Department of Homeland Security // Current

White House seeks to halt release of 17 detainees

Again, we see this administration that thinks it is above the law..even the Supreme Court. Why? They have much to hide..here is the article, and the rest at the link

This week could see a remarkable moment in American legal history, as 17 Guantanamo detainees are on the verge of being let out of prison. On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered the men released into the U.S. and told the Bush administration to produce the men in his courtroom Friday morning.

The detainees are 17 Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, who have been held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for nearly seven years. In past decades, the U.S. government has treated the group as Chinese nationalists. But in 2003, in an effort to accommodate the Communist Chinese government, the Bush administration listed one of the Uighur groups as a terrorist organization, using the designation as a rationale for the Uighurs' continued detention at Guantanamo.

However, a largely conservative panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled in June that the group is not hostile to the U.S. and that the administration had produced no reliable information to justify holding the Uighurs. The case was then sent back to a lower court for further action, including the possibility of release.

Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina said Tuesday that, in essence, enough is enough. Whatever authority the government may have had for detaining the Uighurs has ceased, he said.

The government now concedes these men are not enemy combatants, Urbina noted, and has provided no other justification for detention.

Uighurs living in the United States have arranged for 17 families to take the men until more permanent arrangements can be made. Urbina said he would hear from the Department of Homeland Security as to any conditions it would like imposed on the men after release — conditions that could include a ban on travel and requirements that the men report to authorities on a regular basis. The judge reacted angrily, however, when Bush administration lawyers suggested they could imprison the men in the U.S. once the Uighurs are transferred here. It is expected he will forbid that.

As luck would have it, one of the lawyers for the Uighurs was in Guantanamo on Tuesday and told the men of their court victory. The lawyer is not permitted to talk about the men's reaction by phone under classification rules.

The Chinese government on Tuesday again demanded that the men be returned, but the U.S. has refused because it concedes they would be tortured and possibly killed. The Chinese government sees the Uighurs as a threat because many of them want greater autonomy from Beijing.Again, we see this administration that thinks it is above the law..even the Supreme Court. Why? They have much to hide..here is... more

WorldPeaceTV
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1 month ago

DHS satellite spy program going forward despite objections

The Department of Homeland Security has been given the money it needs to begin turning international spy satellites within the... more

buttcrack
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2 months ago

Internal DHS Documents Detail Expansion of Power to Read and Copy Travelers' Papers

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... more

TheRealEdwin
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2 months ago

Don't look up! GeoEye Is Watching

Let the tracking begin! Excerpts from company's web site: GeoEye is the premier provider of geospatial information for... more

1percent
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3 months ago

Australia warns of high risk of terror attacks on US flights

Australia warns of high risk of terror attacks on US flights Australia on Sunday warned of a "high risk" of terror... more

TravG73
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3 months ago

Canadian privacy and security experts assail US laptop seizure policy

Traveling between the United States and Canada this year? Your laptop, iPod, mobile phone, USB drive, books, videos, and other... more

kinolina
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3 months ago

Border Park Visitors Face New Controls

Community groups are concerned about the Department of Homeland Security's plans to build a giant fence down the middle of a park that marks the westernmost border between the United States and Mexico.

"This is an area where families with members on both sides of the border can get together on the beach and have a picnic, or bring a new born baby to show to a relative on the other side," said John Fanestil, executive director of San Diego Foundation for Change. "All that will be lost if this new fence is built."

The area, officially known as Border Field State Park, is called Friendship Park by most locals. It spans the southernmost part of San Diego, in the United States, and the northernmost part of Tijuana, in Mexico.

Border Field State Park was first bisected by a fence in 1994 as part of "Operation Gatekeeper," a Clinton administration effort to reinforce border controls. The fence installed at that time is a simple chain link fence that visitors can see through as they socialize with friends and family on the other side.

The new fence, currently under construction, is mandated under the Secure Fence Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2006. It is expected to be much more imposing.

Representatives of the Department of Homeland Security did not return phone calls and e-mails by deadline, and a spokesperson for California State Parks system told OneWorld she had "no idea" about the new fence's design or route. But observers say there's little doubt what form the new barrier will take.

"If it's like the fencing put up elsewhere along the border near San Diego, there will be two fences made with triple strength concertina wire," explained David Danelo, a former Marine Corps Captain and author of the new book The Border: Exploring the U.S.-Mexico Divide. "There will be one fence, 150-meter dead zone that's big enough for a vehicle to drive, and then the second fence."

The system, Danelo said, is called Sandia fencing, because it was developed at the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. According to the organization Taxpayers for Common Sense, Sandia fencing costs $800,000 per mile to install and $7,000 a year to maintain.

**continues**Community groups are concerned about the Department of Homeland Security's plans to build a giant fence down the middle of a... more

goldenways
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3 months ago

Blogger writes about her experience with Homeland Security upon returning from Syria

We got to an enclosed holding area in the arrivals section of the airport. He shoved the folder into my hand and gestured toward four sets of Homeland Security guards sitting at large desks. Attached to each desk were metal poles capped with red, white and blue siren lights. I approached two guards carrying weapons and wearing uniforms similar to New York City police officers, but they shook their heads, laughed and said, "Over there," pointing in the direction of four overflowing holding pens. I approached different desks until I found an official who nodded and shoved my green folder in a crowded metal file holder. When I asked him why I was there, he glared at me, took a sip from his water bottle, bit into a sandwich, and began to dig between his molars with his forefinger. I found a seat next to a man who looked about my age -- in his late 20s -- and waited.

Omar (not his real name) finished his fifth year in biomedical engineering at City College in June. He had just arrived from Beirut, where he visited his family and was waiting to go home to the apartment he shared with his brother in Harlem. Despite his near-perfect English and designer jeans, Omar looked scared. He rubbed his hands and rocked softly in his seat. He had been waiting for hours already, and, as he pointed out, a number of people -- some sick, elderly, pregnant or holding sobbing babies -- had too. There were approximately 70 people detained in our cordoned-off section: All were Arab (with the exception of me and the friend I traveled with), and almost all had arrived from Dubai, Amman or Damascus. Many were U.S. citizens.

We were in the front row, sitting a few feet from two guards' desks. They sneered at each bewildered arrival, told jokes in whispers, swiveled in their office chairs and greeted passing guards who stopped to talk -- guards who had a habit of looping their fingers into their holsters. One asked his friend how many nationalities were represented in the room. "About 20. Some of everything today."

No one who had been detained knew precisely why they were there. A few people were led into private rooms; others were questioned out in the open at desks a few feet from the crowd and then allowed to pass through customs. Some were sent to another section of the holding area with large computer screens and cameras, and then brought back. The uninformed consensus among the detainees was that some people would be fingerprinted, have their irises scanned and be sent back to the countries from which they had disembarked, regardless of citizenship status; others would be fingerprinted and allowed to stay; and the unlucky ones would be detained indefinitely and moved to a more permanent facility.

There was one British tourist in the group. Paul (also not his real name) was traveling with three friends who had passed through customs soon after their plane landed and were waiting for him on the other side of the metal barrier; he suspected he had been detained because of his dark skin. When he asked if he could go to the bathroom, one of the guards said, "I wouldn't." "What if someone has to?" I asked. "They will just have to hold it," the guard responded with a smile. Paul began to cry. I watched as he, over the course of four hours, went from feeling exuberant about his trip to New York to despising the entire country. "I speak the Queen's English," he said to me. "I'm third-generation British. I came to America because I've always wanted to come here, and now they've got me so scared that all I want to do is go home. We're paying for your stupid war anyway."

More in the link...We got to an enclosed holding area in the arrivals section of the airport. He shoved the folder into my hand and gestured toward... more