For the past three years, Google has attempted to become more transparent by releasing reports about which governments are requesting it to remove content from its search engine or other sites. Their latest report covering the last six months of 2012, shows a significant increase of 26% more requests from governments to remove videos from Youtube, delete blog posts from Blogger, or remove items from Google’s search results, making them harder to find. The reports show that the number of requests have been increasing steadily for the last three years. Since Google controls a significant amount of international internet traffic, its decisions about what to show or restrict access to can have far reaching consequences.

In a blog post, Google wrote:

It’s become increasingly clear that the scope of government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown. In more places than ever, we’ve been asked to remove political content…or blog posts criticizing government officials or their associates.

This latest report also clarified whether videos were taken down for violating Google’s community guidelines or for violating local laws.

(more…)

Last week, in a rare demonstration of judicial independence, US District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton ordered that the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), previously known as School of the Americas (SOA), disclose its attendants’ and instructors’ names, their courses, and countries of origin.  In the past, WHINSEC regularly furnished this information to SOA Watch, a non-profit organization which opposes WHINSEC’s ties to violent tyranny in Latin America.

In 2004, however, WHINSEC discontinued disclosing enrollment, employment, and curriculum information.  Seeking to reinstate public oversight, plaintiffs initiated suit to compel WHINSEC’s disclosure of its students and instructors.  Finding that WHISEC had no interest in obscuring non-personal information it previously held available, Judge Phyllis exemplifies genuine judicial review in an era of executive deference and secrecy.

WHINSEC attempted to challenge the plaintiffs’ FOIA request under FOIA exemptions for personal, medical, or private information and statutory prohibition. However, Judge Phyllis invoked the principle that FOIA requires “broad disclosure with narrowly construed exceptions”, as well as the necessity of an “informed citizenry.” In rejecting WHINSEC’s arguments, Judge Phyllis observed that the “Student List”, “Instructor List”, and “Guest Instructor List” plaintiffs requested would not compromise the privacy of named individuals. WHINSEC’s previous, comprehensive disclosure of data in these lists further demonstrates a lack of privacy interest.

(more…)

As the hunger strike at Guantánamo has widened to include all of the men held there, President Obama recently announced that he would renew a push on Congress to close the prison and examine his administrative options. However, the implication that Congress is preventing the closure of Guantánamo is at best disingenuous.

Obama has the power to transfer prisoners from Guantánamo right now.  The president himself has placed a uniform ban on transferring any prisoners to Yemen, a collective punishment policy that he could reverse immediately. He could also release prisoners by issuing a certification through the Department of Defense and State that the administration has steps to assure the secure release and monitoring of the prisoners.

Moreover, President Obama’s seemingly newfound rhetorical opposition to indefinite detention runs counter to the policies of his administration. While he may have tried to move the prisoners to the United States, he still wanted them indefinitely detained, in violation of the Constitution and International Law. This has left even supporters of his detention policy befuddled.

The Guantánamo hunger strike can only be ended by the administration taking meaningful steps to close the prison. Those steps can begin immediately by releasing the 86 men who have been cleared for release by the government itself. The remaining men should either be given a speedy and fair trial or released as well.

The men at Guantánamo are resolute to peacefully protest through a hunger strike until they receive justice. One of them, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi put it this way:

I do not want to kill myself. My religion prohibits suicide. But I will not eat or drink until I die, if necessary, to protest the injustice of this place. We want to get out of this place. It is as though this government wishes to smother us in this injustice, to kill us slowly here, indirectly, without trying us or executing us.

Currently, 21 of the men, including Mr. al-Alwi, are bring force-fed in violation of medical ethics. The force-feeding process is brutal, as was described by one prisoner in an New York Times op-ed and can constitute torture, if undertaken as a form of punishment.

As the hunger strike continues, people across the world are pushing for the closure of Guantánamo and an end to indefinite detention. A change.org petition started by a former Guantánamo prosecutor, calling for the prison’s closure, has gained over 100,000 signers in less that two days. From May 17-19, people of conscience will stand together to demand that President Obama close the United States’ forever prison.

The George W. Bush Presidential Library  and Museum opened to the public this week, a great unveiling that has  reignited the debate about the Bush-era “enhanced interrogation techniques” (read: torture).  One of the most controversial elements of the new museum is a video narrated by former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.  The video explains that President Bush asked two “very important” questions in his decision to use torture in the post-9/11 “War on Terror”: was it legal?  And was it necessary?  When allegedly answered “yes” to both of these questions, President Bush proceeded in making detention and torture an instrumental part of his administration’s work.

The real surprise of the video, though, is in Rice’s suggestion that the United States was spared further terrorist attacks because of Bush’s detention and torture policies.  Rice argues that, “The fact that we have not had a successful attack on our territory traces directly to those difficult decisions in a new kind of war after September 11th.”  This is a dangerous allegation to make, and it underscores the need for our government to reconsider the effectiveness of detention and torture, a fight of which Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) has been at the forefront.

Udall correctly commented that the video in the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum “could potentially leave thousands of visitors to the library with the false impression that this wrongheaded program prevented terrorist attacks here in the United States.”  Udall seeks to correct the record on the Bush administration’s detention and interrogation program and to declassify the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence more than 6,000 page report on that program.

Understanding the effectiveness of Bush’s detention and interrogation programs is particularly crucial as the U.S. now faces a new moral dilemma posed by the Obama administration’s drone programs and the new executive power to legally authorize the targeted killing of American citizens.  To move forward without rectifying past misuses of executive power would likely make any hope of future executive accountability unattainable.  In order to hold the Obama administration to a higher humanitarian standard and reject the executive power to assassinate American citizens, we must demand truth and accountability from past administrations as well.  It is for this reason that Udall’s push to correct the record on the post-9/11 detention and interrogation programs and declassify the 6,000 plus page report is so crucial.  You can support Senator Udall’s fight by signing BORDC’s petition to declassify the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report.

A coalition of religious leaders and human rights groups are protesting the possible promotion of a CIA official who was allegedly involved in the destruction of several videos showing US officials torturing detainees. The coalition against her promotion is led by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and also includes the Center for Victims of Torture, Human Rights Watch, Open Society Policy Center, and Physicians for Human Rights.

The group sent a letter to the CIA Director, John Brennan, calling on him not to promote anyone involved in torture “black sites,” or in the destruction of the torture tapes. The letter says, “Promoting such an individual would compound the existing impunity for torture, by suggesting that such actions are in fact rewarded.”

Although the name of the CIA official has not been made public, the Washington Post has reported a few things on her: she would be the first woman to lead the clandestine services area of the CIA, she is highly respected within the agency for her work, and she was a very strong advocate for the use of torture during interrogations after 9/11.

In 2002, this CIA operative helped run a “black site” in Thailand. It is widely acknowledged that the CIA was torturing detainees at these secret prisons. According to a report on US torture after 9/11 published by the Constitution Project, “many lower level troops believed ‘the gloves were off’ regarding treatment of prisoners.” At the CIA location in Thailand, 92 tapes of interrogation were recorded, reportedly including agents waterboarding a prisoner to the point of “screaming and vomiting.”

In 2004, a US court ordered the government to turn over or preserve all evidence in relation to its secret interrogation programs. In 2005, all 92 of the tapes were destroyed against court orders, allegedly at the request of this CIA official as well as CIA’s head of counterterrorism, Jose Rodriguez. The videos were destroyed the same month that Dana Priest wrote a exhaustive article about the CIA’s black sites, leading to increased public scrutiny of the practice.

This official is already acting as head of the clandestine operations, but John Brennan has hesitated in making her the permanent leader of that office. Clandestine operations oversees sending spies abroad and the CIA’s drone program, which has faced its own criticism lately over transparency.

Marc Thiessen, a former Bush administration official, wrote a defense of the agent, in which he worries that demoting this official could “send a chilling message through the ranks of the CIA…It would push the agency back into a risk-averse, pre-Sept 11, 2001, mindset.”

If the risks that the CIA is taking involves torturing people, then that is exactly the kind of message we should be sending. Depriving people of their rights from the Geneva Convention is not a “risk” we should ever be willing to take. So far, there has been no punishment for those involved in the destruction of the tapes. How can we hold the government accountable when they are destroying all of the evidence against themselves?

The Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition (MCCRC) held a public forum on April 18 to discuss what effect “The War on Terror” has had on free expression and grassroots political organizing in Maryland and across the United States since 9/11.  The forum featured four speakers whose presentations discussed a number of demonstrations of federal, state and local surveillance and their disruption of peaceful activism.  The forum was opened by Kit Bonson, who explained the MCCRC’s desperate formation, saying:

The Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition (MCCRC) started because in the fall of 2010, 7 activists in Minneapolis and Chicago awoke one morning to find that their houses were being raided by the FBI. Boxes and boxes of their possessions were confiscated, including computers, papers, and family photos. Although they were never charged with any crime, they were called to testify in front of a Grand Jury.

In response, activists here in our area, as well as in cities around the country, came together to protest the use of the FBI and the Grand Jury process to harass and intimidate movement organizers. Basically, we wanted to stand in solidarity with activists who had not committed crimes or advocated anything other than nonviolence action. It was from these events that MCCRC was founded.

Forum Speakers

Saqib Ali, formerly a Maryland state legislator,  is now the Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Maryland chapter (CAIR-MD).  Ali spoke about the overwhelming surveillance of Muslim-American communities throughout the United States, describing the three major issues facing these communities as the “No Fly” list; the FBI’s infiltration of mosques and the growing presence of FBI informants in mosques; and the near-constant surveillance of Muslim communities.  Ali explained that the “No Fly” list prohibits many Muslim-Americans from travel back and forth between the United States and countries abroad where family members may still be located.  Ali specifically noted that the Transport Security Administration (TSA) compiles their “No Fly” list fairly arbitrarily, and lacks any legal recourse; not only  is the reason for being on a “No Fly” list murky at best, but it becomes nearly impossible to remove oneself from that list.

Ali also discussed the FBI infiltration of mosques, both as a means to surveil Muslim community worshiping therein, as well as to persuade mosque members towards terrorist action and subsequently stage their arrests.  He also discussed the more local development of an NYPD “Demographics” Unit, which singled out Muslim community centers of all kinds throughout New York and New Jersey for surveillance.  He described the “Demographics” Unit as a “wide, indiscriminate dragnet of Muslim everyday things: barber shops, bookstores…”

Sue Udry, the Executive Director of the Defending Dissent Foundation (DDF), broadened the discussion beyond the Muslim-American community to discuss the many different examples of legitimate activism being disproportionately targeted by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.  She specifically mentioned the “Ag Gag laws,” which aim at preventing whistleblowers from exposing any wrongdoing within agricultural operations.  Within these Ag Gag laws is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) which Udry and DDF describe as:

(more…)

In Alameda County, the local Board of Supervisors recently voted 3-1 in passing a proposal requesting Sheriff Greg Ahern to withdraw from the federal Secure Communities program. Implemented in 2008, the voluntary Secure Communities program is an immigration policy operated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is directed towards the deportation of immigrants convicted of violent and dangerous crimes.

The Secure Communities policy implements a process through which state and local police may coordinate with federal agencies in the enforcement of immigration programs. The initial process begins when individuals are arrested, as law enforcement oft fingerprints those detained in violation of criminal offenses.  This fingerprint data is then electronically transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who alternatively collects and stores such information in their organizational databases. Subsequently, the FBI then sends such fingerprint information to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), so that ICE may assess whether the individual in question can be subject to removal from the country.

In Alameda County alone, this policy has already led to the deportation of over 2,000 residents since its adoption. As such, the Secure Communities policy has been subject to significant criticisms, particularly regarding its overbreadth, as the program can produce negative consequences for immigrants who have never violated criminal statutes. Supervisor Richard Valle, who originally drafted the resolution states:

The underlying tone in Secure Communities denies people the due process and very democracy that we are here to defend.

As another proponent of the new resolution, Supervisor Wilma Chan, iterates a similar argument, and elaborates:

There’s nothing in this ICE hold that really helps because under the current system, immigrants just like anybody else who commit crimes are still going through the system. If they committed a felony, they are going to serve time in jail. Our job in Alameda County is not to do the job of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

This recent resolution possesses numerous similarities with a previous policy in Berkeley, California, where the City Council voted unanimously against continued support for the Secure Communities program. Nadia Kayyali, legal fellow at the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), provides significant insights into the pushback against Safe Communities, and examines both the ineffectiveness and inaccuracies of the program:

It decreases community safety as police become equated with immigration enforcement, thus leading to a lack of willingness to call the police or assist in community policing or investigations. The federal government has stated that S-comm is aimed at “criminals” but according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) own numbers, 79% of deportees under S-Comm had no criminal records, or had been picked up for low-level offenses such as traffic violations. In California alone, almost 80,000 deportations have taken place.

As Supervisor Chan stated, local communities should not be delegated the task and jobs of the federal immigration officials. While the passing of this resolution is undoubtedly commendable, it remains incomplete and more work will be necessary in transforming this symbolic resolution into a complete victory. 

This blog post was authored by guest blogger Patrick Thronson, a 2013 JD Candidate at the University of Michigan School of Law.

The March 6 filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination to lead the CIA  was a rare occasion in which bipartisan voices in the Senate united with those of the family of a slain American teenager, other civilian victims of the CIA’s drone program, and a nation now growing willing to face the truth about its long slide away from its core constitutional ideals.

Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) speech has helped abate the helplessness many feel towards our nation’s disastrous course toward ever-eroding individual rights and endless war, by showing that one speech from a junior senator can compel the nation’s vast national security apparatus to account for itself.

A wide array of members of Congress, as well as prominent media pundits praised Senator Paul’s efforts. In his filibuster, Sen. Paul quoted material authored by numerous liberal commentators, including Glenn Greenwald, Conor Friedersdorf, Charles Pierce, and Kevin Gosztola. Although Senator Paul’s efforts garnered their most vocal support from Tea Party Republicans, a recent poll indicates a substantial majority of the public backs his position rejected targeted assassination of American citizens without trial.

(more…)

On April 23, the  Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights,  held a hearing entitled “Drone Wars: The Constitutional and Counterterrorism Implications of Targeted Killing.”  The Bill of Rights Defense Committee submitted testimony to the hearing emphasizing the need for transparency, and end the unconstitutional use of drone killing. BORDC’s testimony highlighted the secrecy of the administration’s legal justification for killing through drones and the attendant impossibility of meaningful checks and balances.

Despite repeated promises of transparency tied to the targeted killing program, President Obama refused to send a witness from his administration to the hearing. Even after the hearing date was moved a week to accommodate a potential administration witness, ultimately the Senators, the witnesses and the public were left guessing about what could put them on a kill list and whether the administration had any explanation for shocking number of civilians killed by US bombings.

One witness stood out among a panel populated by an otherwise typical beltway crowd of ex-military, academics and think tank members. Farea al-Muslimi, Yemeni democracy activist who previously spent time in the US studying through State Department scholarships told the committee about the impact of a drone strike on his village in Wessab, Yemen.

al-Muslimi’s testimony exposed many of the core justifications for Obama’s killing program as fallacies.  While the administration argues that it only executes people with drones when it cannot safely capture them, al-Muslimi pointed out that the ostensible target of the drone stroke on his village would have been easily detained.

My understanding is that a man named Hammed al-Radmi was the target of a drone strike. Many people in Wessab know al-Radmi, and the Yemeni government could easily have found and arrested him. Al-Radmi was well known to government officials, and even to local government—and even local government could have captured him if the U.S. had told them to do so.

al-Muslimi also drew on his experience traveling the country as a democracy activist to describe the impact of drone strikes on public opinion of American in Yemen. The drone program is operated on the theory that it makes the US safer by killing our enemies. However, al-Muslimi testified that the program has killed large numbers of civilians.

The drone strikes are the face of America to many Yemenis. I have spoken to many victims of U.S. drone strikes, like a mother in Jaar who had to identify her innocent 18-year-old son’s body through a video in a stranger’s cellphone, or the father in Shaqra who held his four- and six-year-old children as they died in his arms. Recently in Aden, I spoke with one of the tribal leaders present in 2009 at the place where the U.S. cruise missiles targeted the village of al-Majalah in Lawdar, Abyan. More than 40 civilians were killed, including four pregnant women. The tribal leader and others tried to rescue the victims, but the bodies were so decimated that it was impossible to differentiate between those of children, women and their animals. Some of these innocent people were buried in the same grave as their animals.

Moreover, he pointed out that the drone program has successfully turned people against the United States, even where Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had previously failed to do so.

 Now, however, when they think of America, they think of the terror they feel from the drones that hover over their heads, ready to fire missiles at any time. What the violent militants had previously failed to achieve, one drone strike accomplished in an instant. There is now an intense anger against America in Wessab.

An updated version of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 has been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The ECPA governs  privacy regulations for nearly everything on the internet, and has not been updated in 27 years, despite significantly evolved technology. Other reforms for the ECPA were passed by the committee November 2012, but not voted on by the whole Senate before the end of their session.

The current ECPA requires a warrant for emails less than six months old. Other information stored online or older emails can be accessed by government officials with only a subpoena. The current version of the law has led to many confused and contradictory legal rulings on what counts as “electronic storage,” a term defined before cloud computing. The updated version passed by the Judiciary Committee, would require officials to get a search warrant from a judge before searching for any online data.

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee, as part of the Digital Due Process Coalition, joined over eighty other organizations and companies to send a letter to the Chairman of the Senate committee, Patrick Leahy, endorsing the amendments to the law. The letter states that the updates, “would provide clarity and certainty to law enforcement agencies at all levels and to American businesses developing innovative new services and competing in a global marketplace.” Other cosigners included Microsoft, Facebook, Mozilla, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo.

The BORDC’s Shahid Buttar said that:

Laws protecting our privacy online have been obsolete for decades, leaving all Americans at risk of arbitrary electronic seizures. The proposed reforms to ECPA are not enough by a long shot, but  it is long past time for Congress to fix the digital exception to the 4^th amendment.

These updates to ECPA must be passed in the Senate and the House before they are approved, but according to Politico, Congress is not expected to oppose the bipartisan amendments. It is important to remember that just a week ago the House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The Senate has not seemed eager to approve CISPA and is making small steps towards protecting our online information by updating ECPA, but more regulation is needed to bring constitutional protection into the digital age.