Freedom of Information Act
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Internal DHS Documents Detail Expansion of Power to Read and Copy Travelers' ...
Recently obtained documents show that last year the Department of Homeland Security quietly reversed a two-decades-old policy that restricted customs agents from reading and copying the personal papers carried by travelers, including U.S. citizens. The documents were made public today by the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain policies governing the searches and questioning of travelers at the nation’s borders.
The documents show that in 2007, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) loosened restrictions on the examination of travelers' documents and papers that had existed since 1986. While CBP agents could previously read travelers' documents only if they had "reasonable suspicion" that the documents would reveal violations of agency rules, in 2007 officers were given the power to "review and analyze" papers without any individualized suspicion. Furthermore, whereas CBP agents could previously copy materials only where they had "probable cause" to believe a law had been violated, in 2007 they were empowered to copy travelers' papers without suspicion of wrongdoing and keep them for a "reasonable period of time" to conduct a border search. The new rules applied to physical documents as well as files on laptop computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.
In July 2008, the Department of Homeland Security made public a new policy on examining travelers' papers and electronic devices that finalized many of the changes first implemented in 2007. The agency did not disclose, however, how much the new policy deviated from rules that had been in place since 1986. The FOIA documents from ALC's and EFF's suit included the original policy, which had been adopted after a group of U.S. citizens challenged the practices of the 1980s as violating First Amendment rights.
"For more than 20 years, the government implicitly recognized that reading and copying the letters, diaries, and personal papers of travelers without reason would chill Americans' rights to free speech and free expression," said Shirin Sinnar, ALC staff attorney. "But now customs officials can probe into the thoughts and lives of ordinary travelers without any suspicion at all."
In February 2008, ALC and EFF sued the Department of Homeland Security for failing to disclose its policies on searching and questioning travelers at U.S. borders. ALC, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization, received more than two dozen complaints since last year from U.S. travelers, mostly of Muslim, South Asian, or Middle Eastern origin, who said they were grilled about their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs, or associations when returning to the United States from travels abroad. In addition, these individuals said that CBP agents examined their books, handwritten notes, personal photos, laptop computer files, and cell phone directories, and sometimes made copies of this information. The documents from the FOIA request show that CBP's wide latitude to collect this data attracted significant attention from other law enforcement agencies that sought to access it.
"Your laptop computer likely contains a massive amount of private information such as personal emails, financial data or confidential business records," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "The Department of Homeland Security has given its agents increasingly broad authority to search, copy, and store that information. Congress needs to step in now to stop these invasive practices and protect travelers' privacy."
The newly released documents, which total 661 pages, also reveal that: Recently obtained documents show that last year the Department of Homeland Security quietly reversed a two-decades-old policy that res... more -
EPA is Hiding Colony Collapse Disorder Information
EPA Buzz Kill: Is the Agency Hiding Colony Collapse Disorder Information?
{Natural Resources Defense Council, Via Common Dreams}
NRDC Forced to Sue to Get Public Records on Bee Mystery:
WASHINGTON - August 18 - The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit today to uncover critical information that the US government is withholding about the risks posed by pesticides to honey bees. NRDC legal experts and a leading bee researcher are convinced that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has evidence of connections between pesticides and the mysterious honey bee die-offs reported across the country. The phenomenon has come to be called "colony collapse disorder," or CCD, and it is already proving to have disastrous consequences for American agriculture and the $15 billion worth of crops pollinated by bees every year.
EPA has failed to respond to NRDC's Freedom of Information Act request for agency records concerning the toxicity of pesticides to bees, forcing the legal action.
"Recently approved pesticides have been implicated in massive bee die-offs and are the focus of increasing scientific scrutiny," said NRDC Senior Attorney Aaron Colangelo. "EPA should be evaluating the risks to bees before approving new pesticides, but now refuses to tell the public what it knows. Pesticide restrictions might be at the heart of the solution to this growing crisis, so why hide the information they should be using to make those decisions?"
In 2003, EPA granted a registration to a new pesticide manufactured by BAYOR CropScience under the condition that BAYOR submit studies about its product's impact on bees. EPA has refused to disclose the results of these studies, or if the studies have even been submitted. The pesticide in question, clothianidin, recently was banned in Germany due to concerns about its impact on bees. A similar insecticide was banned in France for the same reason a couple of years before. In the United States, these chemicals still are in use despite a growing consensus among bee specialists that pesticides, including clothianidin and its chemical cousins, may contribute to CCD.
In the past two years, some American beekeepers have reported unexplained losses of 30-90% of the bees in their hives. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), bees pollinate $15 billion worth of crops grown in America. USDA also claims that one out of every three mouthfuls of food in the typical American diet has a connection to bee pollination. As the die-offs worsen, Americans will see their food costs increase.
Despite bees' critical role for farmers, consumers, and the environment, the federal government has been slow to address the die-off since the alarm bells started in 2006. In recent Congressional hearings, USDA was unable to account for the $20 million that Congress has allocated to the department for fighting CCD in the last two years.
"This is a real mystery right now," said Dr. Gabriela Chavarria, director of NRDC's Science Center. "EPA needs to help shed some light so that researchers can get to work on this problem. This isn't just an issue for farmers -- this is an issue that concerns us all. Just try to imagine a pizza without the contribution of bees! No tomatoes. No cheese. No peppers. If you eat apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions, squash, carrots, avocados, or cherries, you need to be concerned."
Chavarria has spent more than 20 years studying bees, and has published a number of academic papers on the taxonomy, behavior and distribution of native bees.
NRDC filed the lawsuit today in federal court in Washington DC. In documents to be filed next month, NRDC will ask for a court order directing EPA to disclose its information about pesticides and bee toxicity.
More information on CCD can be found at NRDC's www.BeeSafe.org web site. EPA Buzz Kill: Is the Agency Hiding Colony Collapse Disorder Information? {Natural Resources Defense Council, Via Common Dreams} ... more -
More Bush Admin Memos Offer Up a Defense for Torturers
The ACLU today (the 24th) released three documents -- in essence, three additional "Torture Memos" from 2002-04 -- that the Bush administration has refused to disclose before now. The ACLU obtained the documents through its continuing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation against the administration.
To say the Bush administration has finally now "disclosed" these memos actually is a bit of an overstatement. Government censors have been busy: Perhaps 95% or more of the two multi-page documents in the set -- an 18-page August 1, 2002, Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo to the CIA, and a 3-page January 23, 2003, CIA memo to OLC -- are entirely redacted.
But even with all that's been cut, there is still enough here that is troubling. As early media reports have pointed out -- such as this one from the Associated Press -- the August 2002 OLC memo purports to give CIA interrogators a "good faith" defense to criminal prosecution for torture so long as they do not believe their cruel techniques would cause "prolonged mental harm." Perhaps even more ominous is the January 2003 CIA memo, which suggests that CIA agents anywhere in the world have blanket permission to use both standard and "enhanced" interrogation techniques -- collectively labeled in the memo as the "Permissible Interrogation Techniques."
More ominous still? In stating that these "Permissible Interrogation Techniques" are all that CIA agents may use "[u]nless otherwise approved" by CIA headquarters, the memo suggests that at the CIA there has been some category of interrogation techniques even more enhanced than the known "enhanced" techniques -- such as waterboarding -- that themselves are clearly torture. What were these people doing? The ACLU today (the 24th) released three documents -- in essence, three additional "Torture Memos" from 2002-04 -- that the... more -
Victims of Maryland's police infiltration speak out
In classified reports compiled by the Maryland State Police and the Department of Homeland Security, I am "Dave Z." This nickname was given by an undercover agent known to us as "Lucy." She sat in our meetings of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, smiling and engaged, taking copious notes about actions deemed threatening by the Governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich. Our seditious crimes, as Lucy reported, involved such acts as planning to set up a table at the local farmer's market and writing up a petition. Adding a dash of farce to this outrage, she was monitoring us in the liberal enclave of Takoma Park, Maryland, a place known more for vegans than violence, more for tie-dying than terrorism..
Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act and the ACLU, we now know that "Lucy" was only one part of a vast, insidious project. The Maryland State Police's Department of Homeland Security devoted near 300 hours and thousands of taxpayer dollars from 2005 and 2006 to harassing people whose only crime was dissenting on the question of the war in Iraq and Maryland's use of death row.
My dear friend Mike Stark, a board member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty is at times referred to in "Lucy's" report as a "socialist" and an "anarchist." One can only assume this is the pathetic time-honored tradition of reducing people to simple caricatures, all the better to garner Homeland Security grant money.
Veteran peace activist in Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, who initiated the suit, was as well consistently shadowed as he walked down the streets. His "primary crime" (their lingo) was entered into the homeland security database as "terrorism - anti govern(ment)." His "secondary crime" was listed as "terrorism - anti-war protestors." The database is known as the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA. Yes, a respected peace organizer of many decades standing is checked as a terrorist, his actions listed as criminal, for doing nothing more than exercising his rights. It boggles the mind.
Former police superintendent Tim Hutchins defended these totalitarian practices by saying, "You do what you think is best to protect the general populace of the state." (The article mentioned that Hutchins is now a federal defense contractor. I guess The Global War on Terror is just the gift that keeps on giving for the Hutchins family.)
But "protect the general populace" from what? The surveillance continued even after it was determined that we were planning nothing more dangerous that carrying clipboards in a public place. Hutchins and the Ehrlich administration have undertaken an ugly violation of our civil rights, manipulating fears of terrorism to stamp out dissent. In classified reports compiled by the Maryland State Police and the Department of Homeland Security, I am "Dave Z." This nic... more -
Jesse Helms on Secrecy
The late Senator Jesse Helms, who died on July 4, was an arch-conservative opponent of civil rights legislation, arms control treaties and other liberal causes. Though none of the obituaries mentioned it, he was also an outspoken critic of government secrecy.
“This government is shot through with willy-nilly applications of secrecy,” he complained in January 1995 at the first meeting of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (the Moynihan Commission), of which he was a member.
“I’ve been fussing for years about the application of secrecy on just about every document in this town,” he said then.
Senator Helms co-sponsored secrecy reform legislation based on the recommendations of the Moynihan Commission. That legislation was not enacted. But as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he helped pass legislation to require disclosure of most U.S. arms sales to foreign governments, which was signed into law.
“Secrecy all too often … becomes a political tool used by Executive Branch agencies to shield information which may be politically sensitive or policies which may be unpopular with the American public,” he testified at a Senate hearing in 1997. “Worse yet, information may be classified to hide from public view illegal or unethical activity.”
“On numerous occasions I, and other Members of Congress, have found the Executive Branch to be reluctant to share certain information, the nature of which is not truly a ‘national secret,’ but which would be potentially politically embarrassing to officials in the Executive Branch or which would make known an illegal or indefensible policy,” Sen. Helms said. The late Senator Jesse Helms, who died on July 4, was an arch-conservative opponent of civil rights legislation, arms control treaties... more -
Track every satellite in real time 3D
J Track 3D is a NASA site that allows you track every non military satellite live in 3D.
This is completely interactive.
Very similar to Google Earth
Amazing to know how much is floating above us all... J Track 3D is a NASA site that allows you track every non military satellite live in 3D. This is completely interactive. ... more -
Clinton backer distributes essay on how GOP would link Obama to '70s radicals
The most damaging new material cited by Sloan appears in a link to an FBI Freedom of Information web site -- where a viewer can examine hundreds of pages of a study of the Weather Underground and its leaders, written in 1976 by the Chicago FBI office, just at the group was disintegrating at the end of the Vietnam War.
Sloan contends that the purpose of his document is to outline what he conjectures will be the tactics of Republican operative Karl Rove, an informal adviser to John McCain's campaign, if Obama is the nominee. The title of Sloan's paper is: "What Is Rove Up To?"
Sloan argues that Rove will use Ayers and Dohrn for 'red-baiting' attacks on Obama. Rove's "target is Barack Obama's signature slogan 'Change We Can Believe In.' Rove wants to redefine it as revolutionary change, change driven by an alien ideology, change no patriotic American could stomach. And he intends to do so by channeling Senator Joseph McCarthy." The most damaging new material cited by Sloan appears in a link to an FBI Freedom of Information web site -- where a viewer can examin... more -
Key Open Government Reform Legislation Becomes Law
In one his last official acts of 2007, President Bush signed into law the first major overhaul of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in more than a decade. The Open Government Act of 2007 makes much-needed changes to the FOIA process that will give Americans better access to information about their government at work, such as:
* Ensuring that freelance and alternative journalists are considered representatives of the media, making it less expensive for them to get information from the government.
* Providing for attorney fees when a requester's lawsuit prompts an agency to change its position on a request, even if a court doesn't order it.
* Creating a tracking system to help make sure that FOIA requests don't become hopelessly tangled in red tape.
* Establishing the Office of Government Information Services, which will be tasked with helping to resolve conflicts between agencies and requesters.
* Penalizing agencies that don't process FOIA requests on time.
* Making it clear that requesters can get government records maintained by private contractors, not just the agencies themselves.
* Imposing greater reporting requirements to let Congress and the public know more about how agencies handle requests.
The changes made by the OPEN Government Act are a hard-fought victory that will help EFF and other requesters make better use of the FOIA and keep the government accountable to the people.
In the past few months, EFF's FOIA requests have uncovered illegal government demands for phone customers' "communities of interest" and revealed details about the FBI's misuse of National Security Letters. Our work was also cited in a congressional call for an investigation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. To learn more about EFF's FOIA efforts, visit our FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project page. In one his last official acts of 2007, President Bush signed into law the first major overhaul of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA... more -
Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World
CIA paparazzo Trevor Paglen is a thorn in Uncle Sam's side. Known for snapping telephoto candids of CIA planes and Area 51, the artist also gathers "patch intel," which he's collected in this provocative book (main title: "I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me"). The fruit of several Freedom of Information Act requests, Paglen's book proves that classified black opps concoct esoteric team insignias just like other military divisions. The photo-driven work presents 75 de-classified patches with colorful eagles, skulls, swords, dragons, wizards and even aliens (!). Surveying iconography that was never intended for your eyes is both exhilarating and frustrating. Decoding them is often impossible, which only leads back to the obvious: How else are our tax dollars being secretly spent? I was lucky enough to get an advance copy, so this is a bit of a tease, but the book will be available next week. And unlike grainy, questionable YouTube clips of UFOs, Big Foot and Loch Ness, in this case, seeing guarantees believing. CIA paparazzo Trevor Paglen is a thorn in Uncle Sam's side. Known for snapping telephoto candids of CIA planes and Area 51, the a... more
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Fun with the Freedom of Information Act
I'm sure you've wanted to listen in on real Gangster surveillance. Here's your chance. Hours of fun with the mob...
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Freedom of Information Act
