DHS Interrogates NY Times Reporters At Border, Then Denies Having Any Records About Them

from the right,-sure dept

Thought it was just officials at UK airports detaining and interrogating journalists? According to a new lawsuit from two NY Times reporters, they were also pulled aside and interrogated by Homeland Security officials multiple times concerning their own reporting efforts. The two reporters, Mac William Bishop and Christopher Chivers were apparently pulled out for special interrogation at JFK.

Among other things, Plaintiffs seek records used or created by DHS employees in respect to the questioning of Plaintiffs at JFK Airport earlier this year. Plaintiffs were subject to segregated questioning by DHS employees at JFK on May 24, 2013, as they prepared to board an international flight for a work assignment as journalists. Subsequently, on June 6, 2013, Mr. Bishop was subjected to further segregated questioning by DHS employees at JFK as he returned to the United States.

Given this, the two journalists filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on records pertaining to themselves... and got back absolutely nothing. After playing hot potato with the FOIA requests between different DHS agencies, the reporters basically got back messages saying that there were no records on either.

On September 27, 2013, ICE denied the Bishop Request. ICE reported in a "final response" that the unite had conducted a search and found no responsive documents.

On October 28, 2013, Mr. Bishop appealed ICE's denial. In his appeal letter, Mr. Bishop said it was "inconceivable that DHS has no records pertaining to [him]" as someone who is "a frequent international traveler." He pointed out that on June 6, 2013 he had answered questions for DHS employees in a private room at JFK, and those answers were recorded on a computer.

On November 18, 2013, ICE denied Mr. Bishop's administrative appeal, finding that the agency had done an adequate search.

As for the TSA, that unit of DHS informed Mr. Bishop by letter on July 31, 2013 that his "request was too broad in scope." TSA required more information before processing the request.

On August 9, 2013, Mr. Bishop, through counsel, responded by letter. He restated the initial request and asserted that no legal authority supports the proposition that TSA could simply refuse to do the search.

More than two months later, on October 23, 2013, TSA told Mr. Bishop's counsel that it could not find the August 9, 2013 letter. Counsel subsequently provided a new copy of the letter and additional information about the June 6, 2013 questioning at JFK. There has been no further response from TSA.

Remember how Eric Holder insisted that the feds weren't going to keep intimidating journalists? Yeah, right.

Filed Under: cbp, christopher chivers, customs and border patrol, detention, dhs, foia, ice, intimidation, journalism, mac william bishop, reporters
Companies: ny times

The Deeper Meaning Of Miranda's Detention And The Destruction Of The Guardian's Hard Drives

from the deny-and-disrupt dept

As many have already observed, the detention of David Miranda comes across as an act of blatant intimidation, as does the farcical destruction of the Guardian's hard drives. But something doesn't ring true about these episodes: spooks may be cynical and ruthless, but they are not generally clueless idiots.

They would have guessed that Miranda would not possess the keys for any encrypted files that he was carrying, so seizing his equipment simply left them with a bunch of ones and zeroes that they were unable to read (unless strong encryption has been broken and we don't yet know about it). Equally, they would have assumed that the Guardian had made backups of its files on the hard drives, so destroying them was literally quite pointless. What's really going on here? A brilliant post by author Barry Eisler, who used to work for the CIA, offers perhaps the most plausible explanation so far:

The purpose was to demonstrate to journalists that what they thought was a secure secondary means of communication -- a courier, possibly to ferry encrypted thumb drives from one air-gapped computer to another -- can be compromised, and thereby to make the journalists' efforts harder and slower.

The same is true for the destruction of the Guardian's hard drives:

The point was to make the Guardian spend time and energy developing suboptimal backup options -- that is, to make journalism harder, slower, and less secure.

What is particularly chilling, as Eisler notes, is that this technique is not new:

Does this sort of "deny and disrupt" campaign sound familiar? It should: you've seen it before, deployed against terror networks. That's because part of the value in targeting the electronic communications of actual terrorists is that the terrorists are forced to use far slower means of plotting. The NSA has learned this lesson well, and is now applying it to journalists. I suppose it's fitting that Miranda was held pursuant to a law that is ostensibly limited to anti-terror efforts. The National Surveillance State understands that what works for one can be usefully directed against the other. In fact, it's not clear the National Surveillance State even recognizes a meaningful difference.

The US and UK governments' equating of journalism and whistleblowing with terrorism is becoming clearer by the day.

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Filed Under: barry eisler, david miranda, detention, journalism

UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg Defends Hard Drive Destruction, But Not Miranda Detention

from the i-don't-think-you're-getting-this dept

With the uproar last week over both the detention of David Miranda under anti-terrorism laws and the destruction of hard drives at The Guardian's offices, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has decided to step forward to opine on both topics in the Guardian himself. As we'd pointed out already, Clegg was very involved in the decision to force the Guardian to destroy the hard drives, and he defends that position in his writeup:

I believed at the time, and still do, that it was entirely reasonable for the government to seek to get leaked documents back from the Guardian or have them destroyed. Along with the information the newspaper had published, it had information that put national security and lives at risk. It was right for us to want that information destroyed. The Guardian had decided not to publish this information: not a single sentence was censored from the newspaper as a result of the information being destroyed.

This makes almost no sense at all. It is not a reality-based argument, but a fantasy-based one. As already discussed, there are copies of the documents in multiple places. Destroying a computer does nothing at all to protect anyone. Furthermore, there is no evidence at all that the documents in question actually "put national security and lives at risk." But, even if they did, destroying the computers / hard drives does absolutely nothing to mitigate that risk. It just looks foolish and aggressive.

I don't know about you, but I prefer my politicians to recognize when they do something that has no actual impact, other than to symbolically demonstrate that they don't understand the nature of the digital era. It suggests that they are governing from a position of ignorance, and that's not a good thing.

The claim that "not a single sentence was censored from the newspaper" is also ridiculous. Yes, The Guardian already wasn't going to publish anything potentially damaging, and yes, the reporting is continuing from elsewhere, but having the government come into the offices of a major media property and demand the destruction of hard drives is a form of censorship. It's intimidation and it creates massive chilling effects for others (which, of course, was part of the point). To argue that it has no effect because the Guardian wasn't going to publish the info anyway is both ridiculous and wrong.

Of course, it's interesting to see that while Clegg is defending the indefensible above, he is not so supportive of the Miranda detention:

I was not consulted on the plans to detain him before it happened, and I acknowledge the many concerns raised about the use of schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for these purposes. There is obviously a material difference between agreeing by mutual consent that files will be destroyed, and forcibly detaining someone. Terrorism powers should be used proportionately. That is why it is immensely important that the independent reviewer of terrorism powers, David Anderson QC, reports rapidly on whether this was a legitimate use of the Terrorism Act, and whether that legislation should be adjusted. Already, we are planning to limit the schedule 7 powers. We consulted last year on a wide set of improvements – such as reducing the maximum period of detention to six hours and allowing anyone detained for more than 60 minutes access to a lawyer. This autumn we will be taking a bill through parliament to implement these changes. In my view, if Anderson provides a clearly justified recommendation to restrict these powers even further, we should seek to do so in this bill.

Of course, that's a bit of a political punt there. He doesn't come out against it, but certainly suggests he doesn't support the detention. And he does support changes to the law, but only fairly moderate ones at this point. Indeed, Clegg has been -- at times -- good on civil liberties issues, such as (as he reminds us) when he effectively stopped the UK's Snooper's Charter. But, it seems like he raises a totally false dichotomy in closing out his piece:

Criminals and terrorists now have access to a dizzying array of information, with devastating implications, while the security authorities have new tools with which to track them down. Data-mining techniques have the capacity to make government much more efficient but pose a real risk to personal privacy if taken too far. Social media can create new communities that would never have been possible before, but can also be the source of tragedy, as we have seen in a series of recent young suicides.

So a balance must be struck between a libertarian "anything goes" approach, which sees new technology as a way to escape from the reach of the law, and an authoritarian view that sees technology as a new opportunity to intrude into our lives. Technology will continue to evolve and governments worldwide will try to evolve with it. As long as Liberal Democrats are in government, I will ensure that our individual rights are not cast aside in the name of collective security.

That sounds like the all-too-typical refrain about how there needs to be a "balance" between security and liberty. But that's false. There is little evidence that taking away basic liberties actually improves security (in fact, it can harm it). And the people who are upset about the destruction of hard drives and the detention of Miranda aren't arguing for "anything goes," but rather for a basic respect for civil liberties. That's quite different, and it's unfortunate, if not tragic, that Clegg doesn't seem to understand the difference.

Filed Under: david miranda, detention, hard drive destruction, journalism, nick clegg
Companies: the guardian

US Official Admits That UK Detention Of Glenn Greenwald's Partner Was 'To Send A Message'

from the illegal-and-obnoxious dept

Buried in a Reuters report about the UK government's ridiculous decision to force the Guardian to destroy some hard drives with Snowden-related materials, is the fact that the reporter got a US official to admit that the detention of Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, was all about "sending a message" to anyone who had the Snowden documents:

One U.S. security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks.

That's what many people had assumed, but to have it admitted by an official just shows how incredibly stupid this whole thing was. The only message it sent was that the UK government has gone way overboard in abusing the law for reasons of personal thuggery, rather than any legitimate purpose. The law they used was an anti-terrorism law, and they flat out used it to intimidate the press. That's not how the government in a free country acts. The outrage over all of this (both the detention and the hard drive destruction) isn't just going to go away. These actions are, in some ways, worse than the original reports, because they confirm the petty vindictiveness of those in power against journalists doing their job in exposing the abuse of people's rights.

It's this very reason why people are so concerned about the collection of all of this data. If the government has no problem detaining people under bogus pretenses to "send a message" to journalists, while also threatening to shut down newspapers and forcing them to destroy hard drives, what else might they already be doing with all of that personal data and information they've been sucking up?

Filed Under: david miranda, detention, gchq, glenn greenwald, nsa surveillance, send a message, surveillance, terrorism

Child With Brittle Bone Disease Detained By TSA For An Hour

from the if-you're-going-to-be-oppressive-at-least-do-your-job-right dept

It's no secret that I don't think much of the TSA. In addition to a long list of pieces we've done on what I consider one of the most useless government agencies, there's also the more recent story I covered discussing whether or not the agency's operations have resulted in more deaths in the past decade than all the terrorism against American's combined. Still, there is some discussion over whether all of this freedom-taking and death is worth the fuzzy feeling we all suposedly get when boarding a plane, knowing that at least all of this asshat-ery is making us safer.

But then you hear the story of someone like Shelbi Walser, a twelve year old girl from Texas who suffers brittle bone disease and also apparently has to suffer with over-zealous federal employees that don't have enough common sense to fill a thimble.

Shelbi Walser, 12, has brittle bone disease, and was flying to Tampa, Fla., to receive treatment on Sunday when she was randomly selected for an explosives screening on her way through security. Tammy Daniels, Walser's mother, said that her daughter tested positive for explosives when a screener swabbed Walser's palms and fingers.

Speaking with ABC affiliate WFAA, Walser said that she has no idea how the traces of explosive got on her. "It could have come off fertilizer, because we have chickens. I could have run through something from them," she said. "It could have just come off the ground, because I roll through everything."

Here's the thing. Even if you believe that the threat of terrorism via explosives on airplanes is everything that the government would have you believe (and I don't), and even if you think that the methods used by the TSA can help make us safer (and I don't), we're still left with a federal agency that is given so much leeway in curtailing our liberty that they at least should get their damned jobs right. There can be such a thing as common sense in airport security, where you understand that the 12 year old Texan with brittle bone disease probably isn't going 'splode a jetliner. Certainly it seems unlikely that it would take an hour for the TSA to come to this determination.

"I am by no means undermining our safety in the air. After 9/11, by no means am I doing that," Daniels told WFAA. "But when it comes to children, common sense is not in a textbook."

This has always been the problem with the TSA: in the absence of common sense there is such a thing as the paralysis of bureaucracy, and when that paralysis comes to the people in the form of handbook-style security, then that's a win for the very people we're supposed to be protected against.

Filed Under: children, detention, failures, security theater, tsa

One Nation, Under Guard

from the with-liberty-and-justice-for-some dept

Bad news about the impending police state here in America: it's already here. From the indefinite detention (without trial) of terrorism suspects both foreign and American to the escalating militarization of our nation's police forces, there's little to indicate that any level of government is willing to "walk back" the overreach of law enforcement, much of which stems from the Patriot Act's anti-terrorism aims.

The New Yorker recently published a piece on incarceration in America, highlighting some very disturbing facts about the "land of the free:"

The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education.

More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today-perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system-in prison, on probation, or on parole-than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under "correctional supervision" in America-more than six million-than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.

So, what's contributing to this continued escalation of imprisonment? (Hint: it's not an increase in violent crime. Those numbers are at their lowest level in nearly a half-century.) No, the problem is that the justice system has been put into the position of redefining "criminal activity" while simultaneously having its sentencing discretion removed by national policies:

William J. Stuntz, a professor at Harvard Law School who died shortly before his masterwork, "The Collapse of American Criminal Justice," was published, last fall, is the most forceful advocate for the view that the scandal of our prisons derives from the Enlightenment-era, "procedural" nature of American justice. He runs through the immediate causes of the incarceration epidemic: the growth of post-Rockefeller drug laws, which punished minor drug offenses with major prison time; "zero tolerance" policing, which added to the group; mandatory-sentencing laws, which prevented judges from exercising judgment.

Exhibit A: The War on Drugs. Nothing has been more ineffectual, for a greater period of time, than the supposed War on Drugs. This is directly linked with the other points on Stuntz's list. "Zero-tolerance" policies have taken any sort of perspective or judgment out of the hands of judges and turned possession of minor amounts of controlled substances into 30-year sentences. Zero-tolerance is creeping into other areas of life as well, evidenced by public schools punishing 4-year-old students for hugging each other ("sexual harassment") or the fact that the highest percentage of additions to sexual offender registries are teen boys between the ages of 14-16. Between the growth of zero-tolerance and the expanding definition of such terms as "cyberbullying," "sexual assault" and "terrorism," it's not likely that our nation's incarceration rate will decline any time soon.

This plays right into the hands of the beneficiaries of draconian, zero-tolerance policies: privately-owned prisons.

The companies are paid by the state, and their profit depends on spending as little as possible on the prisoners and the prisons. It's hard to imagine any greater disconnect between public good and private profit: the interest of private prisons lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates but in having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible. No more chilling document exists in recent American life than the 2005 annual report of the biggest of these firms, the Corrections Corporation of America. Here the company (which spends millions lobbying legislators) is obliged to caution its investors about the risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:

Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities. . . . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

This is at least as chilling as watching our representatives blithely trampling our civil rights, perhaps even more so as you realize that there is likely some connection between mandatory sentencing and the lobbying efforts of private prisons. The enforcement arms of the US government have been pushing to criminalize more and more acts under ambiguous titles such as "cyberterrorism." There has also been little serious effort made towards scaling back either the War on Drugs or the War on Terrorism, despite all evidence pointing to minimal success in either venture.

Perhaps as a result of declining violent crime statistics, many law enforcement entities are expanding their surveillance areas with the use of spy drones. It's tough to justify budget increases if you don't have enough arrests to back up expenditures on military weapons and vehicles. The solution seems to be to cast the net wider and worry about sorting out the innocents after a few hours (or days) in lockup.

The collected legislative bodies of the United States are pitching in as well, with 40,000 new laws scheduled to go on the books in 2012 alone. While many simply deal with compliance issues or budget woes, the sheer number of new laws is bound to catch a few more "criminals," if for nothing more than a short stay for misdemeanors. Even existing laws, like the 111-year-old Lacey Act, are being used to criminalize citizens, as Gibson Guitars can attest.

In addition, immigration policies are swelling America's imprisoned ranks. ICE has detained thousands of illegal immigrants under the auspices of "detaining and deporting unauthorized immigrants who've been convicted of crimes." While it may be an admirable aim, the facts don't match up to ICE's claims (big surprise):

The FOIA request for information on all immigrants in detention on Oct. 3, 2011, turned up a list of nearly 32,300. Forty percent of those held by ICE had not been convicted of a crime, nor were they awaiting criminal trial. Despite what the term "illegal immigration" implies, simply being in the country without status is a civil, not a criminal, offense.

That's about 13,000 non-criminals sitting in detention centers funded by taxpayer dollars and, in some cases, directly benefiting private corporations. With more and more politicians looking to grab voters by touting tough immigration "reform," this will only get worse.

With the expansion of federal surveillance laws and the increase of so-called "secret laws," the government is slowly turning its citizens into criminals, often with the assistance of local law enforcement. Combine this with the still-existent "Can I see your papers?" provision of the Patriot Act, in which a 100-mile area along the US borders is basically a "Constitution-free" zone, and it's easy to see why a declining prison population isn't in our future.

While we may not be at the point where police are sweeping up so-called dissidents with door-to-door raids or locking people up for political reasons, it's really hard to see this as anything more than inevitable. And at what point do you decide that it's enough of a police state to start taking action? Is everything manageable now, but let's give it a few years? Or do we decide that this has gone too far already and a rollback is needed? Even worse, it may be too late. The Patriot Act is over a decade old and no reduction in its powers has seriously been considered by our representatives. The War on Drugs has 30+ years of increasing power and no politician has actively moved towards anything more than some slight decriminalization for medicinal marijuana (which often gets re-criminalized) or has even broached the subject of ending this so-called war.

The worst part is that we're all paying for it. Our tax dollars are being used to put our friends and neighbors in prison. Our money is used to turn 14-year-old boys into sexual offenders and incarcerate large numbers of minorities. It's extracted complicity and as long as those in power continue to see no reprisal for these actions, it will continue until it's truly too late.

Filed Under: detention, jail time, police state, prisons, us

TSA Critic, Senator Rand Paul, Prevented By TSA From Getting On His Flight To DC

from the he-might-be-a-terrorist dept

Senator Rand Paul has frequently criticized the TSA and its security theater at airports both for being intrusive and (more importantly) for not being effective. He's made the point repeatedly that it's a mistake to simply assume everyone may be a terrorist. So it's interesting to note that Paul himself was unable to board his flight to DC today after the TSA refused to let him through security. Apparently the scanner machine spotted something, and Paul refused a pat down. There was some dispute over whether or not he was "detained." The TSA denies "detention," which actually is an important issue, since you cannot detain elected officials on their way to Congress, according to Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution:

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

While the TSA says this wasn't a detention, it does raise questions over whether or not Senator Paul was "questioned in any other Place" while "going to..." his "respective" House. The White House put out a statement that kinda misses the point:

"I think it is absolutely essential that we take the necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe, and I believe that’s what TSA is tasked with doing."

Sure, it's essential. But does anyone think that patting down a US Senator has anything to do with ensuring that air travel is safe?

Filed Under: detention, privacy, rand paul, tsa

96% of Congressmen Agree: Bad Legislation Is Easier To Craft In Secret

from the what-the-public-doesn't-know-will-probably-hurt-them dept

We recently discussed the National Defense Authorization Act currently working its way through the House and Senate. Both have passed their respective bills but some debate continues over a controversial provision which aims to extend indefinite military detention (without charge or trial) to cover US citizens, rather than just foreign terrorist suspects.

The whole "indefinite military detention" aspect of the bill is heinous enough even if it just ends up being used against foreign suspects. But the decision to declare US territory as a "war zone" in order to mobilize the military against US citizens is particularly worrisome. Due to the fact that this provision is highly controversial and yet another in a long line of post-PATRIOT Act attacks on the Bill of Rights, Congress has decided to move the discussion behind closed doors, presumably to avoid any scrutiny from the very public it wishes to foist this legislation upon. The vote wasn't even close:

With the House having voted 406-17 to "close" portions of the meetings and avoid public scrutiny, members from both chambers and both parties are meeting in a secretive conference committee to work on reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. On the military detention provision, their main task is going to be to find a solution that can pass both chambers (again) and not draw a veto from President Obama.

Here is the very brief list of representatives who still believe that government still has something to do with being "by the people, for the people":

Justin Amash (MI)
Earl Blumenauer (OR)
Yvette Clarke (NY)
John Conyers (MI)
Peter DeFazio (OR)
Keith Ellison (MN)
Sam Farr (CA)
Raul Grijaiva (AZ)
Michael Honda (CA)
Dennis Kucinich (OH)
Barbara Lee (CA)
John Lewis (GA)
James McDermott (WA)
John Oliver (MA)
Ron Paul (TX)
Fortney Stark (CA)
Lynn Woolsey (CA)

As depressing as it is that only 17 representatives out of the 423 voting would stand up for government openness, it's even more depressing that the threat of a veto doesn't carry much weight. The administration is not altogether opposed to this provision, as is evidenced by this Statement of Administrative Policy:

Section 1031 attempts to expressly codify the detention authority that exists under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) (the "AUMF"). The authorities granted by the AUMF, including the detention authority, are essential to our ability to protect the American people from the threat posed by al-Qa'ida and its associated forces, and have enabled us to confront the full range of threats this country faces from those organizations and individuals. Because the authorities codified in this section already exist, the Administration does not believe codification is necessary and poses some risk. After a decade of settled jurisprudence on detention authority, Congress must be careful not to open a whole new series of legal questions that will distract from our efforts to protect the country. While the current language minimizes many of those risks, future legislative action must ensure that the codification in statute of express military detention authority does not carry unintended consequences that could compromise our ability to protect the American people.

Basically, the administration is expressing its "concern" and advising Congress to pass clarifying legislation in the future. Of course, the legislation the House wanted to pass will already be on the books and judging by the swift passage of both the House and Senate versions, combined with this overwhelming vote for secrecy, there's no reason to believe Congress will ever feel the urge to dial back its overreach.

In fact, the only thing the administration strongly opposes enough to deploy a veto is the provision that would mandate this power be used against all terrorist suspects besides US citizens.

The Administration strongly objects to the military custody provision of section 1032, which would appear to mandate military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects.

The adminstration wants to retain its power to detain suspected terrorists outside the context of war and the Geneva Convention protections, but (at least according to this statement) it's much less concerned about mobilizing the military against US citizens. So the controversial Section 1031 can likely remain intact, unlike the Bill of Rights. It would be the Section 1032 mandate that would need to be altered to fit the administration's desires, namely broad power over suspected foreign terrorists.

The long and the short of it is that the government wants to retain its worldwide overreach and is more than willing to extend this grasp to US citizens, provided detaining the home crowd indefinitely doesn't interfere with detaining the visiting team indefinitely. All of this is being done under the pretense of keeping the US safe. And nothing's safer for citizens than being in indefinite "protective" custody, apparently.

Filed Under: detention, national defense authorization act, secrecy, transparency

ICE Redefines Detainment For Wikileaks Helper: You're Not Being Detained, You Just Can't Leave

from the our-government-at-work dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about computer security expert, Tor developer and Wikileaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum, who was regularly being detained and intimidated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials each time he (a US citizen) traveled into the country. If you follow Jacob's Twitter feed, you get detailed descriptions each time he flies back into the country of the hassles he has to go through. Every time he's detained and never once given an explanation for why or what is being searched for. He's often lied to and frequently told that it's a "random" search. He certainly knows enough that he wipes all of his electronic equipment before traveling across the border.

In the latest case, upon returning from a conference in Europe by flying into Houston, Appelbaum again asked his detainers why he was being detained, and was once again not given a straight answer. He knows that there's something on the screen that they pull up on their computers, but they refuse to provide him with any info. This time, they even went so far as to redefine detainment, telling him that he wasn't being detained, but that he just couldn't go until they were done with him. Perhaps he should send Homeland Security a copy of a dictionary with the definition of "detained" highlighted.

Of course, this is also the same Jacob Appelbaum whom the US government has been secretly requesting information on from various online service providers, as the US government seeks to make its case against Wikileaks. Is it really so difficult for the US government to be upfront with Appelbaum about why he's being detained? Is it really a matter of national security that they can't say "hey, look, the Justice Department is frantically trying to find something -- anything -- that can be used in a case against Wikileaks, and we're coming up blank, so we're going to search your computer equipment based on nothing, just in case you might have something in there that we can use to prosecute Julian Assange."

Filed Under: airport, detention, homeland security, ice, jacob appelbaum

Students Given Detention Just For Becoming 'Fans' Of A Page Making Fun Of A Teacher

from the not-a-fan dept

We've been seeing more and more stories like this, as various schools seem to overstep the boundaries of school property into the online world to try to regulate student speech. It's highly questionable as to whether or not they have the legal right to do so (and, in fact, there are cases that suggest that there's a significant limit to how much schools can even prevent students from speaking out while on campus as well). This latest case, sent in by reader Keyop, highlights a high school in Syracuse that gave detention to a group of students who had joined a Facebook group that made fun of a teacher. The school claims that the page about the group was derogatory and libelous. Even if we accept that's true, this seems to step over the line in a variety of ways. First, students always make fun of teachers they don't like. It's part of being in high school. Pretending you can stop that isn't going to change the human nature of teenagers. Second, even if the content is libelous, at most, shouldn't the detention have only been given to those who actually posted the libelous information, rather than to everyone who became a "fan" or "member" of the group?

Filed Under: detention, facebook, students, teachers