On May Day, the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission (PJC) and the Berkeley Police Review Commission (PRC) held a town hall on the issue of drones in Berkeley, which is part of Alameda County. County Sheriff Greg Ahern’s plans to purchase a drone, made public in fall of last year, spurred activists to push for a public hearing in February. The hearing was packed with residents of the county who were vocally opposed to the purchase. Without a clear policy, Sheriff Ahern would potentially be able to lend his drone to the Berkeley Police Department and other cities. He would also be able to fly his drone into Berkeley if he were in pursuit of a suspect.

In December of last year, the City Council started discussing a potential drone policy for the City of Berkeley. While the PJC recommended that Berkeley be a no-drone zone, some of the city council members were convinced that an all out ban was not ideal. They felt that drones could be used for “natural disasters, to locate missing persons or assist in crime investigations.” After voting down the PJC’s proposal, the council directed the PJC, along with the PRC and the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission to work together to make a recommendation.

The May 1st town hall featured overviews of the legal concerns drones raise from attorney Linda Lye of the ACLU of Northern California, who made it clear why drones are “qualitatively different” from other forms of aerial surveillance. Jennifer Urban, Professor and Co-Director at the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley, explained that courts are much slower than technological change, meaning that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence can lag years behind the widespread implementation of technology like drones. The upshot of her analysis? Community action and legislative fixes are the necessary response.

Parker Higgins, privacy activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) emphasized the technical aspects of drones and how they affect privacy, and Neil Satterlund of Alameda County Against Drones (ACAD) emphasized concerns around mission creep, meaning hat drones would inevitably be used for purposes far beyond what they were originally approved for.

One of the most powerful voices at the hearing was that of Andrea Pritchett of Berkeley Copwatch. She  succintly explained why a no-drones zone was the best solution. Reflecting on Copwatch’s documentation of existing abuses of police power in Berkeley, Andrea stated that regulations on the use of drones such as those suggested by the ACLU would be:

wonderful in a climate with effective police accountability. In the absence of a way to control the police, even the best guidelines, restrictions, suggestions, are not really gonna have an impact.

(more…)

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…)

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 Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is continuing to move through Congress despite major, unresolved privacy issues.

Several weeks ago, privacy advocates, consumers associations, and technology companies all worked together during the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) Week of Action to address the major privacy flaws in CISPA, H.B. 624. The week of action was a major success, with companies such as Craigslist and Firefox taking part and thousands of people contacting their representatives in Congress to express their concern around CISPA. However, the fight over CISPA is just beginning. Last week, CISPA passed out of the House Intelligence Committee by a vote of 18-2.

The sponsors of the bill, Representatives Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), have maintained that there is no reason for concern, making inaccurate and misleading claims about the bill. They have argued that the bill does not contain overbroad provisions or definitions. Yet as EFF’s Mark Jaycox correctly notes:

The best example of a dangerous undefined term in the bill is found within the overly broad legal immunity for companies. The clause grants a company who acts in ‘good faith’ immunity for ‘any decisions made’ based off of the information it learns from the government or other companies. . . Companies should not be given carte blanche immunity to violate long-standing computer crime and privacy law. And it is notoriously hard to prove that a company acted in bad faith, in the few circumstances where you would actually find out your privacy had been violated.

(more…)

President Obama’s 2009 promise to close down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, infamous for its flagrant denial of human rights, was met with much support throughout the United States and the world.  Human rights advocates throughout the world felt justice would finally be served by transferring and releasing detainees from the Guantanamo detention facility.  Individuals within the U.S. hoped that Obama’s promise to close the facility would re-solidify the country’s position as the self-proclaimed exemplar of moral and ethical leadership.

Unfortunately, four years later, Guantanamo remains open, still imprisoning detainees who are held without charge, and without access to judge or lawyer.  In January of 2012, several retired generals and admirals drafted a letter to President Obama urging the transfer of Guantanamo detainees cleared by the Task Force, under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Security Waver.  They write:

We recognize the political opposition you have faced in attempting to honor your commitment. Congress has repeatedly restricted your ability to transfer detainees held there who have been cleared for release. Congress has also restricted your authority to bring criminal suspects held at Guantanamo to justice in our time-honored federal criminal courts. However, despite these restrictions, we are asking you to act within the discretion available to you to move our nation forward in closing Guantanamo once and for all.

Political opposition (particularly in the House of Representatives) has been one of the defining challenges of Obama’s presidency, and while it is a legitimate hurdle, it does not excuse Obama’s unfulfilled promise to close Guantanamo.  The President must be held accountable as well.

(more…)

Last year, the Associated Press won a Pulitzer Prize for revealing that New York City Police Department (NYPD) has spied on Muslim Americans, as well as their non-Muslim clients, customers and classmates over a decade both across the greater New York area and even well beyond its jurisdiction.

Today, impacted communities are continuing to respond. A lawsuit has been brought against the NYPD on behalf of Muslims in New Jersey, but has been delayed in court as lawyers for the city have asked the court to dismiss the case before examining evidence.

Further, on March 11, a coalition of Muslim groups, including the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC) and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR), delivered a report of the devastating consequences that spying has had on the people it targets.

The report is based on interviews with 57 American Muslims in the city and reveals that the spying, far from being secret, was fairly well known and has created a “pervasive climate of fear and suspicion.” The report details the impact on nearly every aspect of everyday life, from religious life to freedom of speech to relationships with law enforcement to forming friendships. The report concludes with a request to the NYPD to end its surveillance program and for the City Council to establish more oversight of the police.

One young woman said, “Even if we know we have rights, we know they don’t apply equally to everyone.”

The police have defended themselves by claiming that they were acting within constitutional limits. New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly outlined the principle of the surveillance program, which is, “In its effort to anticipate or prevent unlawful activity, including terrorist acts, the NYPD must, at times, initiate investigations in advance of unlawful conduct.”

Yet the head of the NYPD Intelligence unit admitted under testimony that the surveillance program had not produced any terrorism or criminal leads during his six year tenure. The intelligence department has reportedly cost the city $1 billion since 2001.

Despite these assaults on their rights, community members remain resilient. The recently-formed New York City Muslim Club is eschewing other organizations’ ban on talking politics. The club is out to participate in the next mayoral race, and is also campaigning for recognition of Muslim holidays in public school calendars. The club, as well as a separate AL Jazeera estimate, claims that as many as 10 percent of the city’s population is Muslim.

In Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent contentious appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he hinted that President Obama would soon make a speech on the topic of drone usage for targeted killing. Holder alluded to President Obama’s promise for more openness on the issue in his State of the Union address:

“We have talked about a need for greater transparency in what we share, what we talk about,” said Holder, who added that with the release of more information, “there would be a greater degree of comfort that this government does these things reluctantly but also in conformity with international law, with domestic law and with our values.”

Transparency

The executive’s track record on this has been dismal. The administration first denied the existence of any sort of drone or targeted killing program, continued to use the denial as a shield against liability for its killings in court, while beginning to announce its reasoning informally in speeches by various executive officials.

Any actual documentation of the administration’s logic for assassinating  both citizens and non-citizens was unseen until a “white paper“ summarizing a portion of the goverment’s logic was leaked to the press.

Finally, the administration has begun to show some of the actual (still classified legal) memos outlining the criteria for extra judicial killing to selected members of congress.  However, the public still doesn’t know under what circumstances the President and his lawyers think would justify their murder from the sky.

Transparency would be a good first step. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) staked out a courageous position on in his recent filibuster, finally forcing Eric Holder to declare:

Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?” The answer to that question is no.

However, this representation (which begs the question: how does Holder define combat?), disclosure of all of the legal memos around drones, and a clear speech from President Obama explaining his necessity for keeping a “kill list” (or “disposition matrix,” if you prefer the administration’s sanitized euphemism) are only the beginning.

Accountability

Ultimately, the people of the United States and their all too often cowed representatives in Washington need to demand a stop to murder, killing and assassination by drones in contravention of the Constitution, international law and human rights law. The broad claims staked out in the leaked white paper make clear that the administration is currently operating under a rubric that violates all three.

While some constitutional issues are esoteric, the protections of due process under the Fifth Amendment are not.  The government does not have the right to deprive you of your life, after review of your perceived sins by government officials on “Terror Tuesdays.”

Some in Congress and the punditocracy have suggested that the due process problem be solved by so called “drone courts” where the government would secretly present the evidence against you to a judge who would then sign a death warrant. While paying some lip service to the idea that an independent judiciary can constrain executive power, a secret court authorizing murder is not a check or balance in any meaningful way.

(more…)

Yesterday, I attended the Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing on the nomination of John Brennan to lead the CIA. More accurately, I attended five minutes of the hearing, before Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) kicked out the public after repeated criticism of Brennan’s record on torture, human rights, and extrajudicial assassination and executive fiat.

If the rest of the committee members did their jobs as well as Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the nation wouldn’t need protesters to ask the tough questions that no one in the White House or CIA has answered.

Some Senators raised important questions, but the hearing was generally disappointing: Brennan bobbed and weaved, evaded accountability for documented abuses, and refused either to offer more information to Congress, or to acknowledge that torture (which the CIA recently committed before obstructing justice by destroying dozens of videotapes documenting torture) is illegal.

Here’s a verse I wrote to interrupt the hearing, riffing on the strategic national security risks presented by drones (whose tactical usefulness is also dubious) and torture (which we know to be illegal and tactically useless at best, and actively counterproductive at worst).

While the committee never heard the issues I’d hoped to raise, several observers have written thoughtful pieces explaining why Brennan has not met the burden necessary to justify Senate confirmation as CIA Director. While they shed light on some important issues that Brennan has not resolved, several other questions remain. More below the jump….

(more…)

Police consultants such as William Bratton and Robert Wasserman are warping policing nationwide, and even globally, to a disturbing uniformity. Cash-strapped cities are paying their consulting firms thousands, even millions, of dollars for advice on how to implement “broken windows” and “zero tolerance” style policing. These policies are springing up across the country, as advocates and communities scramble to respond.  The most recent place is Oakland.

On January 15, hundreds of concerned Oakland residents attended a public safety committee meeting of the Oakland City Council to express their concern over Oakland’s plan to extend a $250,000 contract to Bratton, best known for stop-and-frisk and other zero tolerance policies in New York city.  After a rally, hundreds of people squeezed inside the Council chambers; so many people, in fact, that police blocked off doors and started to turn stragglers away, until an overflow room was hastily set up. The tensions in the room were clear, as catcalling and booing started nearly immediately.

For nearly five hours, speaker after speaker stood at the podium to say that Oakland needs funds for services, not consultants, and that the root of the crime problem is the policies that criminalize black and brown people. One African-american elder stated the feelings of many in the crowd poignantly, as he discussed the targeting of young black men by the police:

If you want to kill a tree, kill the roots. If you want to kill a race, kill the children.

Members of the Justice for Alan Blueford Coalition  reminded the council that Oakland’s policies, even without the aid of Bratton’s tough style of policing, have resulted in killings like that of Mr. Blueford, an unarmed young black man who was shot to death by the police. At the end of the meeting, however, the committee voted to move forward with the contract, sending it to a vote before the full Oakland City Council, where one week later, the scene was repeated. After a nearly 8 hour long meeting, with over 250 speakers, the the full city council voted, 7-1 , to approve the contract, regardless of the fact that the majority of speakers were against the contract.

What happened in Oakland is unsurprising, to those who have watched as policing models have shifted towards “zero tolerance” models. Much like the shift towards militarization in protest policing, models like stop-and-frisk have become the norm. Across the country, elected officials seem to have given up on addressing the root causes of crime, instead looking for an easy answer.

(more…)