Homeland Security Redacts Drone Info It Already Released Publicly In Report To Congress

from the oops dept

We’ve noted multiple times in the past that the process by which the federal government redacts documents it’s declassifying and/or releasing publicly is quite arbitrary, and when the same document is released multiple times, the redactions can be totally different. However, the latest screw up along those lines is quite incredible. Last summer, Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Patrol sent EFF a bunch of records in response to EFF’s FOIA lawsuit concerning CBP’s use of drones (CBP later “found” additional records it had neglected to pass along).

Those documents were certainly interesting, but perhaps more interesting (and troubling) is that last fall, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) in Congress had asked DHS for similar information, including “all mission logs related to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s (CBP) drone program from 2010 to 2013.” DHS eventually handed over that information, including many of the same documents it released to the EFF, which were shared publicly. Except… the documents it gave to Congress had many more redactions than the ones they released to EFF.

Senator Tom Coburn’s staff noticed this, and thought it was, well, rather odd, that DHS seems to think that the public can handle the information, while the relevant oversight committee in Congress cannot. Coburn has now sent a letter asking about the differences:

DHS insisted these documents were so sensitive they could not be produced without explicit promises they would be handled with utmost care, and reviewed only by Committee staff. The Department further requested the Committee promise not to release any document without receiving permission from DHS, and to return or destroy all documents when they had been reviewed. The Committee declined to oblige this virtually unprecedented request.

The documents DHS produced are extensively redacted. DHS claims it redacted information relating to activities by other agencies. The release of that information to Congress, it stated, is “under review,” presumably with the other agencies.

My staff has reviewed the logs DHS produced for calendar year 2010. From this limited review, it appears that DHS has redacted information in the documents it provided to the Committee that is not redacted in the same documents DOJ released publicly.

For 2010 alone, my staff has tallied at least 20 instances in which the publicly-released documents appear to contain legible passages which are redacted entirely or in large part from the documents DHS provided the Committee. In other words, DHS appears to have chosen to withhold information from Congress which the DOJ — and, we must assume, DHS — has determined was appropriate to share with the American public. I have attached examples to this letter for your review.

Also of concern is the apparent lack of coordination between DHS and outside agencies, particularly the Department of Justice. DHS stated to the Committee that the passages it redacted were “pending review” with an outside agency. However, a comparison of the redacted passages with the publicly-released documents reveals that several of those passages relate to support for DOJ components, including the FBI. If the DOJ compels public release of documents detailing activities on behalf of its own component, and the documents are subsequently released to the public, it is not clear why DHS would later withhold the same information from Congress in order to consult with DOJ.

Oh, also, Coburn’s staff noticed that some of the documents included don’t appear to have been given to EFF at all, raising a separate question: that even among the newly found documents that DHS is still withholding pertinent information.

Of secondary concern but still significant, my staff noted several instances in which information that was provided to Congress does not seem to appear, even in redacted form, in the public documents released to the public interest group, suggesting that information may have been withheld in full from the organization without explanation or accounting.

Not surprisingly, Coburn is… not pleased with DHS over this.

The Department’s conduct in this matter has impacted the Committee’s ability to conduct its Constitutional responsibilities to oversee DHS operations. It has delayed access to relevant documents, and what it has provided falls short of what it is required to share with anyone, let alone in response to a Congressional request.

For over a year, this Committee has pressed the Department for more information regarding its unmanned aerial vehicle operations. These improperly redacted documents raise even more questions. If these vehicles are being operated in accordance with U.S. laws and in support of the Department’s statutory mission, the lawfulness and efficacy of their operations should be easily demonstrable. This exercise may be said to demonstrate many things, but it does not demonstrate efficiency or transparency. Congress and the American people have a right to expect more from a Department which asks to be trusted with powerful tools and great authorities.

After all this, Coburn orders DHS to hand over “a full, unredacted set of the documents” as soon as possible.

Filed Under: cbp, customs and border patrol, dhs, drones, homeland security, redactions, tom coburn
Companies: eff

Homeland Security Is An Embarassment With The Way It Treats US Citizens At The Border

from the this-needs-to-stop dept

A few months back, we wrote about the horrific treatment by Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Patrol agents of On the Media producer Sarah Abdurrahman and her friends and family at the border. They were all US citizens and yet were detained for many hours for no reason, had their electronics seized and were generally treated terribly. Homeland Security has refused to explain why it stopped them — though, the obvious answer is that they were Muslim. There is now a similar story from Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, the Emmy-nominated producer and host of Huffpost Live (full disclosure: he once had me on his show), discussing how he gets detained every time he returns to the country. This time, he was just coming back from the World Economic Forum at Davos, and he was given a document with a big X over his face and sent to a “special” line:

As he notes, the room was… full of “brown” people:

At the door, an Egyptian-American woman greeted me, “Al Salaam Aleykum,” she said. I reluctantly responded “Wa Aleykum Al Salam,” though I was hardly feeling at peace. The room was filled with rows of seats and several DHS officers with colorful folders (red, yellow, green, blue) lined up in front of them with passports and travel documents. The juxtaposition of the colorful folders with the rows of mostly brown people filling the seats was suspect in itself.

“Omar Mubarak… Juan Diaz… Sayed Hussain,” the officers called us one by one.

I couldn’t help but feel as though JFK itself was a bit racist.

And, just as Sarah and her family and friends discovered, despite being US citizens, DHS treats them all like criminals:

After a 14-hour trip, I wanted to stretch my legs. So I stood up, anxious to find myself back in the room, especially after having written to the DHS. “Take a seat,” the officer at the door sternly said to me. I told him I wanted to stretch my legs after the long flight. He told me I wasn’t allowed to stand up. You are also not allowed to use your phone or electronic equipment. I was also slightly surprised to find as many children in the room as there were cameras.

“Sir, I’m a U.S. citizen who wants to stand while being detained. Am I not allowed to stand?” I said, pointing to the Asian man and Pakistani woman standing with their toddler strapped to the man’s chest. Anyway, there were only two empty seats in the room with a capacity of 60.

“Sit down!” he repeated for the sixth time, and came and confiscated my phone, which I was using to try to text my coworkers who were waiting to share a car home.

Like Sarah, DHS won’t provide any information as to why he was detained. And it clearly wasn’t random, seeing as this is the third time in a row it has happened. While he has applied to have his name removed from the list, as we noted with the lawsuit involving Rahinah Ibrahim, DHS seems to have no interest in correcting its mistakes until forced to do so.

Frankly, this is disgusting. It’s sickening that we are treating American citizens this way as they attempt to return home. Homeland Security and the US government seem to have dropped all pretense of freedom if you happen to be brown, Muslim or have an Arabic name (and just imagine those who hit on all three). This is not what this country is supposed to stand for — and the fact that we now have two very similar stories from prominent journalists, and DHS continues to respond by saying absolutely nothing, is even more disgusting. With On the Media, they’ve been trying to pressure Congress to investigate the matter, but to date, no one in Congress seems to want to take on this issue, which is a real shame.

Filed Under: ahmed shihab-eldin, customs and border patrol, detention, homeland security, profiling, sarah abdurrahman, us citizens

ICE Takes To Twitter In Ridiculous Attempt To Defend Interrogating A Man In A Movie Theater For Wearing Google Glass

from the theft? dept

Earlier this week there was a report about a guy being yanked out of his seat in a movie theater for wearing Google Glass during the movie. Glass was turned off, and the guy kept them on because he had prescription lenses installed and wears them as his regular glasses. Both the MPAA and federal agents were called to interrogate the guy for a few hours, asking him a bunch of ridiculous questions until late in the night, before someone finally realized he hadn’t done anything. Both the MPAA and ICE confirmed the incident happened, and yesterday folks at ICE — who have recently been transitioned into the new Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) organization — decided to take to their bizarrely named twitter account, @wwwicegov, to further “defend” these actions, by talking up how they’re in charge of dealing with “movie theft.” Because, apparently, Homeland Security Investigations doesn’t understand the law, and doesn’t realize that (1) infringement is not, and has never been, “theft” and (2) a dude wearing a powered-off Google Glass is not doing anything wrong. Here are the tweets:

As you can see, there’s a lot of ridiculousness there — just the fact that they repeatedly refer to it as “theft,” as mentioned above. The problem is that ICE’s role as “the lead agency to combat piracy” is a joke. As ICE, it was supposed to focus on stopping counterfeit physical products from crossing the border. But with the help of Joe Biden and Hollywood, that mandate has been twisted repeatedly, so that what started as a very narrow mandate is now being treated as this broad mandate from an organization that doesn’t even understand the issues. For years now, the group has made sure to conflate the very, very different issues of counterfeits at the border with copyright infringement, as it tries to expand its own mandate.

And now that’s reached the absolutely insane point of yanking people out of their movie seats for doing nothing wrong, entirely on the say so of the MPAA — a private group which has a long history of overreacting badly to new technologies.

What comes out of this is that ICE/HSI now appears to be incredibly gullible, falling for basically every bullshit claim from the MPAA. Just imagine if ICE/HSI had been around and had this sort of broad stupid made-up power over “intellectual property theft” during the introduction of the VCR — back when the MPAA was declaring it illegal? ICE would be out there raiding and shutting down electronics stores for selling the devices. All because the MPAA said so.

Filed Under: copyright, google glass, homeland security, hsi, ice, infringement, movie theft
Companies: amc, mpaa

Crowdsourcing Journalistic Pressure On Congress To Get Answers About DHS's Treatment Of US Citizens At The Border

from the join-in dept

A few weeks ago, we were among many who were stunned to hear the story of On the Media producer Sarah Abdurrahman on the show about how she, her family, and a bunch of friends were all detained at the Canadian/American border by US Customs and Border Patrol agents (CBP) in two different locations. Every single one of the people detained were American citizens, and they were all treated absolutely horribly. Many had their electronics confiscated, and they were kept in freezing conditions without any explanation or recourse. One man was taken away from his family, put in a cell, and then his family was told that “an agency” was coming to deal with him, and they were told nothing further (only later to find out it was because of an unpaid ticket from years ago.

Perhaps even more horrifying than the treatment that they all went through was the complete lack of response to any and all journalistic questions about this. The DHS basically refused to return any calls and just ignored the matter. Abdurrahman was able to get one person from one of the border crossings on the phone at one point, and was basically told that he wasn’t going to tell her anything. The sheer lack of accountability, concern or transparency was both shocking and depressing. Since then, On the Media has continued to try to get answers… and has come up empty. Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol appear to be taking the position that maybe if they ignore this situation it’ll go away.

Not likely.

In talking their situation over with some experts, the OTM team was told that the way to deal with this was to get Congress to hold DHS accountable, and the way to do that is to have constituents of Representatives who have oversight authority concerning DHS to call their Reps and demand answers. OTM has tried calling their own Reps without much luck, so they’ve instead decided to crowdsource the journalistic effort. They’re asking basically all of their listeners to put on their journalist hats, and to call Congress, asking some specific questions. If that listener happens to be represented by someone on a DHS oversight committee, it connects you directly to that office. Otherwise, they’ll pick randomly from the list (of course, non-constituent calls tend to have less sway with Congress).

To make this even easier, they’ve built a tool to make it easy to call Congress, complete with the list of questions they’d like you to ask and a form to fill out the answers. Oh, and they’ve made the whole thing embeddable. It’s at the bottom of this post. For those who think this doesn’t have an impact, you should never underestimate the power of phone calls to your Representatives. They tend to have significantly more influence that most people expect.

Filed Under: border patrol, cbp, crowdsourcing, customs and border patrol, homeland security, journalism, on the media

Instead Of Nominating New DHS Boss, Obama Should Look At Disbanding DHS

from the a-mistake-whose-time-has-come dept

As you may have heard, last week President Obama nominated Jeh Johnson, the former General Counsel of the Defense Department, to be the new head of the Department of Homeland Security. While he’s certainly better than some other proposed candidates, he’s not exactly known as a supporter for civil liberties. He’s been a point person defending the use of drone-strikes, even on US citizens. He also has defended the collection of metadata by the NSA. Oh, and in his remarks after President Obama announced the nomination, he talked all about 9/11 and how he’s spent his time since then trying to act in response to that.

Of course, many have questioned his qualifications to lead an organization like DHS, noting that it’s a pretty big leap from his last job:

“I think it’s a stretch because you go from administering a relatively small and homogenous staff… to administering a huge and very diverse staff, with things like law enforcement responsibility, immigration and border control responsibility,” says one former Obama Justice department official who worked with Johnson. “It’s just a very diverse set of issues and set of people to manage, and he has no experience with managing any of them.”

But, really, there’s a bigger issue here: why do we still have a Department of Homeland Security in the first place? It seems like the whole thing is a massive bureaucratic disaster. Over the years, we’ve covered how the crowning jewel of DHS, its so-called “fusion centers” that tried to bring together various groups for anti-terror purposes — the very reason that DHS was put together in the first place — were a colossal failure. They were incredibly wasteful of taxpayer funds, created no useful intelligence at all in the fight on terror, and were regularly cited for violating civil liberties. More recently, we’ve noted how Customs and Border Patrol has basically become a rogue agency that can do whatever it wants with what appears to be no oversight or consequences. We’ve similarly seen how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (another sub-agency within DHS) was involved in illegal censorship and questionable seizures of blogs, just because the RIAA complained.

And there’s plenty more. Apparently, DHS only just figured out how to actually track its finances. And this is after it spent heavily on massive tech projects that didn’t work.

Maurer says that the department has only just begun to keep adequate financial books. Several big DHS projects have been expensive failures. Billions of dollars were spent on technology to secure the southern border and screen cargo containers for radioactive materials. In both cases, the tech just didn’t work.

DHS was created in the hysteria following 9/11. It officially was created in 2003, and has now been in existence for a decade. In that time, it appears to have failed at a variety of key things, and it’s entirely unclear if it’s created any benefit at all. Matt Yglesias pointed out last week that rather than nominating a new boss, we should be admitting that creating DHS was a mistake. It seems like that would be a much more productive step at this point.

Filed Under: barack obama, bureaucracy, department of homeland security, dhs, homeland security, jeh johnson

Former DHS Chief Privacy Officer Recounts How She Was Regularly Called A 'Terrorist' By The Intelligence Community

from the sickening dept

Mary Ellen Callahan was the Chief Privacy Officer (and the Chief Freedom of Information Act Officer) at the Department of Homeland Security from 2009 until 2012 (though, don’t tell DHS, since they still have a page on their website about her claiming she still has that role — even though she left over a year ago). You have to imagine that being the Chief Privacy Officer within DHS (or any part of the federal government, really) is a pretty thankless job, and it appears that was absolutely the case when Callahan was there. Last night, she was given an award by the IAPP, the International Association of Privacy Professionals — and used it as an opportunity to reveal the work environment in her old job. From the sound of those in attendance, she gave quite a speech, unloading on the lack of respect for privacy in both the Department of Homeland Security and the wider intelligence community.

She apparently claimed that the number of privacy officers at the NSA was zero — including the Chief Privacy Officer of the NSA. In other words, the position within the NSA is a joke, and that person has no interest, at all, in protecting Americans’ privacy. But, apparently, she was just warming up, because (according to other attendees), she claimed that her office was accused of being “terrorists” once a month both by others at DHS as well as in the wider intelligence community. Furthermore, she was told that they would make her testify after the next terrorist attack, claiming it would be her fault, for daring to protect Americans’ privacy. To her credit, Callahan apparently told those pressuring her that she would “happily” testify in support of her efforts to protect the privacy of Americans.

While this won’t surprise the more cynical among you, it’s an incredibly damning statement about how our intelligence community and the Department of Homeland Security view privacy, and piddly little things like the 4th Amendment. It also shows how merely hiring a “chief privacy officer” doesn’t mean that an agency actually is concerned about privacy or that it makes sure to protect the privacy of the American public. It’s quite common that defenders of DHS, DOJ and NSA overreach will point to things like “privacy officers” as if that means they take privacy seriously. However, it’s often somewhat like a privacy policy — something you can point to, but which no one pays attention to. And, there had always been assumptions that anyone who took that role seriously would get pressure, but it sounds like the pressure was even greater and more ridiculous than most people expected. Hopefully Callahan will speak out further on the kind of pressure she was put under while in that job.

Hat tip to Ryan Calo and Joseph Lorenzo Hall, for tweeting from the event.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, chief privacy officer, dhs, homeland security, intelligence community, mary ellen callahan, nsa, pressure, privacy, terrorism

'See Something, Say Something' Campaign Creates Massive Database Of Useless Info From Citizens Spying On Each Other

from the the-government-is-the-worst-conspiracy-theorist dept

The ACLU’s recent release of “Suspicious Activity Reports” from various California law enforcement agencies (working with DHS Fusion Centers) shows that the government has developed a strong culture of paranoia through its increasingly-broad anti-terrorism efforts. The catchphrase, “If you see something, say something,” has resulted in plenty of seeing and saying, but has failed to turn up much in the way of usable counter-terrorism intelligence.

Much in the way that intelligence agencies like gathering data “just in case,” the Fusion Centers are aided and abetted by law enforcement officials who are willing to add to the data piles by approaching anything “suspicious” (very broadly defined) as potentially terrorist-related. This state-approved paranoia has spilled over into the private sector as the documents detail several second-hand reports from concerned citizens.

In both cases (law enforcement and private individuals), much of the “suspicion” seems to be based solely on reported persons being (or appearing to be) Middle Eastern. This term shows up so often it’s often simply abbreviated as ME. For instance, page 21 has a report of some “suspicious” photography occurring on a Metrolink train, involving two people, one dressed in a “‘Middle Eastern’ costume.”

Speaking of photography, aiming a camera at any government building, power station, railroad track, bridge, dam, oil refinery, airport building or any other building that an observer feels should remain unphotographed is enough to get your description (at the very least) added to the FBI’s e-Guardian database. Even filming on-duty cops can raise the “suspicions” of law enforcement [p. 10].

After responding to a call of disturbance aboard an MTA bus, a male white and a female white in a black Dodge Charger (newer model) video taping deputy personnel. When Sgt [redacted] attempted to contact the couple. they fled the scene and could not be located. The reason for the couple video taping is unknown.

There’s more. Photographers filming a manufacturing plant deemed suspicious until questioning discovered they were filming the pollution, not the plant [p. 28]. Five males “photographing a mannequin on a bus bench” — weird, but not dangerous [p. 50]. Man filming Highway 101, allegedly for a “Stop the Violence” video not cited or bothered further [p. 64], but like many others, had his case kicked up the ladder to the “JTTF” (Joint Terrorism Task Force). A citizen filming officers serving a warrant across the street from his/her house and is duly noted in the database [p. 167]. Throughout the 300 pages of reports, almost everything involving cameras, law enforcement (or concerned citizens) and structures is either added to the FBI’s database or handed over to the JTTF.

This is troubling, but it gets worse. A demonstration against law enforcement’s use of excessive force makes its way into the database [p. 165]. An “overly assertive” person complaining about security measures at the Shasta Dam (son had pocketknife confiscated) received his/her own entry into the e-Guardian database [p. 280]. An officer reports a traffic stop dealing with a person who was “unstable and possibly had a fetish about police that could easily turn to becoming antipolice” [p. 235]. This too results in a database entry.

The 300+ pages detail vagaries and contains several statements given by the type of people who peer through the slats of their blinds all day long, one hand resting on the phone in case anything “suspicious” happens. When you portray terrorist activity as omnipresent, you’re basically asking to be inundated with useless “tips” detailing with very subjectively suspicious activity and having to entertain the fantasies of bigots and busybodies.

On May 25,2012, at approximately 0710 hours, the RP was commuting on the Sacramento Regional Transit commuter train when she overheard two passengers reading from a book that may have contained references to terrorist information gathering and strategy. [p. 171]

Since December 17,2011, the Chico Police Department (CPD) has responded to the Chico, CA on three different occasions in apartment complex located at response to receiving reports of a resident yelling in his apartment and making derogatory statements towards the United States and the president. [p. 185]

On 09/14/2011 Sac RTAC/CCIC received an email stating that an individual, living in New York, New York, may be here in the United States illegally. The complainant also stated that they do not know how the individual affords such a lavish lifestyle… [p. 213]

A private citizen observed two men, possibly of Middle Eastern decent [sic], at [redacted] gas station in Manteca, CA on 9/9/2011. The men were driving a vehicle with New York State plates. The citizen is aware of the current terrorist threat to NY… [p. 214]

Suspicious ME [Middle Eastern] Males Buy Several Large Pallets of Water [p. 270]

Dozens of low-quality tips like these pollute the report. An overheard question in a public restroom (“What jihad wouldn’t want to kill Obama and get his 72 virgins?“) [p. 223]. A “suspicious male” in possession of flight simulator software [p. 172]. A male taking photos of a feedlot [p. 173]. Someone goes down to the cop shop and shows an officer there how he/she can locate a “recipe” for rocket fuel at Make.com [p. 173]. “Suspicious” inquiry as to location of newly-built power plant (subject asks off-duty officer and another customer at gas station) [p. 203]. “Suspicious” but “cooperative” male “caught” taking pictures of the railroad [p. 211]. Person applying for a job at a prison leaves behind “suspicious” book called “Daily Reminder” filled with “arabic writing and phone numbers” [p.285].

Much of what doesn’t detail useless bias projections or photographer harassment deals with theft. Lots and lots of theft. Some is troubling, like the disappearance of hundreds of pounds of fertilizer or dozens of propane tanks. (Then again, fertilizer is expensive and both products do have some resale value rather than only being valuable as bomb ingredients.) More troubling (at least to reporting officers and their supervisors) is the number of reports of weapon and uniform theft from official vehicles and buildings. Several reports of copper wiring disappearing from power stations and industrial sites also feature in the reports, suggesting there’s something more nefarious afoot than the obvious, non-terroristic conclusion: an easily unloaded metal with a decent going rate.

Going beyond all of the mostly useless stuff lies the truly bizarre.

Student Found in Possession of Notebook Containing Radical Writings
On May 12, 2012, a Roseville Police Department officer working in the capacity of a School Resource Officer observed the partial quote “the blood of tyrants” on a woodshop project… [p. 171]

On 12 February 2012 at 0800, a UC Davis PD officer took a vandalism report at Emerson Hall Dorm, 1st floor men’s restroom of anti-government graffiti written in black marker on the wall signed by the moniker name of [redacted] with a circle around the “E.” [p. 191]

On 11/21/2011, an anonymous female called the CCIC to report possible illegal selling of controlled substance, Oxycotton [sic]. The caller is associated with the subject [redacted] attempting to sell oxycotton [sic] on his [redacted] page… [p. 202]

On 28 October 2011, Sacramento Police Department officers found two sets of anti-religious graffiti on a wall of the [redacted] The first set of graffiti, in black spray paint, was of 2 upside down crosses with a pentagram in the middle of [report ends]. [p. 206] (Halloween much?)

And then there’s this. Unfortunately, the responding agency chose to use screenshots rather than delivering the entire report, so we’ll never know where this was headed., but the opening partial paragraph is certainly intriguing.

On Saturday October 29th, A CHP Special Investigations Officer was off duty in a parking lot of a [redacted] in South Sacramento. He saw a parked custom Chopper style M/C that was chromed out with high handle bars in good shape. With his training and e[xpertise? …] [p. 205]

With the exception of the erstwhile “Oxycotton” dealer, every one of these clearly non-terrorist activities ended up in the e-Guardian database.

Sure, there’s some potentially useful counter-terrorism info in this collection, but the problem is that it makes up for a small subset of the data gathered. Not for nothing did a recent Congressional investigation tear into the DHS and its Fusion Centers for producing and acquiring such low-quality intelligence. According to the report, the centers have done little more than waste money and trample on civil liberties in the pursuit of hundreds of useless “leads.”

As the ACLU points out, the system itself has been skewed towards collecting garbage for quite some time, thanks to the involved agencies’ own efforts to expand the scope of their mission.

So why are police submitting reports (sometimes received from community members, private security guards and via anonymous tips) about such innocuous conduct for inclusion in anti-terrorism databases? Because under the NSI and related programs,everyone – our neighbors, public employees, storekeepers – are encouraged to help. “If you see something, say something,” says the Department of Homeland Security. The “Functional Standard” for Suspicious Activity Reporting defines “suspicious activity” to include many activities that are not only lawful, but protected by the First Amendment. Even worse, the FBI encourages fusion centers not to limit themselves to the Functional Standard and instead to report “all potentially terrorism-related activity.” With such a broad and vague standard, no wonder we are seeing innocent activities reported as “suspicious,” especially when they involve community groups against whom we still see significant governmental bias.

The only upshot is that the involved definitions are in the process of being refined, along with the Functional Standard itself — the inevitable result of major government entities (including the Senate’s Homeland Security subcommittee) calling out a program as being completely useless. No one likes losing a budget line, so there’s bound to be some improvement. However, any positives must be weighed against the FBI’s tendency to declare nearly everything “relevant” to a terrorist investigation. To help guide this process towards something more useful and less damaging to the public, the ACLU is urging everyone to join its campaign to push the agencies to work towards smarter intelligence gathering, rather than simply gathering more data.

Filed Under: dhs, fusion centers, homeland security, see something say something

Border Patrol's Horrific Treatment Of On The Media's Producer, Family & Friends Highlights The Lack Of Accountability From DHS

from the shameful dept

By now we’ve all heard plenty of stories about ridiculous goings on at the border by Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Patrol agents. We’ve written many times about questionable electronics searches. Still, I urge people to listen to the story that On The Media producer Sarah Abdurrahman did for last week’s episode, all about how she, her family and friends were all detained at the Canadian border for around six hours, the treatment they received and the lack of answers that anyone is willing to give when she asked questions (as a journalist) about these actions. Listen to it and try not to get angry at the shameful behavior of these agents supposedly representing our country.

Everyone they detained was an American citizen, coming back to the US after attending a wedding of a cousin. They were treated terribly, put in a cold room with no food or drinks, and no information on what was going on. CBP demanded they hand over their electronics, and made it clear they might not get them back. The thing is, this isn’t a unique situation. As the report notes, there’s almost no oversight over CBP actions, allowing them to act with impunity. In the report, the story is told of a 4-year-old girl, an American citizen, who was detained for 14 hours, in a cold room, without being allowed to speak to her parents and given no food beyond a cookie. And then she was deported. Even though she was a US citizen. She was allowed to come back weeks later, but now has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Abdurrahman’s own story is perhaps not that crazy, but is still ridiculous. She tried to find out information during the detainment, but was repeatedly told “it’s not your right to know.” She wasn’t even allowed to know the names of the CBP agents who detained them. When she asked, agents turned their backs to her so she couldn’t see their name tags. Multiple attempts at getting Homeland Security or CBP to respond to questions failed.

She also tells the story of some other wedding attendees who were similarly detained with incredibly obnoxious behavior from CBP agents. The first one they met was quizzing everyone in the car on their names, and the 3-year-old kid in the back cheerily volunteered his name and the CBP agent snapped at him. The agents initially promised that they wouldn’t search their phones, but then demanded that people unlock their phones, and even told them the phones would be confiscated and not returned. People complained that they needed their phones for work and were basically told too bad. Abdurrahman notes that three full cars of people from that one wedding all had their phones confiscated, and she notes that DHS claims only about 15 phones are confiscated each day by CBP, and wonders why everyone from one wedding appear to have nearly reached that quota.

Then there’s the really ridiculous part: one of the people detained went through mutliple invasive body searches, and then after five and half hours was suddenly handcuffed and locked up in a jail cell with no explanation at all. He asked the officers to let his family know what was going on, but they didn’t. Instead, they told his family to leave, and when they asked what happened, his family was told that “an agency” was coming to “pick him up,” without giving any more details — obviously leading to the worst assumptions. Instead, it turned out the guy had an unpaid ticket for a crooked license plate from 2006. CBP called the Michigan State Police to come “get him” over this — and, again, didn’t explain any of this to his family.

Basically, the CBP seems to act like you’d expect pretty much any group in authority with no oversight to act. They seem to feel free to terrorize people just because they can and because there are no recriminations. And there’s basically nothing to be done about this. Abdurrahman finds out that they can submit a complaint, but that such complaints rarely lead to anything, other than getting a cursory letter saying that the complaint has been “dismissed.”

The stories and quotes from the various individuals who went through this — all American citizens just trying to get back into their own country — are heartbreaking. They talk about how dehumanizing this is, how unwelcome it makes them feel in their own country, how it feels like an attack on their dignity, how it makes them feel like an animal. It’s horrifying and shameful. It’s also depressing. This is not how any country should act, especially towards its own citizens, and when it’s my country acting this way, I’m horrified. Yes, all the stuff about America standing for freedom and whatnot can be seen as its own form of propaganda — and most people realize that the US has never really lived up to the ideals it sets forth, but to have them stomped on so blatantly, and then having no one willing to answer for them is just… horrific. Sarah, her family and friends, all deserved much better. And, we, as American citizens all deserve much better.

Filed Under: cbp, customs and border patrol, dehumanizing, dhs, homeland security, sarah abdurrahman, us citizens

Court Sides With ACLU On Unconstitutionality Of The DHS's No-Fly List

from the prying-our-rights-out-of-the-govt's-cold,-undead-fingers dept

Some good news has arrived on the Homeland Security front (although the department in charge of securing the Homeland probably wouldn’t agree). Last time we visited the infamous “No Fly List,” a federal judge (Anna J. Brown) wasn’t buying the government’s arguments in favor of preserving the list’s lack of transparency or redress options. The ACLU, arguing on behalf of 13 list members, pointed out that the system violates citizens’ (there are more than 20,000 names on the list) right to due process.

As if being on the list and having no way to be removed wasn’t enough of a problem, the government made it clear it believed air travel and international travel in any form were luxuries granted by the State. The government’s argument was Marie Antoinette-esque in its dismissive simplicity: let them drive cars.

During deliberations, Judge Brown swiftly undercut the government’s argument that air travel is nothing more than a “convenience.”

“To call it ‘convenience’ is marginalizing their argument,” Brown said. [She] said alternatives to flying are significantly more expensive. “It’s hugely time-consuming, and who knows what impediments there are between the Port of Portland and other countries.”

The government apparently failed to make any further inroads at impressing the judge over the past couple of months. The ACLU announced today that the federal court has found in its favor.

A federal court ruled late yesterday that constitutional rights are at stake when the government places Americans on the No Fly List, agreeing with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The suit challenges the process for attempting to get off the list as unfair, inadequate, and unconstitutional. The decision also asked the ACLU and the government to submit additional information about the No Fly List redress procedure in order to help the court decide the ultimate question of whether it satisfies the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.

We’ll likely be waiting quite some time for the government to get its input together, if other TSA-related input-gathering efforts are any indication. As it stands now, the so-called redress procedure offered by the DHS is a pointless waste of paper for everyone involved. Here’s that procedure in all its glory.

Their only recourse is to file a request with the Department of Homeland Security’s “Traveler Redress Inquiry Program,” after which DHS responds with a letter that does not explain why they were denied boarding. The letter does not confirm or deny whether their names remain on the No Fly List, and does not indicate whether they can fly. The only way for a person to find out if his or her name was removed from the No Fly List is to buy a plane ticket, go to the airport, see if he or she can get on the flight – taking the risk of being denied boarding and marked as a suspected terrorist, and losing the cost of the airline ticket.

That’s not due process. That’s a form letter awaiting a name to insert between the placeholder brackets.

In her ruling, Judge Brown reiterated the her problems with the government’s insistence that air travel is a “convenience.”

“Although there are perhaps viable alternatives to flying for domestic travel within the continental United States such as traveling by car or train, the Court disagrees with Defendants’ contention that international air travel is a mere convenience in light of the realities of our modern world. Such an argument ignores the numerous reasons an individual may have for wanting or needing to travel overseas quickly such as for the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a business opportunity, or a religious obligation… the Court concludes on this record that Plaintiffs have a constitutionally-protected liberty interest in traveling internationally by air, which is affected by being placed on the list.”

This is good news for the 20,000 unwilling participants in the DHS’s no-fly program. I would imagine the government will be appealing this decision as any changes to its (lack of) redress process will probably cause “grave damage to national security,” especially as it will now require the DHS to divulge some sort of actual information as to why Person A is on the list.

More likely the real reason for this opacity is to prevent the public from recoiling in horror at the briefest peek into the crafting of War on Terror™ sausage — a process that seems to involve running a variety of amendments through the grinder along with handfuls of tax dollars. This win is a small push back against that apparatus and stakes another one of ACLU’s flags into a chunk civilly liberated territory.

Filed Under: constitution, convenience, dhs, due process, homeland security, no fly list
Companies: aclu

MIT Trying To Block The Release Of Aaron Swartz's Secret Service File

from the sharing-of-knowledge dept

It’s not all that uncommon to see government agencies try to refuse to release information that is subject to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request — but to have a non-governmental third party jump into a FOIA request to seek to block the info from being released? That’s pretty damn rare. But it’s happened — and, amazingly, the third party is MIT, a school that is supposedly dedicated to advancing knowledge. Except, apparently, if that knowledge is going to make MIT look bad.

We recently noted that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had ordered Homeland Security to release the Secret Service file on Aaron Swartz that had been requested by Wired reporter/editor Kevin Poulsen. However, MIT has now stepped into the case trying to block the release of the information. The judge has consented to putting a stay on the initial order until MIT can file its motion.

MIT’s concern — as it was in a separate legal fight concerning releasing the evidence used against Aaron — is apparently that the released documents will reveal which MIT employees helped with the investigation, and that could lead to unwarranted harassment. However, as Poulsen notes, the documents that have already been released have been redacting those names, so it’s unlikely that these further releases would leave those same names unredacted.

The larger issue, however, is that an institute of higher learning, one which supposedly supports information sharing and knowledge transfer, is intervening in a FOIA case to actively support keeping information from the public. This is quite incredible, and a rather shameful move from the MIT administration, following a string of similarly shameful moves having to do with how it handled the Swartz situation from the very beginning. As Poulsen notes, the situation is incredibly rare:

I have never, in fifteen years of reporting, seen a non-governmental party argue for the right to interfere in a Freedom of Information Act release of government documents. My lawyer, David Sobel, has been litigating FOIA for decades, and he’s never encountered it either. It’s saddening to see an academic institution set this precedent.

MIT was one of the first universities to support open online courses. It has a long history of encouraging the open exchange and sharing of knowledge and information. It seems like quite a departure from its history and mission to suddenly focus on trying to increase the government’s secrecy and blocking access to information.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, foia, homeland security, mit, public information