Podcasts

Announcer:
The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production. You’re watching “Here & Now” 2024 election coverage.

Frederica Freyberg:
Pro-life and pro-choice advocates are asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to weigh in on abortion. And leaked data from ShotSpotter reveals a method of heavy police surveillance over Milwaukee’s Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” a local expert on the arguments presented to the state Supreme Court on abortion. The latest deer harvest numbers resurface the debate over wolves. And the ACLU weighs in on technology police use to detect gunfire. Plus, special projects journalist Murv Seymour brings a new series called “In Focus.” It’s “Here & Now” for March 1st.

Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Parties on opposite sides of whether abortion is legal in Wisconsin want the state Supreme Court to settle the question. Even as abortions are now being performed in the state after a Dane County court ruled last summer that a 174-year-old law on the books does not use the term “abortion” and only prohibits attacking a woman in an attempt to kill her unborn child. Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski had appealed that ruling and argues the 1849 statute does indeed prohibit performing abortions except to save the life of the mother. He now wants to bypass the appeals court and allow the high court to consider the matter. Likewise, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul wants the case to go directly up to avoid prolonging harm, he says, caused by the confusion in Wisconsin law that existed following Dobbs. Kaul will argue in favor of the Dane County ruling and that the state Constitution protects women’s rights over their bodies. For more on this, we turn to emeritus professor of political science and affiliate faculty member at the UW Law School, Howard Schweber. Thanks very much for being here.

Howard Schweber:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So how gnarly of a case is this for the Supreme Court to unpack or are the issues clear-cut?

Howard Schweber:
It’s as gnarly as they want it to be. It’s worth pointing out the 1849 law is not the only law at issue. There’s a 1985 law that says after 22 weeks, abortions are permitted only where the life or health of the woman is at risk. And there are a series, actually, of other lesser-known laws I think. There’s a 2015 law that effectively makes that limit 20 weeks. There’s an informed consent law. There’s a 24-hour delay law. In 2019, there were no fewer than five bills passed out of the Legislature to restrict abortion. So this is a live issue — four of which the Governor Evers vetoed. So this is a very live issue and it’s not just the question of are abortions allowed or up until what point, but there’s a whole series of laws that could be at stake in a ruling by this court. The court has, of course, a new majority regarded as liberal, which is assumed to be more friendly toward abortion rights, but for both sides, it is useful to get clear answers. I think for the pro-life side, it would be useful partly, of course, just to know what the rules are but partly to use this as a mobilizing issue in 2025, excuse me, when Justice Bradley will come up for re-election and in the 2024 campaign. Previously the abortion issue has benefited Democrats. I think there’s a feeling on the part of some Republicans that can be turned around if voters think that the pendulum is swinging too far in the other direction. Conversely, of course, pro-choice advocates would like to see this court strongly rule in favor of abortion rights and settle these issues once and for all. I have to say, I think the most likely outcome is one that will perfectly satisfy neither side, which is something to the effect of saying the 1985 law is valid and remains in force and that way avoiding the question of the 1849 law altogether by simply saying if it did apply to abortion, it’s been superseded. That would be the easy, efficient solution, and frankly, it’s the one I’m hoping the court will take.

Frederica Freyberg:
I was going to ask you about that because my reading of the Kaul petition to bypass says if the Dane County ruling doesn’t hold, he will also argue that the modern abortion laws supersede the 1849 law and so you think the Kaul case stacks up pretty well there?

Howard Schweber:
It certainly gives the court an easy solution, one that is not politically extreme or legally extreme. The Wisconsin Constitution certainly permits the 1985 statute unless we read — interpret it in a fairly dramatic way, so I think it stacks up legally and it stacks up politically in a way that I think would serve this court’s interests very well and frankly I think would serve the interest of the people of Wisconsin reasonably well, keeping in mind that Wisconsin is a genuinely divided state on this issue, as on so many others.

Frederica Freyberg:
So Kaul also argues that the Wisconsin Constitution protects a woman’s right to control her body, freedom over the direction of her life and equal protection under the law. Wouldn’t the other side argue that there’s a constitutional protection of an unborn child?

Howard Schweber:
Well, not exactly. So a constitutional protection of a right to life applies to the state. The government can’t take your life away. That doesn’t mean that the government has to protect you against a private person. Of course, we have laws against murder, but there’s no constitutional requirement that there be a law, for example, against let’s say vehicular homicide. Of course we want those laws, but they’re not constitutionally required. So the other side’s argument isn’t really strong if it tries to work from the idea of fetuses having rights. The strong argument is assuming that there’s a sufficiently important, and sufficiently powerful legislative interest at stake here to override whatever rights are asserted, and, of course, no rights are absolute, whether it’s a free speech right or right to abortion or anything else. Any assertion of a right can be overcome by a sufficiently strong societal interest. So that’s the question. What is the scope of this right and then once that right is defined, what is the scope of the government’s legitimate interest despite the existence of a constitutional rights guarantee.

Frederica Freyberg:
So once the U.S. Supreme Court threw the issue of abortion back to the states, are there any other states in a situation like Wisconsin litigating over a 174-year-old law?

Howard Schweber:
I’m not aware of any other state in this specific situation, although there are a number of states that have what are called trigger laws. Laws that were on the books but unenforceable while Roe was enforced that immediately came into effect when the Dobbs decision came down. Certainly lots of states are wrestling with this question. The most disingenuous part of the Dobbs opinion, frankly, was when the majority said that the decision will turn this question back to state legislatures. Of course what it’s done is turn the question back to state courts, and that’s what we’re seeing play out in Wisconsin. And as you say, elsewhere as well.

Frederica Freyberg:
Howard Schweber, thanks very much.

Howard Schweber:
My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:
Lower than usual deer hunt totals for 2023 were released by the DNR this week, continuing a trend of declining harvest since the year 2000. Over that same time, wolves have seen their population triple. How much impact does the apex predator have on the north woods deer population and why are Wisconsinites so passionate about the animal? “Here & Now” reporter Nathan Denzin explains.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
I’m here today to talk about my brother, and my brother is the Ma’iingan.

Brad Olson:
The more you put wolves in close contact and proximity with people, just the greater the chances are of something truly catastrophic happening.

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
I think wolves should be allowed to reestablish their historic range.

Keith Mark:
They’re going to allow an unchecked, unmanaged wolf population to continue to wreak havoc.

Nathan Denzin:
Bring up wolves to a Wisconsinite and you’ll likely get a passionate response.

Sam Jonas:
It’s probably been the longest, most intense public engagement process that I’ve been a part of.

Nathan Denzin:
Sam Jonas is the wildlife species section supervisor with the Wisconsin DNR. He helped write Wisconsin’s newest wolf management plan which was released in late 2023.

Sam Jonas:
It strives for a sustainable and healthy wolf population in the state of Wisconsin.

Nathan Denzin:
Gray wolves are federally protected as an endangered species, but if that designation was ever lifted, Wisconsin would be required by law to hold a wolf hunt like it did in 2021. The DNR received over 3,500 public comments while developing the plan with a group of 29 stakeholders. One of those stakeholders, the Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe in northern Wisconsin.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
The Ma’iingan goes back in our history and our stories, our existence. Who we are as Anishinaabe.

Nathan Denzin:
Shingbinase or Marvin Defoe is a spiritual leader in Red Cliff. In Ojibwe, Ma’iingan means wolf.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
We know the Ma’iingan as our brother.

Nathan Denzin:
He says that the relationship between wolves and Ojibwe people goes back over thousands of years.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
There’s a lot of misconceptions out there about the Ma’iingan, a loving being that has a heart, that has a soul.

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
Wolves are really important to native people of Wisconsin because it’s said that what happens to one of us will happen to the other.

Nathan Denzin:
Ron Nordin, Jr. is the wildlife technician for the Red Cliff tribe.

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
It’s the tribe’s objective to protect wolves and their keystone species. They create biodiversity. They’re excellent for the habitat. We’re seeing better forest regeneration.

Genevieve Adamski:
They have a great role to play. Not just with deer but with lots and lots of other animals out in the woods.

Nathan Denzin:
Genevieve Adamski works with Nordin Jr. as the wildlife specialist for the Red Cliff Tribe.

Genevieve Adamski:
Wolves will, in general, regulate themselves. They have pack boundaries. They can’t just exponentially grow.

Nathan Denzin:
The wolf population in Wisconsin has grown but not exponentially. They numbered about 250 in 2001 and are roughly 1,000 today. That growth has caused plenty of conflict.

Brad Olson:
Has become a real issue for agriculture, and especially of course livestock agriculture.

Nathan Denzin:
Brad Olson is the president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau. It was also involved in the 2023 management plan. Olson says wolves are a big concern for farmers in the northern half of the state.

Brad Olson:
One case in central Wisconsin, they came in in a night and wiped out the entire herd of sheep. That’s years and years of work by that individual farmer. The emotional stress of something like that, you know, losing everything in one night due to a predator.

Nathan Denzin:
The Wisconsin DNR paid out over $100,000 to farmers for livestock killed by wolves in 2022 but Olson says it’s about more than money.

Brad Olson:
It isn’t a financial loss at that point; it’s an emotional loss at that point and it’s something that, I’m sorry, money just can’t fix.

Nathan Denzin:
Olson says he and his organization aren’t opposed to having wolves in the state.

Brad Olson:
I don’t think anybody is out to get rid of the wolves.

Nathan Denzin:
But thinks the 2023 management plan has flaws.

Brad Olson:
I mean, it’s a bad plan.

Nathan Denzin:
The Farm Bureau sent a letter to the DNR opposing the new plan back in October. A key point of contention is the number of wolves recommended for a healthy habitat. The old guidelines recommended a population of 350 wolves for the whole state before other management practices, like a hunt, were implemented. Now there is no specific number named before those management plans would be considered.

Brad Olson:
Once you get past that 350 goal that was back in the late ’90s and the original wolf plan that had scientific data to it, this plan really has no scientific data. It’s a feel-good plan.

Nathan Denzin:
But the DNR’s Jonas says that number was misunderstood and needed to be updated.

Sam Jonas:
It was never intended to be a cap, per se. It was really a management objective or number to consider other management tools.

Nathan Denzin:
He says the new guidance doesn’t use a statewide number of wolves because it wants to be more responsive to local communities.

Sam Jonas:
We’re also going to be balancing that with what is depredation look like, what do conflicts look like within each zone, what is the community saying for the wolf population where they live.

Genevieve Adamski:
Let’s say we do set a goal number. That’s going to change from year to year based on, you know, not only climate data but people, where the people are distributed and just all these different factors.

Nathan Denzin:
Not everyone sees it that way.

Keith Mark:
If you look at deer harvest over the years compared to wolf populations over the years, it is — there is a direct correlation between the two.

Nathan Denzin:
Keith Mark is the president of Hunter Nation, a national organization for hunters. Hunter Nation did not participate in the 2023 management plan, though multiple in-state hunting organizations did. Hunter Nation sued the state of Wisconsin in 2021 to schedule a wolf hunt while gray wolves were briefly delisted.

Keith Mark:
Surely, they want to see a sustainable population of deer.

Nathan Denzin:
Yearly deer hunt harvests have fallen since its peak in 2000 from well over half a million to about 350,000 a year ago. Northern counties, like Bayfield, have seen a particularly sharp decline. Hunt totals in 2022 were only a fraction of what they were two decades ago.

Keith Mark:
You’re going to end up with so few deer that there won’t be a hunting season.

Brad Olson:
In my part of the state, you can sit out there for hours on end on opening day of deer season and not hear anything, not hear a shot.

Nathan Denzin:
But others aren’t as sure wolves are solely to blame for the north woods declining deer population.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
If you were around here last winter, 157 inches of snow, you know, it’s going to kill the deer.

Genevieve Adamski:
When there’s less deer, what are the wolves going to eat?

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
It’s really the deer population that regulates the wolf population.

Nathan Denzin:
DNR records show the past five years of deer harvest in Bayfield County have been larger than harvest between 1967 and 1978. That was before the first reintroduced wolfpack wandered into Douglas County. If the gray wolf ever was taken off of the endangered list, the 2023 management plan lays out a system for experts to decide local harvest goals.

Sam Jonas:
We want to be able to incorporate local input, local feedback as to how they feel. You know, wolf populations are in their community, what is the science saying, but that’s not the only thing we’re going to be looking at and that’s going to help us be flexible and adaptable to what wolves are telling us.

Nathan Denzin:
In the meantime, everyone agrees there is common ground to be found.

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
We need to work together. We need to be vigilant and sit down and listen to each other.

Brad Olson:
They are a majestic animal. No one is advocating for their demise again.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
We really have to come together and have a really meaningful conversation. A mutual, respectful conversation of what’s going on with this earth.

Nathan Denzin:
For “Here & Now,” I’m Nathan Denzin in Red Cliff.

Frederica Freyberg:
Technology that picks up shots fired in Milwaukee is under the microscope. It’s called ShotSpotter and it captures the sound of gunfire with microphone sensors located on mostly the north and, to a lesser degree, the south sides of the city. These are predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The gunshot detection system alerts police to the location for response. Wired Magazine recently leaked the location of the audio sensors, which are accompanied in Milwaukee by pole cameras for remote surveillance. Last year, there were more than 14,000 ShotSpotter activations in the city. Across the country, some 84 cities use the technology, where nearly 70% of the people who live in those neighborhoods are Black or Hispanic. This is what our next guest calls the oversurveillance of the most heavily marginalized communities in the country. Jon McCray Jones is a policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin. Jon, thanks very much for being here.

Jon McCray Jones:
Hey, how are you doing today?

Frederica Freyberg:
Good. So you call it dystopian that there are over 25,000 microphones in communities nationwide. How so?

Jon McCray Jones:
I think that this is going — not missing the forest for the trees. I think this paints the picture of the larger surveillance network that are being built in local law enforcement inside cities around the country. I mean just inside Milwaukee, we have the ShotSpotters that we’re going to talk about. We have Stingray cell site simulators. We have automated license plate readers. We have private cameras that are going to be accessible to the Milwaukee Police Department. We have drones being proposed as a way of surveilling communities, and I think when you start layering these things on top of each other, you paint this 1984 dystopian nightmare.

Frederica Freyberg:
So does the use of ShotSpotter and these other technologies result in over-policing, then, of marginalized neighborhoods, in your mind?

Jon McCray Jones:
100%. I think there’s going to be a narrative push that the reason why ShotSpotter is put in the locations that they are is because these communities experience the largest amount of gun violence. The problem with this narrative is that multiple studies have proved that ShotSpotters doesn’t actually reduce gun violence. There is a 2021 report out of Northwestern that talks about how 86% of ShotSpotter alerts does not lead to any report of a crime at all and there’s a 10-year study out of St. Louis that says that ShotSpotter does not a) reduce crime and b) does not improve police times. So the problem is that not only is it a waste of taxpayer resources by sending cops into these neighborhoods and there’s nothing that they can do to reduce gun violence, but the second problem is that you’re sending these officers who are expecting to encounter someone with a gun into Black and brown communities that are already over-policed and already have a rocky relationship with law enforcement and you’re just creating a recipe for disaster.

Frederica Freyberg:
Meanwhile, the manufacturer of the ShotSpotter technology says it provides intelligence that allows police to coordinate safe, efficient, and equitable responses that require fewer resources in a way that builds community trust. What’s your response to that?

Jon McCray Jones:
I mean, that’s great, but the independent research doesn’t back that up, and I think that’s why we need data out of Milwaukee to know if the privacy that we’re trading to law enforcement and trading to these private companies actually leads to safer communities for the people being over-policed and surveilled by ShotSpotter.

Frederica Freyberg:
Another question. What do you think of the fact that police, in my understanding, are allowed to use ShotSpotter calls to generate probable cause to search someone nearby?

Jon McCray Jones:
That goes back to the over-policing. The fact that someone unlucky person who is walking around at night who happens to just be in the vicinity of a ShotSpotter alert now has probable charge to be stopped and frisked. It’s kind of dystopian, I mean, the idea that you’re walking through your community and just because some technology that, again, going back to the 2021 Northwestern study, there was over 40,000 dead end deployments in Chicago in a two-year span. So this unreliable technology sends out an alert. Police are sent to your community and now you’re stopped and frisked just because you’re walking alone at night inside the vicinity.

Frederica Freyberg:
So would the ACLU like to get rid of the use of ShotSpotter in Milwaukee altogether?

Jon McCray Jones:
It’s easy for us to say yes. It’s easy for us to say that all the surveillance technologies going back to automated license plate readers, private cameras being integrated into law enforcement, drones and facial recognition should be banned. It’s also very easy for law enforcement to say, hey, these technologies are worth the squeeze and worth the resources that we’re pouring into it. What I want to propose is a community control over police surveillance ordinance, also known as CCOPS. These ordinances are being passed in cities around the country and they do two things. So, first, any technology that law enforcement wants to use has to have a city council hearing or whatever is the legislative body to approve that technology. And what that does is it allows the community to come in and have input to their elected officials and say, hey, we want this technology in our neighborhoods or, no, I don’t feel comfortable with automated license plate readers tracking everywhere my car goes or, no, I don’t feel comfortable with microphones being stationed in my community. And then a second thing a CCOP ordinance does is that every year, law enforcement has to publish an annual report that goes to the city that, one, talks about the financial strain that these technologies are costing communities and, two, they actually — they tell us the data on are these communities — or are these technologies actually making communities safer. And I think that’s the most important aspect, because we don’t know if ShotSpotter works in Milwaukee. We’ve spent millions of dollars over the past decade and homicides have risen and fallen in the city. So that — knowing that the privacy that we’re trading is actually leading to some type of benefit to the community is something else worth investing in.

Frederica Freyberg:
Jon McCray Jones, thanks very much.

Tonight, we want to introduce you to a web franchise you can see on the news page at PBSwisconsin.org. Here’s a taste of our special project journalist’s longer form interview series titled “In Focus with Murv Seymour.”

Murv Seymour:
Do you ever worry about coming off sounding too angry?

Alex Gee:
I am angry.

Murv Seymour:
But do you ever worry about sounding too angry?

Alex Gee:
No, no, no. In fact, what I told one of the funders is when white men start becoming more angry, perhaps then I can become less angry. So help me carry this anger.

Murv Seymour:
What’s funny about Wisconsin?

Roy Wood Jr.:
For me, what’s funny about Wisconsin has always been y’all just act like it’s not cold. Like even on the way in, it’s just people ice fishing. Like why do you have to think of stuff to do outside when it’s cold? Just inside. Find inside things to do.

Murv Seymour:
What keeps a journalism professor up at night?

Michael Wagner:
I’m worried that the attacks on those whose job it is to share things that are verifiably true are making it so that we have a really hard time ever deciding what’s true at all.

Frederica Freyberg:
The presidential election is taking shape as primary elections across the country cement the two frontrunners, but the 2024 elections, both nationwide and here in Wisconsin, bring a new level of polarization. In this longer excerpt from “In Focus,” reporter Murv Seymour sat down with election and communications expert Michael Wagner, professor of journalism at UW-Madison.

Murv Seymour:
How would you describe the overall climate in terms of politics right now?

Michael Wagner:
Well, in Wisconsin, politics is relatively contentious and has been kind of getting increasingly contentious in lots of different ways over time and in 2022, the last time we did a statewide survey, we found that 20% of Wisconsinites had just cut somebody out of their lives altogether because of political disagreements.

Murv Seymour:
Wow.

Michael Wagner:
Now, some of that is because people are sometimes awful to each other, but there are other times when we just don’t even have the stomach to talk with people with whom we disagree, and when we cloister ourselves in echo chambers, we tend to get more extreme in our attitudes and more sure of ourselves.

Murv Seymour:
Do we know how we got here in terms of that kind of polarization?

Michael Wagner:
We know some of how we got here. When I was growing up, news was much more pitched toward moderates because they wanted as wide of an audience as possible. Enter the late ’80s, early ’90s and cable television, and now you want narrower audiences. And enter Fox News in the mid-1990s and not only do you want a narrower audience, you want an audience where you’re saying, this side is right and this side is wrong. And then MSNBC says, well, we’re going to go in the other direction and say, you know, it’s the other side that’s right and this other side that’s wrong. And so we’ve had increasingly kind of narrow-casted news. All of this happens in the environment where the internet takes off and then takes off at a speed where people can get a lot of information on it very quickly and so now it’s trickling down into how we behave and it interacts with the information environment that we all live in.

Frederica Freyberg:
Look for “In Focus with Murv Seymour” on our web page. For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website by going to PBSwisconsin.org and then by clicking on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.