Nah, headline is optimistic actually: no right to clean water, to water tests, or to the truth about the tests if they occur. No right to healthcare, schools, or even deliverable mail either. But surely some of these are just the kind of thing you might expect as an absolute minimum everywhere if you have to pay taxes.
America voted for unrestrained rabid turbocapitalism not just once but twice. They knew what MAGA and Project 2025 were about, both announced their intentions clear as day, and now they're getting unrestrained rabid turbocapitalism - a world where corporations can do whatever the hell they want and people either have no rights at all or the rights they have on paper are de facto meaningless.
So, the correct headline would be “safe drinking water ruled not to be covered by the US constitution”. There are other binding agreements and regulations than the constitution in the US.
> The Jackson plaintiffs alleged that their city government deliberately withheld information about the water’s toxicity, and exacerbated the problem through a series of boil-water notices - a practice that can eliminate some bacterial contamination, but also concentrates lead in water. Engelhardt stated there is no “constitutional right to truthful information from officials during a public health crisis”
" “Defendants’ actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information. These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.”"
He basically says, the constitution does not care, whether the government lies to citizens, so they continue to drink poison water.
Well, I always though trust of citizens in government is the main thing a constitution should provide and establish, but the "Donald Trump-appointed judge Kurt Engelhardt" apparently thinks different.
I think the bigger deal is that the people of Jackson were lied to and this sets the precedent that there is no recourse. It's not like someone in Flint knowingly drank contaminated water, the city withheld the fact that their water was contaminated with unsafe levels of lead.
randyrand•18m ago
A lot of rural cities don't even provide water. People have wells and you pay for them yourself.
OJFord•12m ago
exe34•9m ago
> lawsuit against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which alleged the city knowingly let residents drink lead-contaminated water.
The "right" here is about other people not contaminating your well for their profit. You don't have that right. They can contaminate your well for their profit and you have to find another source of water at your own cost.
passwordreset•9m ago
latexr•3m ago
> (…) alleged the city knowingly let residents drink lead-contaminated water.
Knowingly let residents drink unsafe water. Can you not see an issue there? Can you not read past the title?
If you don’t know what “a right to safe water” means, then could you please do a web search to try to be informed about the matter before commenting? Took me two seconds to find a UN page.
https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/human-rights-water-and-s...
Again, on the first sentence, in bold:
> Access to water and sanitation are recognized by the United Nations as human rights – fundamental to everyone’s health, dignity and prosperity.
And on the second paragraph:
> Governments must take a human rights-based approach (HRBA) to water and sanitation improvements
There. There’s your right to water. It’s means that because it’s something fundamental, nations have an (at a minimum moral, but often legal) obligation to provide it to everyone under them that lacks it.
Just for good measure, here’s the Wikipedia page on Human Rights too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
Again, the first sentence already explains a lot.