international flights to or from the United States, with the exception of flights from the United Kingdom to the United States, which had been under a Severe alert due to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot, but were downgraded to High on August 13, 2006.

Elevated (Yellow)

 * March 12 – September 10, 2002
 * September 25, 2002 – February 6, 2003
 * February 28 – March 16, 2003
 * April 17 – May 20, 2003
 * May 31, 2003 – August 1, 2004
 * November 10, 2004 – July 8, 2005
 * August 12, 2005 – April 27, 2011 (Replaced by the National Terrorism Advisory System, but excludes domestic and international flights)

Guarded (Blue) and Low (Green)
The threat level was never lowered to Low (Green) or Guarded (Blue). It was recommended in a September 2009 Task Force report to remove the Low and Guarded conditions from the Alert System altogether and set Yellow (Elevated) to "Guarded" as the new baseline of the system, without changing the baseline conditions issued when under Yellow in the current system.

Other terror warnings
Other official terrorism warnings issued without raising the threat level above Elevated:

 * July 11, 2007, reports that Al Qaeda has rebuilt operating capability, strength to level not seen before the September 11 attacks; strongest since summer of 2001.
 * July 12, 2007, reports that Al Qaeda is stepping up efforts to sneak terrorists into the United States and has rebuilt capability to strike there.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Homeland Security Advisory System


text:
United States v. Eichman

United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case that by a 5–4 decision invalidated a federal law against flag desecration as a violation of free speech under the First Amendment. It was argued together with the case United States v. Haggerty. It built on the opinion handed down in the Court's decision the prior year in Texas v. Johnson (1989), which invalidated on First Amendment grounds a Texas state statute banning flag burning.

Background
In response to Texas v. Johnson, the 101st Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which attempted to circumvent the Johnson ruling by prohibiting mistreatment of the flag without regard to any message being conveyed. On the day that the law took effect, protests were staged around the nation. Demonstrators at two of these incidents, in Seattle and Washington, D.C., were arrested and charged under the revised statute.

In Seattle, flags were burned at a demonstration organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War outside the Capitol Hill post office shortly after midnight, moments after the law took effect. No one was arrested during the demonstration, but four people identified from photographs were later charged with violating the federal Flag Protection Act of 1989: Mark Haggerty, Jennifer Campbell, Darius Strong and Carlos Garza. None of the four were members or supporters of VVAW-AI or the Revolutionary Communist Party. None of the four had been among the organizers of the demonstration or had previously known each other.

In Washington, D.C., Gregory Lee Johnson, the defendant in Texas v. Johnson, staged a protest together with three companions – artists Dread Scott and Shawn Eichman and Vietnam veteran David Blalock – by burning flags on the steps of the United States Capitol building before a crowd of reporters and photographers. Scott had recently aroused controversy with a "flag on the floor" exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Eichman was a member of the Coalition Opposed to Censorship in the Arts, and Blalock was a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War Anti-Imperialist. All four were supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party and/or the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade. On the day of the protest they released a statement calling for others to express opposition to "compulsory patriotism" by burning the flag.

In both cases, federal district judges in Seattle and Washington, D.C. dismissed charges brought against the protesters, citing Texas v. Johnson. U.S. attorneys appealed the decisions directly to the Supreme Court. Because the Flag Protection Act called for expedited review, the two cases were consolidated into United States v. Eichman (1990), which would serve as a test case for the amended statute.

Opinion of the Court
In a 5–4 decision by Justice Brennan joined by Marshall, Blackmun, Scalia, and Kennedy, with Stevens, Chief Justice Rehnquist, White, and O'Connor dissenting (the same as in Texas v. Johnson), the Court held that the federal government, like the states, cannot prosecute a person for desecration of a United States flag, because to do so would be inconsistent with the First Amendment. The Government conceded that desecration of the flag constitutes expressive conduct and enjoys the First Amendment's full protection. It is clear that the "Government's asserted interest" in protecting the "physical integrity" of a privately owned flag in order "to preserve the flag's status as a symbol of the Nation" and certain national ideals, is related to the suppression, and concerned with the content, of free expression.

The majority wrote that mere destruction or disfigurement of a symbol's physical manifestation does not diminish or otherwise affect the symbol itself. The Government's interest is implicated only when a person's "treatment of the flag communicates a message" to others that is inconsistent with the identified ideals of the flag. The precise language of the Act's prohibitions confirms Congress' interest in the communicative impact of flag destruction, since each of the specified terms – with the possible exception of "burns" – unmistakably connotes disrespectful treatment of the flag and suggests a "focus on those acts likely to damage the flag's symbolic value." This is further supported by the Act's explicit exemption for disposal of worn or soiled flags, which the Act protects from prosecution since disposing a worn or soiled flag does not desecrate the flag's symbolic nature. Thus, the Act is struck down as its restriction on expressive conduct cannot "be justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech." It must therefore be subjected to "the most exacting scrutiny," which cannot justify its infringement on First Amendment rights. While flag desecration – like virulent ethnic and religious epithets, vulgar repudiations of the draft, and scurrilous caricatures – is deeply offensive to many, "the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."

Subsequent developments
On remand, Eichman's case was dismissed, as she and her fellow defendants had only been charged with flag desecration. However, the defendants in the Haggerty case had faced an additional charge of destruction of government property, as the burned flag was alleged to have been stolen from Seattle's Capitol Hill Post Office. On those charges, all four Seattle defendants pleaded guilty and were fined. Carlos Garza and Darius Strong each served three days in jail.

When Republicans retook control of Congress in 1995 for the 104th session, the Flag Desecration Amendment was first proposed, which would grant the federal government the authority to proscribe flag burning. A resolution for this Amendment passed the House in every session from the 104th until the 109th Congress, but never got past the Senate (in the most recent vote in 2006 it failed by one vote 66–34), and has not been considered since.

title: United States v. Eichman


text:
Talk:United States v. Eichman

Untitled
I'm too lazy to find the names of Messrs. Eichman and Haggerty... eh. It's called WikiLaziness! ugen64 02:09, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

Is Scalia really a liberal? Evercat 00:56, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * No--far from it...my rewrite is deleting the "ideological lines" language, which is really inaccurate; in addition to Scalia being a staunch conservative, Stevens is a typically liberal voter, yet he sided with the dissent. User talk: Postdlf 7:07 PM EST, 26 Mar 2004

title: Talk:United States v. Eichman


text:
List of islands of the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes islands consist of about 35,000 islands (scattered throughout Great Lakes), created by uneven glacial activity in the Great Lakes Basin in Canada (Ontario) and the United States. The largest of these is Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron in the province of Ontario. At 1,068 square miles (2,766 km2), it is the largest lake island in the world.

List of notable Great Lakes islands and archipelagos

 * Adventure Island, Wisconsin, United States
 * Apostle Islands
 * Ballast Island
 * Barker's Island
 * Bass Islands
 * Beaver Island, United States
 * Beaver Islands, including Beaver Island and nearby islands, see Beaver Islands State Wildlife Research Area
 * Belle Isle
 * Bois Blanc Island, Michigan, United States
 * Bois Blanc Island (Ontario)
 * Calf Island - Grosse Ile, Michigan, United States
 * Cana Island
 * Caribou Island (near Michipicoten Island)
 * Caribou Island (Thunder Bay)
 * Catawba Island - former island presently connected to mainland Ohio, United States
 * Celeron Island, Gibraltar, Michigan, United States
 * Chambers Island, Wisconsin, in Lake Michigan's Green Bay
 * Cockburn Island
 * Detroit Island, Wisconsin, United States
 * Dickinson Island, Saint Clair River
 * Drummond Island (contains Drummond Township, Michigan), Michigan, United States
 * Edmond Island - Gibraltar, Michigan, United States
 * Elba Island - Grosse Ile, Michigan, United States
 * Fawn Island, Saint Clair River
 * Fighting Island, Detroit River
 * Fish Island (Wisconsin)
 * Flowerpot Island, Tobermory, Ontario
 * Foleys Island, Luna Pier area
 * Fox Island
 * Fox Islands, Michigan, United States
 * Fox Islands (Ontario)
 * Gard Island, Michigan-Ohio border area, United States
 * Grassy Island - Wyandotte, Michigan, United States
 * Gravel Island (Wisconsin)
 * Green Bay Islands
 * Green Island, Saint Clair River
 * Green Island, Wisconsin, in Lake Michigan's Green Bay
 * Grosse Ile, Michigan, United States
 * Gull Island, Wisconsin, United States
 * Gull Island, Michigan, United States
 * Gull Island, Saint Clair River
 * Harsens Island
 * Hat Island, Wisconsin, in Lake Michigan's Green Bay
 * Hickory Island, Grosse Ile, Michigan, United States
 * Hog Island (Wisconsin)
 * Horse Island, city of Gibraltar in the state of Michigan, in the Detroit River
 * Horseshoe Island, Wisconsin, in Lake Michigan's Green Bay
 * Howe Island
 * Indian Island, Michigan-Ohio border area, United States
 * Isle Royale, Michigan, United States
 * Johnson's Island
 * Kelleys Island
 * Mackinac Island, Michigan, United States
 * Madeline Island
 * Manitou Islands, Michigan, United States:
 * North Manitou Island
 * South Manitou Island
 * Manitoulin Island
 * McDonald Island, Saint Clair River
 * Meso Island, Grosse Ile, Michigan, United States
 * Michipicoten Island
 * Middle Island, Saint Clair River
 * Neebish Island, Michigan, United States
 * North Island, Saint Clair River
 * Parry Island
 * Pelee Island
 * Pilot Island, Wisconsin
 * Plum Island (Wisconsin)
 * Potawatomi Islands on the eastern side of Lake Michigan's Green Bay
 * Rattlesnake Island
 * Rock Island (Wisconsin)
 * Saint Ignace Island
 * Saint Joseph Island, Ontario, Canada
 * Sister Islands in Lake Michigan's Green Bay
 * Slate Islands, Ontario, Canada
 * Sleeping Giant Island
 * South Bass Island
 * Spider Island (Wisconsin)
 * Strawberry Island, Saint Clair River
 * Strawberry Islands in Lake Michigan's Green Bay
 * Sugar Island, Michigan, United States
 * Sugar Island, Ohio, United States
 * Swan Island, Grosse Ile, Michigan, United States
 * Thirty Thousand Islands
 * Toronto Islands
 * Walpole Island
 * Washington Island, Wisconsin, in Lake Michigan; largest of the Potawatomi Islands
 * Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canada

title: List of islands of the Great Lakes


text:
League of Women Voters

The League of Women Voters (LWV) is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan political organization. Founded in 1920, its ongoing major activities include registering voters, providing voter information, and advocating for voting rights. In addition, the LWV works with partners that share its positions and supports a variety of progressive public policy positions, including campaign finance reform, women's rights, health care reform, gun control and LGBT+ rights.

The League was founded as the successor to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which had led the nationwide fight for women's suffrage. The initial goals of the League were to educate women to take part in the political process and to push forward legislation of interest to women. As a nonpartisan organization, an important part of its role in American politics has been to register and inform voters, but it also lobbies for issues of importance to its members, which are selected at its biennial conventions. Its effectiveness has been attributed to its policy of careful study and documentation of an issue before taking a position.

Founding
The League of Women Voters came about as the merger of two existing organizations, the long-established National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the National Council of Women Voters (NCWV), created in 1911.

The founding goals of the National League of Women Voters were to educate women on election processes and lobby for favorable legislation on women's issues. These were the same as the goals of the NCWV, which had been founded by Emma Smith DeVoe after her proposal for such an organization was rebuffed at the 1909 National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) convention in Seattle. When her proposal was ignored, DeVoe founded the National Council of Women Voters in 1911. She recruited western suffragists and organizations to join the NCWV.

Ten years later, prior to the 1919 Convention of the NAWSA (in St. Louis, Missouri), Carrie Chapman Catt began negotiating with DeVoe to merge her organization with a new league that would be the successor to the NAWSA. Even though continuing as the NCWV might have made sense because the goals were essentially those that Catt proposed for the new organization, Catt was concerned that DeVoe's alignment with the more radical Alice Paul might discourage conservative women from joining it and thus proposed the formation of a new league. In founding the League of Women Voters, Catt sought to create a political process that was rational and issue-oriented, dominated by citizens, not politicians. She feared that alliance with political parties would reduce the independence of these organizations and swallow up their concerns in more partisan concerns. In addition, by endorsing one candidate the organization would inevitably lose the support of the opposing candidate. As fifteen states had already ratified the 19th Amendment, the women wanted to move forward with a plan to educate women on the voting process and shepherd their participation.

A motion was made at the 1919 NAWSA convention to merge the two organizations into a successor, the National League of Women Voters. Although not all members of either organization were in favor of a merger, the merger was officially completed on January 6, 1920. For the first year the league operated as a committee of the NAWSA. The formal organization of the League was drafted at the 1920 Convention held in Chicago.

In her presidential address on March 24, 1919, at the above-mentioned NAWSA convention, Catt had said:

"Let us raise up a League of Women Voters—the name and form of organization to be determined by the voters themselves; a League that shall be non-partisan and non-sectarian in character and that shall be consecrated to three chief aims:

 * To use its utmost influence to secure the final enfranchisement of the women of every state in our own Republic and to reach out across the seas in aid of the women's struggle for her own in every land.
 * To remove the remaining legal discriminations against women in the codes and constitutions of the several states in order that the feet of coming women may find these stumbling blocks removed.
 * To make our democracy so safe for the Nation and so safe for the world, that every citizen may feel secure and great men will acknowledge the worthiness of the American Republic to lead.”"

Carrie Chapman Catt was named honorary chairman of the League instead of president because she insisted that it was for younger and fresher women to lead the new work.

As time passed, women's political organizations did find that political parties redefined issues of concern to them as "women's issues" and pushed them aside.

Throughout the first part of its history, the League of Women Voters was not welcoming to women of color and its predecessor NAWSA ignored issues involving race due to fears that it would reduce support for equal suffrage.

In subsequent years, due to the increasing influence of women in politics, the league has evolved a more inclusive mission, to "protect and expand voting rights and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy."

1920–1930
The issues of primary concern to the League in the 1920s were extending the Sheppard-Towner Act first passed in 1921, a Child Labor Amendment to the Constitution, and voter education.

The Sheppard-Towner Act, first passed in 1921, provided federal subsidies to those states that provided education in maternity and infant care. It was initially slated for five years, and was twice extended in the 1920s, but finally failed to pass in 1929.

On October 17, 1929, Belle Sherwin, the president of the League of Women Voters, and Ruth Morgan of New York City headed a delegation to ask President Herbert Hoover to support the renewal of Federal aid to the States in maternity and infancy work. It Was later revived as part of the Social Security Act of 1935.

In 1923, a special committee of the national League of Women Voters picked twelve women as the "greatest living American women." They were Jane Addams, Cecilia Beaux, Annie Jump Cannon, Carrie Chapman Catt, Anna Botsford Comstock, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Louise Homer, Julia Lathrop, Florence Rena Sabin, M. Carey Thomas, Martha Van Rensselaer, and Edith Wharton.

At the 1926 convention of the national League, Belle Sherwin, the League president, emphasized education in politics as the right road toward true democracy. Whether it is possible to develop in this country an education which will qualify citizens to be partners in government is a question to face squarely.

For many, education today is either remote and limited to a brief period or is highly specialized for vocational purposes. Education for active citizenship has hardly been tried. She went on to mention "the modest attempts of schools here and there to teach critical reading of the newspapers and other means of avoiding mob-mindedness." Prohibition and birth control were hot issues that year, but were not included in the subjects for study and legislation during the ensuing year.

In 1926, The New York League together with the Women's National Republican Club established information booths in seven department stores, explaining to women how to register to vote, and installed a voting machine at League headquarters to demonstrate how to vote. The League members explained literacy tests and requirements and hours for registration. A frequent question involved the status of an American woman married to an immigrant. The League also presented a series of pre-election talks, including a talk on "National and State Legislators," "The Judiciary," and "Machinery of Elections."

At the 1929 convention of the League of Women Voters of New York, the members voted for a New York State prohibition enforcement act. They also voted to favor old age pensions and ask the Legislature to give women the right to do jury service, to permit physicians to give contraceptive information to married persons, and to extend the benefits of workmen's compensation for all occupational diseases.

During the 1920s, the League of Women Voters of New York sent an annual questionnaire to candidates for local office, and published the answers in the publication "Information for Voters." In 1929, the questionnaire covered maintaining the 5 cent subway fare, creation of a permanent city planning board, immediate action on a sewage and waste disposal plant, unlimited building heights in certain districts, and reclassification of civil service employees to provide automatic salary increases.

In the 1930s, the League was supportive of New Deal programs such as Social Security and the Food and Drug Acts.

1940-1969
In 1945, the League advocated for the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, and was recognized by the UN as a permanent observer, giving it access to most meetings and relevant documentation.

In the 1950s, League member Dorothy Kenyon was attacked as a Communist by Joseph McCarthy and president Percy Maxim Lee testified before Congress against Senator Joseph McCarthy's abuse of congressional investigative powers.

In 1960, the League supported the Resources and Conservation Act of 1960 (S. 2549), beginning a long history of environmental engagement.

The league ultimately supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but their efforts came too late to have major impact. After first refusing to oppose discrimination in housing in 1966, the 1968 program included opposition to discrimination in housing and support for presidential suffrage for citizens of Washington DC.

In 1969, the League was one of the first organizations in the United States calling for normalizing relations with China.

1970–1980
In the 1970s, after years of opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment as proposed by the National Women's Party, the League offered support to an Equal Rights Amendment.

In 1974, the League began to admit men.

In 1975, a bill entitled "The Indian Law Enforcement Improvement Act" was introduced in the Senate and supported by the League of Women Voters of Nebraska, saying "We support self determination and therefore self government of all citizens, in this case Native Americans." After two days of hearings, the bill was not reported out of committee.

In 1998, the League elected its first African-American president, Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins. She served two terms, until 2002, and wrote a book "The untold story of women of color in the League of Women Voters" documenting the history of the League and women of color.

1980–2000
The League fought for the 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act and in the 1990s was important in the passage of National Voter Registration Act of 1993, popularly known as the Motor Voter Act. The act requires states to offer voter registration at all driver's license agencies, at social service agencies, and through the mail.

2000–present
In 2002, the League supported the Help America Vote Act (with some reservations about the final compromise) and the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act.

In 2020, the League of Women Voters supported Native Americans in seeking to remove restrictions on ballot delivery from reservations.

The Native American voting rights group Four Directions filed a suit on behalf of six voters from the Navajo Nation asking the court to extend the deadline for Arizona counties to receive the ballots of voters, because of "lack of home mail delivery, the need for language translation, lack of access to public transportation and lack of access to any vehicle." The court declined to extend the deadline due to lack of standing of the plaintiffs.

The League of Women Voters of Arizona filed an amicus curiae, saying that "Most Arizonans take access to mail receipt and delivery as a given. By contrast, the District Court recognized the painful reality that 'several variables make voting by mail difficult” for Native American voters. More specifically, “[m]ost Navajo Nation residents do not have access to standard mail service,” including home delivery, and must travel “lengthy distance[s]” to access postal services—a burden compounded by “socioeconomic factors.”"

In 2021, the League of Women Voters of Florida partnered with Voteriders to get word out to eligible voters about the changes made due to Floria Senate Bill 90, signed into law in May 2021. The Florida League also partnered with the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans to file lawsuits against the changes. The trial court struck down multiple provisions of the law but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay reinstating the restrictive law.

Activities
The LWV sponsored the United States presidential debates in 1976, 1980 and 1984. On October 2, 1988, the LWV's 14 trustees voted unanimously to pull out of the debates, and on October 3 they issued a press release condemning the demands of the major candidates' campaigns. LWV President Nancy Neuman said that the debate format would "perpetrate a fraud on the American voter" and that the organization did not intend to "become an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public." All presidential debates since 1988 have been sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a bipartisan organization run by the two major parties that some argue has established rules with the intent to exclude airing candidates associated with other parties.

State and local leagues host candidate debates to provide candidates' positions at all levels of government.

In 2012, LWV created National Voter Registration Day, a day when volunteers work to register voters and increase participation.

The League sponsors voter's guides including Smart Voter and Voter's Edge, which was launched in collaboration with MapLight. The League, including state and local leagues, runs VOTE411.org, a bilingual website that allows voters to input their address and get candidate and election information tailored to their location.

Policy views
The League lobbies for legislation at the national, state, and local levels. Positions on national issues are determined by decisions at the most recent national convention. Members of state and local leagues determine their leagues' positions on state and local issues, consistent with the national positions.

The League was founded by suffragists fighting for the right of women to vote and has always been concerned with issues around voting and representative government. Other issue areas in which the League currently advocates are international relations, natural resources, and social policy.

Voting and representative government
In 1993, the League pushed for the adoption of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to offer voter registration at all driver's license agencies, at social service agencies, and through the mail.

The League works with the non-partisan VoteRiders organization to spread state-specific information on voter ID requirements. In 2002, the League endorsed passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which banned soft money in federal elections and made other reforms in campaign finance laws. It was also a major proponent of the Help America Vote Act.

In 2010, the League opposed the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which removed limits on corporate contributions to candidates. It filed an amicus brief in support of the FEC.

The League supports the DISCLOSE Act, which would provide for greater and faster public disclosure of campaign spending and combat the use of "dark money" in U.S. elections.

The League currently opposes restrictive photo ID laws and supports campaign finance reform in the United States, including public financing of elections, restrictions on spending by candidates, and abolishing super-PACs.

International relations
The League lobbied for the establishment of the United Nations, and later became one of the first groups to receive status as a nongovernmental organization with the U.N. The League was active from the beginning in promoting world peace and international organizations. At the second League of Women Voters convention, in 1921, Carrie Chapman Catt spoke, and said: The people in this room tonight could put an end to war. There is no audience in the world that won't applaud him who talks of world peace. Everybody wants to and every one does nothing.

I am for a league of nations, a Republican league or any kind the Republicans are in. I believe it is the duty of every one who wants the world to disarm to compel action at Washington.

Our country is not judged by its parties; it is judged as a nation. But why don't we do something? I ask you: Is there anybody anywhere with an earnest crusading spirit who is trying to arouse America? No. We are as stolid and as inactive as if we did not face the greatest opportunity in history.

We are the appointed leaders. It isn't possible for us to see the horrors of the other side. We go on daily living in a pardise while tragic Europe tries to gather its ruins together. We have waited too long, and we will get another war by waiting.

Let us make a resolution tonight; let us consecrate ourselves to put war out of this world. It is necessary that we rise out of narrow partisanship, that we act as women."

Natural resources
The League supported the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Kyoto Protocol. The League opposes the proposed Keystone Pipeline project. In January 2013, the League of Women Voters in Hawaii urged President Obama to take action on climate change under the authority given him by the Clean Air Act of 1963.

Social policy
The League opposes school vouchers. In 1999, the League challenged a Florida law that allowed students to use school vouchers to attend other schools.

The League supports universal health care and endorses both Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act.

The League supports the abolition of the death penalty.

LGBT+ rights
LWV supports LGBT+ rights and has stated that "defending our democracy and ending discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community go hand in hand."

National
A national board of directors consisting of four officers, eight elected directors, and not more than eight board-appointed directors, most of whom reside in the Metro Washington D.C. area, govern the League subject to the Bylaws of the League of Women Voters of the United States. The national board is elected at the national convention and sets position policy.

Local leagues
Local Leagues and state Leagues are organized in order to promote the purposes of the League and to take action on local and state governmental matters. These Leagues (chapters) have their own directors and officers. The national board may withdraw recognition from any state or local League for failure to fulfill recognition requirements.

The League of Women Voters has state and local leagues in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, and Hong Kong.

General

 * Women's suffrage
 * Women's suffrage in the United States
 * Women's suffrage in states of the United States
 * National American Woman Suffrage Association
 * National Women's Party
 * Voting rights in the United States
 * Voter suppression
 * Elections in the United States
 * United States presidential election debate sponsorship
 * Woman's Journal

Notable members

 * Juanita Jones Abernathy (1931–2019), member of the board of directors of the Atlanta Fulton County League of Women Voters
 * Sadie L. Adams (1872–1945), one of the first women to serve on an election board in Chicago and one of the founders of the Alpha Suffrage Club
 * Jessie Daniel Ames (1883–1972), a suffragist and civil rights leader from Texas who helped create the anti-lynching movement in the American South and who founded the Texas League of Women Voters and served as its first president until 1923
 * Ida Reid Blair (Mrs. John Blair) (1874-1930), Chairman of the Publicity Section of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party and member and chair of the board of directors of the Equal Franchise Society.
 * Florence Fifer Bohrer (1877–1960), first female senator in the Illinois General Assembly. Served on the National League of Women Board and was the Illinois branch President.
 * Inez Mee Boren (1880–?), president of the Northern (California) Section
 * Woodnut S. Burr (1861–1952), president of the Los Gatos Branch
 * Becky Cain (194?–), former organization president
 * Carrie Chapman Catt (1849–1957), founder
 * Frances St John Chappelle (1897–1936), State president of the Nevada League of Women Voters
 * Edith Chase (1924–2017), served as president from 1965 to 1967
 * Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005), first African-American woman in Congress
 * Ruth Clusen (1922–2005), an American conservationist, politician, civil rights activist, and government official. She is remembered for serving as the president of the League of Women Voters, for hosting the debates between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and for serving as the Assistant Secretary of Energy under President Jimmy Carter
 * Belle Christie Critchett (1868–1956), an American social activist and suffragist who was part of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) and president of the El Paso chapter of the League of Women Voters; she worked with suffragist Maude E. Craig Sampson to increase opportunities for Black women voters
 * Minnie Fisher Cunningham (1882–1964), first executive secretary and a founding member of the Woman's National Democratic Club
 * Naomi Deutsch (1890–1983), early member and the organizer and director of the Public Health Unit of the Federal Children's Bureau of the Department of Labor of Washington, D.C.
 * Dorothy W. Douglas (1890-1968), social reformer who chaired the League's campaign for legislation in 1930.
 * Janet Stuart Oldershaw Durham (1879–1969), charter member of the Virginia League of Women Voters
 * Lillian Feickert (1877–1945), an American suffragist (president of the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association from 1912 to 1920) who was the first woman from New Jersey to run for United States Senate and who helped organize the New Jersey League of Women Voters
 * Nan B. Frank (1886–1980), very active in League of Women Voters of California and president of the San Francisco Center of California League of Women Voters
 * Edith Jordan Gardner (1877–1965), member of the Oakland Forum
 * Edna Fischel Gellhorn (1878–1970), one of the founders and original vice president
 * Betty Gilmore, founder and president of the California Women of Golden West
 * Ione Grogan (1891–1961), member of the Greensboro League of Women Voters
 * Harriet A. Haas (1874–19??)
 * Jessie Jack Hooper (1865–1935), an American peace activist and suffragist, who was the first president of the Wisconsin League of Women Voters
 * Ethel Edgerton Hurd (1845–1929), a physician, a social reformer and a leader in the woman's suffrage movement in the U.S. state of Minnesota
 * Fanny M. Irvin (1854–1949), drafted a resolution to Congress which was passed by the State Legislature, endorsing Woman's Suffrage, and lobbied for the passage of the Constitutional Amendment
 * Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins (1952–), first woman of color to serve as president of the League of Women Votersand the only one in the first hundred years of the League.
 * Florence Kelley (1859-1932), a social and political reformer active in NAWSA and instrumental in founding the League of Women Voters, the National Consumers League and the NAACP.
 * Dorothy Kenyon (1888–1972), American lawyer, judge, and political activist
 * Julia Lathrop (1858–1932), director of the United States Children's Bureau from 1912 to 1922, originator of the ideas for the Sheppard-Towner Act, and chosen president of the Illinois League of Women Voters in 1922.
 * Percy Maxim Lee (1906–2002), president of the League of Women Voters from 1950 to 1958, supporter of international cooperation, and opponent of Joseph McCarthy.
 * Katharine Ludington (1869–1953), one of the founders and last president of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association.
 * Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin (1897-1988), sociologist and author of The Making of a Southerner and books on workers and child labor.
 * Deirdre Macnab (1955–), an American women's rights and voting rights activist. She is former president of the League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVFL).
 * Jane Y. McCallum (1877–1957), women's suffrage and Prohibition activist and longest-serving Secretary of State of Texas.
 * Ruth Hanna McCormick (1880-1944), headed the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association 1913-1915, elected as an at-large member of the US Congress in 1928.
 * Maybelle Stephens Mitchell (1872–1919), co-founder of the Georgia League
 * Maud Wood Park (1871–1955), an African-American suffragist and corresponding secretary of the Alpha Suffrage Club
 * Achsa E. Paxman (1885–1968), Utah State Legislature member, president of a State chapter
 * Leonora Pujadas-McShine (1910–1995), women's rights activist, founder of Trinidad and Tobago chapter
 * Edith Dolan Riley (1885-1967), chairman of the Spokane County Democratic Central Committee
 * Margaret Zattau Roan (1905–1975), oversaw League activities in nine Southern states in 1930s
 * Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), first lady of the United States 1933-1945 and board member of the New York State League of Woman voters
 * Zelia Peet Ruebhausen (1914–1990), United Nations observer appointed 1946, member of several federal policy committees
 * Belle Sherwin (1869–1965), a woman's rights activist
 * Orfa Jean Shontz (1876–1954), early attorney
 * Virginia Kase Solomón, CEO of the League of Women Voters of the United States.
 * Mary Jane Spurlin (1883–1970), first woman judge in Oregon
 * Helen Norton Stevens (1869–1943), treasurer
 * F. Josephine Stevenson, State Chairman of Uniform Laws of the National League of Women Voters (1920–21).
 * Ursula Batchelder Stone (1900–1985), chaired the Cook County League of Women Voters (1941 to 1944)
 * Fay Webb-Gardner (1885–1969), First Lady of North Carolina
 * Reah Whitehead (1883–1972), prepared the Drafts of Bills for and assisted in procuring passage of laws for Women's State Reformatory and Filiation Proceedings
 * Wilhelmine Wissman Yoakum (1891–1983), treasurer of the California League of Women Voters
 * Valeria Brinton Young (1875–1968), a member of the League and president of the Women of the University of Utah

title: League of Women Voters


text:
User talk:Rochkind

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

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If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Alexandros 02:26, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Roman Polanski
Actually, Polanski would still be arrested for having fled the country while facing judicial procedure. They said in the new documentary that after being arrested and brought to court, the charges would be dropped, but only if all court procedures were done publically. That's why, they say, Polanski declined to return to the US.

Also, how do you have a username but no user page? Did you not make one, or is it possible to replace an IP address with a username without registering? -98.221.133.96 (talk) 04:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why I don't have a user page. I never paid any attention to mine, or anyone else's. I've been a user for several years. Rochkind (talk) 04:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Possessives.
See Manual of Style for the reason there isn't an extra "s" in Brooks' law. If there is consensus to change an article title, it can be done by moving a page. -- Jeandré, 2006-01-10t18:46z

Apology
Sorry for my sloppy editting error. It is indeed important to note that only a redacted version of your declaration is available. Removing that fact from your bio was an oversight on my part. --MediaMangler 18:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Bibliopile
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Source Code Control System
Thank you for looking over the article. Given that you are a key authority here, I'd welcome some contributions by you. I'm really unhappy with the way User:Schily is pushing his point of views and trying to make his own version the "official" SCCS version. See for example Talk:Source_Code_Control_System how he interprets your statement that SCCS has been widely used to also apply to the RCS-speed claim. On Talk:List_of_revision_control_software (you might want to check this article for correctness, too!) he is trying to push with a naive benchmark that SCCS is in general faster than RCS. Do you have some first hand experience on whether or not the exact claim ("RCS is often faster at retrieving the HEAD revision") is correct? I read somewhere than when all revisions together have m unique lines, and the HEAD revision has n lines, RCS should be O(n) and SCCS O(m). In his benchmark, he deliberately provoked m==n, and to my note that his benchmark is biased he never replied or corrected his benchmark...

I'm interested in having sound information in Wikipedia; but examples like that benchmark are why I cannot trust Schily on this, he is very biased and aggressive. For example, he tried to delete the GNU CSSC note from the SCCS article - but this is an important compatibility tool. So I'd welcome any clarifying contributions by someone like who whose authority he cannot put into doubt (or so one might think; he obviously considers Professor Tichys claims on RCS performance incorrect). Thank you.

P.S. I'd love to see some explanation of the weave format in the article. To me, this actually is the most interesting part of SCCS, since SCCS is not included with my operating system, while Subversion, Git etc. are and satisfy my needs well enough. But I belive there are some good algorithmic ideas to be found in the weave format. --138.246.2.113 (talk) 11:06, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Your recent edits
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Speedy deletion nomination of Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat

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Your submission at Articles for creation: Marathon Watch (March 22)
 Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by EDG 543 was:

The comment the reviewer left was:

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

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Thanks, EDG 543 (message me) 17:10, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Marathon Watch has been accepted
 Marathon Watch, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as Stub-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. It is commonplace for new articles to start out as stubs and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

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Thanks again, and happy editing! ~Kvng (talk) 16:45, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Marathon Watch
An article that you have been involved in editing—Marathon Watch—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Niftysquirrel (talk) 02:30, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, makes sense. I'll merge some of my stuff into that article. Rochkind (talk) 21:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

title: User talk:Rochkind