Sharyl Attkisson Sues Justice Department For Hacking Her CBS Laptop Over Benghazi Reports Even Though That Didn't Happen

from the crazypants! dept

Let's dispense with the formalities and get right to the heart of this matter: Sharyl Attkisson, former CNN and CBS journalist, appears to be losing control. Sharyl, purportedly a human, thinking person, has filed a lawsuit against Eric Holder and the justice department for hacking into her computer a few years back, ostensibly because she was reporting on the Benghazi attacks.

Investigative Journalist Sharyl Attkisson has filed administrative claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act against the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Postal Service, and certain unnamed employees and/or agents of the federal government. Attkisson has also filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia alleging certain violations of her constitutional rights based on information implicating the federal government in illegal electronic monitoring and surveillance of her home and business computers and phones from 2011 to 2013.

Now, look, the United States government's horrific domestic surveillance policies have done it no favors in this instance. After all, the trust the average American places in our DC-based overlords has fallen measurably over the past few years. That said, the evidence Attkisson has been offering up these past several years, first in a book she wrote and now in a lawsuit, isn't so much evidence of government surveillance as it is jumping at technological shadows. First, the claims in her book make no sense. Robert Graham from Errata Security broke them down to demonstrate the problems:

Attkisson says "My television is misbehaving. It spontaneously jitters, mutes, and freeze-frames". This is not a symptom of hackers. Instead, it's a common consumer complaint caused by the fact that cables leading to homes (and inside the home) are often bad. My TV behaves like this on certain channels.

She says "I call home from my mobile phone and it rings on my end, but not at the house", implying that her phone call is being redirected elsewhere. This is a common problem with VoIP technologies. Old analog phones echoed back the ring signal, so the other side had to actually ring for you to hear it. New VoIP technologies can't do that. The ringing is therefore simulated and has nothing to do with whether it's ringing on the other end. This is a common consumer complaint with VoIP systems, and is not a symptom of hacking.

It goes on like that. What most of this appears to amount to is the everyday technological hiccups that most of us recognize as "that machine acting funky, so I'll just reboot or try again", unless we're the type to don a hat made of stuff that is supposed to keep the meat fresh in the fridge. Like so many of these types of conspiracy claims, the entire thing rests on a logical criss-cross: the goverment is so all-powerful that they have managed to get into all my tech and are personally screwing with me because I'm so important, but they're also so completely terrible at it that I can see all the signs of their nefarious deeds around me. You can actually see this fallacy at work within her book, as she goes on to quote the "experts" she's "consulted" but won't name.

Attkisson quotes one expert as saying intrusions of this caliber are "far beyond the the abilities of even the best nongovernment hackers", while at the same time quoting another expert saying the "ISP address" is a smoking gun pointing to a government computer.

Both can't be true. Hiding ones IP address is the first step in any hack. You can't simultaneously believe that these are the most expert hackers ever for deleting log files, but that they make the rookie mistake of using their own IP address rather than anonymizing it through Tor or a VPN. It's almost always the other way around: everyone (except those like the Chinese who don't care) hides their IP address first, and some forget to delete the log files.

Notable as well are the lack of technical details within the book's claims. Also notable was the awesomeness of this video that Attkisson released. Oooooh, spooky! What could possibly explain this if not MiB h4x0rs?

Computer security experts who reviewed the video suggested to Media Matters that it seemed to show the results of a stuck backspace key rather than hacking, and said the government and other sophisticated hacking enterprises were unlikely to use such methods.

Matthew Brothers-McGrew, a senior specialist at Interhack Corp. in Columbus, Ohio, said that sometimes computers "malfunction, a key can get stuck, sometimes dirt can get under a keyboard and a key will inadvertently be held down." He explained that sometimes there can be software issues "where the computer will think a key is held down in fact it is not," and said that his firm tested holding down the backspace key on a computer in their offices, and found "if you have Word open it will continually backspace text at about the same rate we are seeing in the video."

Not that any of this has slowed Attkisson down, of course. She has since moved forward with her lawsuit against the government, in which she would like $35 million dollars, please. Most everyone covering the story are equally as unimpressed with the lawsuit as they were with the book. Here's one nice summary.

Let’s break this down. Attkisson supplied her laptop to an unnamed “government forensics computer expert in the intelligence community”—via an unnamed “contact”—who later asserted “clear evidence” of an “intrusion” from “sources” that appeared to be “state-supported” because of the “the nature of the technology used.” Later, Attkisson received her laptop and the expert’s report through another unnamed “intermediary.” Believing that any of this is true, or even slightly true, requires faith in the judgment and ability of three individuals that Attkisson refuses to name—one of whom she apparently has never met in person.

Seems legit. Actually, no, no it doesn't. What this seems like is a sensational lawsuit aimed at self-aggrandization. Now, I know what you're thinking: But, Tim, all this means is that you're part of the lizard-people Benghazi-death conspiracy, too! Maybe I am and maybe I ain't, but that doesn't change the fact that Sharyl Attkisson's lawsuit is a big bucket of unsubstantiated nonsense.

Filed Under: benghazi, cybersecurity, doj, eric holder, hacking, sharyl attkisson

Irony Alert: DOJ Leaked To Press Decision Not To Force Reporter James Risen To Reveal Who Leaked Info To Him

from the doj-made-a-lol dept

On Friday, we wrote about reports that the DOJ had decided not to force Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Risen to reveal an intelligence community source for a story he wrote years ago -- though he still may be subpoenaed and put on the stand about other stuff (and it's not entirely clear if he'll agree to do that). However, there was a bit of irony in all of this: the DOJ leaked this information to the press. Risen's lawyer told reporter Jana Winter that they hadn't received any official word when the stories started appearing in the press, and there hadn't been any official government filing. The NY Times reports the same thing. Instead, it was just reported in the press as "according to a person familiar with the decision."

In other words, it "leaked" from the DOJ.

Or, more specifically, it leaked from the DOJ that it wouldn't seek to put a reporter in jail for refusing to say who leaked other information to him, as it still looks to put that original leaker in jail.

The entire situation was driven by the DOJ's attempt to totally crackdown on leaks that the administration doesn't like. As we've discussed, the Obama administration has (like no other administration in history) declared war on leakers and whistleblowers. It has used the Espionage Act (which is supposed to be used against spies) more than double all other Presidents combined to prosecute those involved in leaks, including journalists. The administration has set up an "Insider Threat Program" and produced a document comparing leaks to "aiding the enemies of the United States."

And, yet... when the government leaks out information that makes the administration look good, suddenly no one has a problem. For years, even when there are leaks that might be said to "compromise national security," so long as they make the administration "look good" no one cares. There are no investigations or freakouts or threats to put reporters or leakers in jail.

And thus, here we are, with the final chapter in the ridiculous Risen intimidation saga involving the DOJ leaking to the press the information that it won't seek to put him in jail for not revealing who leaked him information.

I'm guessing that there will be no investigation at all into who "leaked" this particular information.

Filed Under: doj, eric holder, james risen, leaks, prosecution, subpoena, whistleblowers

Eric Holder Blinks: Won't Force Reporter James Risen To Reveal Source (Or Send Him To Jail)

from the could-have-done-that-a-while-ago dept

As we noted last month, the feds have started gearing up to try to force reporter James Risen to reveal his source on some CIA reporting from a few years ago. Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has been facing this threat for years. He's made a compelling case that the whole thing was just to punish him for his reporting. The DOJ had no need for Risen to reveal his source (the DOJ basically knows who it is) and the whole thing is over a really minor issue. It really seemed like the whole thing was set up to see if they could force Risen to cough up the name to guarantee that future whistleblowers wouldn't be able to trust Risen any more.

Well, that backfired big time.

Earlier this week, the judge in the case told the DOJ that it had one week to decide if it was going to call Risen as a witness:

Since June 2,2014, the United States has had over six months to decide whether it will subpoena James Risen to testify at this trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday, January 12, 2015. Because Mr. Risen's presence or absence at the trial will have a significant impact on how the parties present their case, a decision about Mr. Risen must be made sufficiently before trial to enable the parties to prepare adequately.

Combine that with Eric Holder's repeated promise that he wouldn't put a reporter in jail (with the ridiculous loophole that depended on whether Holder decided that reporter was "doing his job" or doing something that Holder decided was not, in fact, "his job") and it should come as little surprise that Holder has now blinked and said that the DOJ will not force Risen to reveal his source. Instead, the DOJ says that if they ask Risen to testify, it'll solely be to "confirm that he had an agreement with a confidential source, and that he did write the book."

It's great that the DOJ is basically no longer threatening Risen with jail, but there is no reason at all that it had to wait so many years and go right down to the judge-imposed wire. Instead, the DOJ let Risen dangle for many years with the threat that he might have to go to jail to protect a source. That's ridiculous and a shameful abuse of power to intimidate a great journalist.

Of course, there's one upside for Risen: if you're a whistleblower looking for a journalist you can trust, it looks like the DOJ just vouched for Risen's credibility in keeping his sources secret.

Filed Under: cia, doj, eric holder, intimidation, james risen, journalists, source protection, sources

Feds Gearing Up To Try, One More Time, To Force James Risen To Reveal His Source

from the showdown dept

Last week, we noted that Attorney General Eric Holder was hinting that the DOJ was near "a resolution" with reporter James Risen -- the NY Times reporter who the DOJ has been harassing and trying to force to give up sources. In a recent interview, Risen makes the rather compelling case, that this effort by the DOJ was never about actually solving any sort of crime (the DOJ knows who did the leak), but rather about totally discrediting and/or punishing Risen for some of his other investigative reports. If the DOJ can undermine the ability of Risen to protect sources, he loses many sources.

Still, at about the same time that Holder was (again) insisting that no journalists would go to jail under his watch and that they were close to a resolution with Risen, the DOJ was exploring the possibility of issuing yet another subpoena on Risen to try (again) to force him to reveal his sources:

Federal prosecutors obtained 100 blank subpoenas last week for use in the upcoming trial of a CIA officer accused of leaking top-secret information to New York Times reporter James Risen.

The move clears the way for the Justice Department to proceed with a new review of whether Risen should be subpoenaed to testify at the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA employee accused of disclosing details of a CIA effort to set back Iran's nuclear program.

Some of this is procedural. The DOJ put some new rules in place since the last subpoena, and so there's an argument that in order to review the possibility of a new Risen subpoena, the DOJ basically has to do all the initial legwork, and then the DOJ (and Holder in particular) will "review" under the new rules before determining whether to try this silly process again or to back down. Of course, that seems silly. It seems much more viable to just come out and say that they won't subpoena reporters like this and make that a clear and stated rule. But the DOJ seems unwilling to give up this harassment and intimidation tool.

In the end, it seems likely that Holder will fold, but this game of chicken, putting the threat of jail time on Risen to see who blinks first, is really quite disgraceful by the DOJ. So far, Risen has given no indication he intends to comply -- and has held to the same story all along, that he will not give up his sources under any circumstance. Holder, on the other hand, has promised not to put a reporter doing his job in jail. If both men live up to their word, Holder is the one who needs to blink, and it's pretty stupid to go through this whole charade in the meantime.

Filed Under: doj, eric holder, james risen, journalism, leaks, protecting sources, sources, subpoena, whistleblowing

Eric Holder Says He Regrets Lying To A Judge And Saying A Reporter Was A 'Co-Conspirator' But The Law Made Him Do It

from the uh,-no-it-didn't dept

Giving a talk at the Washington Ideas Forum, outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder spoke about two different (though, similarly named) journalists that the DOJ has been absolutely egregious in trying to abuse for the sake of questionable leak investigations. Regarding James Risen, the NY Times reporter who the DOJ has been pursuing and demanding he reveal sources concerning a leak (when it's clear the DOJ already knows the source and is just doing this to destroy Risen's credibility with sources), Holder says that the DOJ expects "a resolution" in the near future. That's not too surprising. Holder and the DOJ seem to realize that actually putting Risen in jail (the next step in the process) probably wouldn't go over very well.

But it's the other journalist where things get a bit dicier. That's Fox News reporter James Rosen (note the different letter from Risen). Rosen, you may recall, had his phone, email and security badge records grabbed by the government, after the DOJ told a court that Rosen wasn't a reporter, but "an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator" in the "crime" of leaking classified information about North Korea from the State Department. It later came out that the DOJ actually pretended Rosen was involved in a bombing in its motions to the court.

Holder was asked if there was a decision during his tenure that he regretted, and he brought up the Rosen story:

Holder: I think that -- I think about the subpoena to the Fox reporter, Rosen. I think that I could have been a little more careful in looking at the language that was contained in the filing that we made with the court. He was labeled as a -- as a co-conspirator. I mean, you had to do that as a result of the statute, but there are ways in which I think that could have been done differently, done better. And that's one of the reasons why I thought the criticism that we received because of that -- and the AP matter as well -- was something that we had to act upon and why we put in place this review of our -- the way in which we interact with the media.

Except, as Julian Sanchez points out, that's completely bogus. Holder claiming they had to do that because of the statute is flat out opposites-ville. They had to do that because the statute doesn't allow them to spy on journalists. The law was designed to stop the DOJ from spying on journalists, and so the only way to break that was to lie to the court. The law in question -- 18 USC 793 is designed to only apply to the people actually committing the crime of leaking defense information -- and not to reporters.

Holder claiming that the statute effectively "forced" him into declaring Rosen a co-conspirator is ridiculous. The statute compels him not to seize Rosen's records. Holder is admitting that the DOJ lied to the court here and trying to blame the statute for that lie. That's astounding.

Filed Under: doj, eric holder, investigations, james risen, james rosen, leaks, reporters, terrorism, whistleblowers

Eric Holder's Near Total Lack Of Concern For Digital Rights

from the disappointing-legacy dept

We already discussed Eric Holder's absolute failure on issues related to the press and media, but a great article by Tim Wu in the New Yorker details how Holder's legacy is littered with him totally failing the digital world through a combination of ignorance, neglect and simply poor decision-making. Wu points to the prosecutions of both Chelsea Manning and Aaron Swartz as examples, noting Holder's awful response when asked about the Swartz prosecution:

Holder himself did not run that prosecution, and cannot be blamed directly for it. But, in the aftermath of Swartz’s suicide, he was presented with an opportunity to step back and examine what had happened. He might have taken a careful look at how the Justice Department was enforcing the underlying law, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which, as I and others have argued, is among the worst and most dangerous sections of United States federal law. If he had, he might have noticed that the Swartz prosecution wasn’t the first of its kind and wouldn’t be the last, and pushed for better enforcement guidelines for federal prosecutors.

Holder did not take that path—the kind of reflection, notably, that he would demand of the Ferguson police department. Instead, he blandly defended his prosecutors, and even testified before the Senate that prosecuting Swartz was “a good use of prosecutorial discretion.” In that moment, he lost a good deal of the tech community’s goodwill and respect.

On the question of Ed Snowden and surveillance, Wu notes that Holder failed to uphold the Constitution in blocking the abuses, but rather appears to have signed off on them.

Holder didn’t initiate the bulk collection of phone or e-mail records; nor did he run the N.S.A. But Holder, as the Administration’s top lawyer for half a dozen years, nonetheless bears responsibility for these gross and repeated violations of Constitutional principles. It is ultimately the Justice Department’s duty to stand up for the Constitution when other parts of government want to abandon it, and this Holder failed to do.

There's more in the article as well, but the key point seems to be that Holder just seemed fundamentally unconcerned about digital rights, and that's a problem in an increasingly digital world:

Mainly, in the end, Holder seems to have not truly grasped that our rights matter online as well as offline. He never appeared sensitive to the idea that having our e-mails read by the government can be as intrusive and as unpleasant as having government agents rifle through our desks. Whatever the reason, and even if his commitment to civil rights did not waver, his disregard for digital rights was blatant and painful for those who looked to and hoped for an Obama Administration that would become the much promised “tech Presidency.”

The fact that the rumored "leading" choice to replace Holder is current Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, the former top litigator for both the MPAA and RIAA -- who handled the lawsuits against Grokster, YouTube and Jammie Thomas, among others, doesn't exactly bode well that Holder's successor will be much of a champion of digital rights either. There are, however, some other choices on the table apparently, and it would be nice if future attorneys general actually recognized the importance of digital rights as well.

Filed Under: attorney general, civil rights, digital rights, eric holder, privacy, technology

Absolutely Disgusting: Eric Holder Implies That Mobile Encryption Will Lead To Dead & Abused Kids

from the shameful dept

Well, you knew it was coming. First, law enforcement trotted out random low level "law enforcement officials" to freak out about Apple and Google's announced plans to make encryption the default on mobile phones. Then it got taken up a notch when FBI boss James Comey lashed out at the idea, bizarrely arguing that merely encrypting your data made individuals "above the law" (none of that is accurate). And, now, Comey's boss, Attorney General Eric Holder has stepped up to issue a similar warning. However, Holder has cynically chosen to do so at the Biannual Global Alliance Conference Against Child Sexual Abuse Online.

At this point, it's all too predictable that when anyone in power is getting ready to take away your rights, they'll figure out a way to claim that it's "for the children!" The statements over the past week by law enforcement, Comey and now Holder are clearly a coordinated attack -- the start of the new crypto wars (a repeat of what we went through a decade and a half ago), designed to pass some laws that effectively cripple encryption and put backdoors in place. Holder's take on this is to cynically pull on heartstrings about "protecting the children" despite this having nothing, whatsoever, to do with that.

When a child is in danger, law enforcement needs to be able to take every legally available step to quickly find and protect the child and to stop those that abuse children. It is worrisome to see companies thwarting our ability to do so.

Again, as stated last week, the same argument could be made about walls and doors and locks.

It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy.

The key issue here is "adequately" and forgive many of us for saying so, but the public no longer trusts the DOJ/NSA/FBI to handle these things appropriately. And, just as importantly, we have little faith that the backdoors that the DOJ is pushing for here aren't open to abuse by others with malicious intent. Protecting personal privacy is about protecting personal privacy -- and the way you do that is with encryption. Not backdoors.

But Holder used this opportunity to cynically pile on about criminals using encryption, rather than noting any of the important benefits towards privacy they provide:

Recent technological advances have the potential to greatly embolden online criminals, providing new methods for abusers to avoid detection. In some cases, perpetrators are using cloud storage to cheaply and easily store tens of thousands of images and videos outside of any home or business – and to access those files from anywhere in the world. Many take advantage of encryption and anonymizing technology to conceal contraband materials and disguise their locations.

The DOJ has long wanted to restart the crypto wars that it lost (very badly) last time around (even though that "loss" helped enable parts of the internet to thrive by making it more secure). For years it's been looking to do things like reopen wiretapping statutes like CALEA and mandate wiretap backdoors into all sorts of technology. Now it's cynically jumping on this bit of news about Apple and Google making it just slightly easier to protect your privacy to try to re-open those battles and shove through new laws that will emphatically decrease your privacy.

Filed Under: children, encryption, eric holder, fud, hype, mobile

Eric Holder Was The Worst Attorney General For The Press In A Generation: We Deserve Better

from the but-will-we-get-it dept

Attorney General Eric Holder announced he would resign yesterday, after serving as the nation’s top law enforcement official since President Obama came into office in 2009. Holder will leave behind a complex and hotly debated legacy at the Justice Department on many issues, but one thing is clear: he was the worst Attorney General on press freedom issues in a generation, possibly since Richard Nixon’s John Mitchell pioneered the subpoenaing of reporters and attempted to censor the Pentagon Papers.

Holder presided over the largest legal crackdown on journalists’ sources in American history. Under his watch, the Justice Department prosecuted more sources and whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined, and many of those cases directly led to surveillance of reporters. In one, the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed twenty Associated Press phone lines, gathering information on over one hundred AP reporters. In another, the Justice Department accused Fox News reporter James Rosen in court documents of being a “co-conspirator” and “aiding and abetting” State Department employee Stephen Kim in violating the Espionage Act. Both moves by the Justice Department were personally approved by the Attorney General.

After a loud public backlash, the Justice Department recently tightened its media guidelines, but that hasn’t stopped them from attempting to force one of the nation’s best national security reporters, New York Times’ James Risen, into jail for refusing to testify against an alleged source. In Risen’s case, the Justice Department caused the most damage to reporter’s privilege in decades when it convinced the Fourth Circuit to do away with the privilege in its jurisdiction altogether. Shamefully, Holder’s Justice Department argued in front of the Court of Appeals that not only did Risen not qualify for reporter’s privilege, but the privilege did not exist at all, literally comparing reporters who protect sources who tell them about sensitive information to receiving drugs from a drug dealer and refusing to talk about it.

Despite all this, Eric Holder had previously promised that, “As long as I’m attorney general, no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail.” How the Justice Department could pursue contempt of court charges against Risen but keep him out of jail was unknown. But now that Holder is stepping down, the Justice Department is not obligated to abide by his promise.

The Justice Department’s pursuit of Risen has led to a petition signed by over 100,000 citizens, and over twenty Pulitzer Prize winners issued statements condemning it. The Justice Department has still refused to drop its pursuit.

And often forgotten in the Justice Department’s awful crackdown on the press, is its sprawling, four-year grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks for publishing classified State and Defense Department documents in 2010 and 2011, under a “conspiracy to commit espionage” theory where WikiLeaks may or may not have asked source Chelsea Manning to send them the documents. Many have referred to it as the largest investigation of a publisher in American history.

Despite the fact that the investigation has been widely condemned by legal experts and Constitutional scholars—former Times general counsel James Goodale said Holder might as well be investigating WikiLeaks for “a conspiracy to commit journalism”—recent court documents show the grand jury is still active.

Any indictment would leave all US newspapers in the perilous position of constantly under threat of prosecution when publishing supposedly “secret” information. But even without an indictment, the open-ended investigation chills WikiLeaks’ work and anyone caught in its wide net.

In addition, the Justice Department's handling of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and its aggressive tactics in court to keep basic information from journalists and the public has been deplorable, especially given Holder's promise to reform FOIA when he first came into office. Holder is also attempting to expand the controversial 'state secrets' privilege to new lengths, after promising to reform that as well.

The next attorney general, whoever it is, will have a lot of issues on his or her plate. But better respecting the rights of reporters and the First Amendment should be at the top of that list.

Reposted from the Freedom of the Press Foundation

Filed Under: attorney general, eric holder, journalism, press freedom

Federal Law Ordering US Attorney General To Gather Data On Police Excessive Force Has Been Ignored For 20 Years

from the another-optional-law dept

Are police officers getting worse or is this apparent increase in excessive force nothing more than a reflection of the increase in unofficial documentation (read: cameras) and public scrutiny? What we do know is that as crime has gone down, police forces have escalated their acquisitions of military gear and weapons. With options for lethal and less-lethal force continually expanding, it seems that deployment of force in excess of what the situation requires has become the new normal, but it's tough to find hard data that backs up these impressions.

One of the reasons we don't have data on police use of excessive force is because compiling this information relies on law enforcement agencies being forthcoming about these incidents. Generally speaking, it takes FOIA requests and lawsuits to obtain any data gathered by individual police departments. This shouldn't be the case. In fact, as AllGov reports, this lack of data violates a federal law.

In 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Among its provisions was the order that “the Attorney General shall, through appropriate means, acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.” The Justice Department was also required to publish an annual report on the data collected.

And…that’s pretty much the last anyone heard of that. The work of collecting the data was shuffled off to the International Association for Chiefs of Police, which made a few efforts at collecting data and put together a report in 2001, but has produced nothing since.

Unsurprisingly, law enforcement agencies don't want to talk about it, and the entity in charge of compiling the data seems entirely uninterested in doing the job. Even if the data was collected as the statute requires, much of it would still be questionable. For one, it relies on self-reporting by entities that see zero benefit in exposing their officers' wrongdoing. For another, excessive force incidents previously recorded may turn out to be "justified" later, either by internal investigations or via the judicial system.

But a starting point would be nice or, at the very least, some ballpark figures on year-to-year excessive force incidents. Without it, the public is largely reliant on perception -- and the perception is that police officers are deploying excessive force with increasing frequency.

The person ultimately responsible for this annual compilation of data is none other than the US Attorney General -- the same person who recently traveled to Ferguson, Missouri to help sort out its excessive force problem.

(a) Attorney General to collect
The Attorney General shall, through appropriate means, acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.

(b) Limitation on use of data
Data acquired under this section shall be used only for research or statistical purposes and may not contain any information that may reveal the identity of the victim or any law enforcement officer.

(c) Annual summary
The Attorney General shall publish an annual summary of the data acquired under this section.

(Pub. L. 103–322, title XXI, §210402, Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2071.)

But in the 20 years since the law went on the books, very little has happened and no one's holding the AG or any of the law enforcement agencies below him accountable for the lack of input.

Because the government can't be bothered to police the nation's police forces, it's up to citizens to do the job. Deadspin-spinoff Regressing, ostensibly a stat-focused sports site, has asked its readers to help it compile a database of police shootings over the last three years (2011-2013).

This, too, is a job that is supposed to be performed by government officials.

The Justice Department began to compile statistics on police shootings in 2001, according to the International Business Times. However, their reports cover only the years from 2003 to 2009 and don’t tell the whole story because of incomplete reporting and problems with research methods.

The public will likely find more complete data than that compiled irregularly (and incompletely) from information reluctantly submitted by law enforcement agencies (if it's submitted at all). Anthony Fisher points out the effed-upness of the situation over at Reason:

Considering the sheer volume of highly personal information the government collects and analyzes (often without consent), it is simply outrageous that the public has to struggle to find even the raw data tallying something as vital as government agents shooting citizens.

The general narrative is that criminals have gotten more dangerous, hence the need for better weapons and armor. But there's no data to support this theory. Police work is safer than it's been for over 50 years. It certainly appears that the police themselves are more dangerous, but there's no data that proves that conjecture. At this point, Americans should have access to nearly 20 years worth of excessive force data. Instead, we have another situation where certain laws are optional -- and these laws are being ignored by those who are more than happy to come down hard on even minimal violations by citizens.

[Just a reminder to US cops: not every dangerous situation requires the use of excessive/deadly force. Here's CCTV footage of Australian police defusing a situation involving a mall full of people and a mentally-unstable gunman who "held heavily-armed officers at bay for 90 minutes before the stand-off ended when Hillier was shot several times with non-lethal rounds."]

Filed Under: eric holder, excessive force, police brutality

Many Pulitzer Prize Winners Demand DOJ Stop Threatening Reporter James Risen With Jail If He Protects His Sources

from the chilling-effects dept

For a while now we've been following the troubling story of NY Times reporter James Risen, whom the DOJ has been bullying and threatening with jail for daring to keep his sources confidential. Despite Eric Holder pretending to say that the DOJ won't put a reporter in jail, he's made it quite clear that only applies to a "reporter who is doing his job," and it's pretty clear that the DOJ apparently doesn't think protecting your sources is part of the job. Unfortunately, the court process has gone against Risen, so the only remaining question is if the DOJ will really seek to put Risen in jail.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation has put together a petition for Risen, but perhaps even more interesting is that it further got over a dozen Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists to speak out on Risen's behalf. Here are just a few:

DANA PRIEST, Public Service, 2008 / The Washington Post; Beat Reporting, 2006 / The Washington Post:

If the U.S. government were so concerned about the information revealed in Jim Risen’s stunning chapter on a now 14-year-old CIA operation against Iran gone wrong, it would have moved quickly to resolve this matter eight years ago when it was first published. Instead, it seems obvious now that what officials really want is to hold a hammer over the head of a deeply sourced reporter, and others like him who try to hold the government accountable for what it does, even in secret.

As Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama classified more and more of the government’s actions over the last 14 years, denying the public critical information to judge how its democracy is faring, it has fallen to reporters like Risen to keep Americans informed and to question whether a gigantic government in the shadows is really even a good idea. We will all be worse off if this case proceeds.

DAVID ROHDE, International Reporting, 1996 / Christian Science Monitor; International Reporting, team coverage, 2009 / New York Times (now at Reuters): 

The Justice Department’s pursuit of James Risen puts the lie to President Obama’s claim that he “welcomes” debate regarding his national security policies and leads “the most transparent administration in history.”  The administration should immediately end its pursuit of Risen and respect all journalists’ first amendment rights.

MARCUS STERN, National Reporting, 2006 / Copley News Service:

No press shield, no freedom. It's about the great values embodied in the First Amendment and whether they will be undermined at this moment in history or endure for future generations. The fate of James Risen and his anonymous source is our fate and our grand-children's fate. Please, get it right.

JASON SZEP and ANDREW R.C. MARSHALL, International Reporting, 2014 / Reuters:

It is scandalous that James Risen faces jail time for doing what every good journalist working in the public interest does: protect confidential sources. President Obama and Attorney General Holder should halt all legal action against James to demonstrate that their “war on leaks” is not an assault on the First Amendment and freedom of the press.

It's a travesty that this situation is still occuring. It creates a real chilling effect for both reporters and for sources, and seems like a clear First Amendment violation, even if the courts still disagree on this fact. The DOJ could put an end to this, but has not.

Filed Under: chilling effects, doj, eric holder, jail, james risen, journalism, pulitzer prize, sources