A $363,000 Tax Bill to Widow Led to Obama Shift in Defense of Marriage Act

Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer had a 40-year engagement and a two-year marriage, starting with a wedding in Canada recognized under the laws of New York, where they lived, and ending when Spyer died two years ago.

Her death triggered a $363,053 federal tax bill from which her widow would have been exempt had she been married to a man, because the federal Defense of Marriage Act bars the U.S. government from recognizing same-sex unions.

Windsor’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the act was one of two cited by the Obama administration to justify its decision to stop defending the law. The decision may be a turning point in the fight over putting same-sex marriages on the same footing as heterosexual unions.

“I couldn’t believe that our government would charge me $350,000 because I was married to a woman and not a man,” Windsor, 81, said in a video statement from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is helping to represent her.

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Ruling on Health Law Is Due by End of Year

RICHMOND, Va. — A federal judge said Monday that he would rule by the end of the year on the constitutionality of the new health care law, as lawyers for the Obama administration and the Commonwealth of Virginia debated whether the entire 2,700-page act should be invalidated if a key provision is struck down. 

In a nearly three-hour hearing, a lawyer for the commonwealth argued that if Judge Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court finds unconstitutional the provision that requires Americans to have health insurance, he should declare the entire law void until the Supreme Court can review it. The lawyer noted that in writing the legislation, Congress failed to include “severability” language to specify that the rest of the law would survive.

The Justice Department concedes that some of the most essential insurance changes, including requiring insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions, will have to be scrapped if the coverage requirement loses in the courts. The administration maintains that the regulations can work only if everyone is required to have coverage, so people will not simply wait until they get sick to buy policies.

But the federal government’s lawyers argued on Monday that other provisions, like the vast expansion of Medicaid eligibility, could survive, and that the judge should keep the law in effect during the appeals process.

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U.S. Is Working to Ease Wiretaps on the Internet

 

WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.

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