ICE Briefly Becomes A Stranded Minor: Loses Its Twitter Account For Being Too Young

from the yeah,-but-only-briefly dept

Yesterday afternoon the Twitter account of the US's Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) briefly disappeared from the internet. Was it... anti-conservative bias? Nope. Was it ICE doing more stupid shit in locking up children and separating them from their parents? Nope. Was it ICE's willingness to seize domain names with no evidence, claiming "counterfeit"? Nope. It was that ICE had changed the "birthday" on its account to make it so that its "age" was less than 13. Thanks to the ridiculousness of the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which has basically served only to have parents teach their kids it's okay to lie online in order to use any internet service, most websites say you can't use the service if you're under 13 years old. ICE changed its "birthdate" to be less than 13, thereby making it... shall we say, something of a "stranded minor" and Twitter automatically, well, "separated it" from its account.

Might be nice for ICE to get a sense of how that feels.

Of course, what this really highlights is the idiocy of COPPA and how nearly every website tries to deal with its requirements. As we noted, Twitter, like many internet sites outright bars kids under 13 to avoid COPPA's rules. Twitter does note in its forms that you need to put in your own date of birth, even if your account is "for your business, event, or even your cat."

But... that's bizarre. For accounts like this, whose birthday matters? Many such accounts are managed by multiple people. Whose birthday gets put in there? The answer is, of course, that a birthday is just made up. And, if you make it up, apparently you need to make up one that is older than 13 to avoid this COPPA-based "separation."

Anyway, ICE figured stuff out and made a little joke about it:

Frankly, I'd rather they focused on actually helping asylum seekers find protection in our country rather than tossing them out, and maybe put some of that effort into reuniting the 666 kids back to the families they've lost track of.

Filed Under: age restrictions, birthday, coppa, ice
Companies: twitter

CBP Is Asking The National Archives For Permission To Destroy Misconduct Records

from the FILE-NOT-FOUND dept

The CBP and ICE likely have loads of misconduct records. Not that they mean much. These records are compiled and stashed someplace where it's inconvenient to find them for FOIA requesters. No one at the CBP or the DHS seems to have much interest in punishing misconduct, much less investigating it, so the records are far from complete and tend to be rubberstamped with EXONERATED.

The records do exist and the public should be able to access them. But DHS agencies do everything they can to keep these records and the public separated. Responses are dragged out to the point of litigation and then the litigation gets dragged out for as long as possible in hopes of deterring not only the requester suing, but others who might think about asking the agency for records.

The CBP wants to make its refusal to part with misconduct records a feature, rather than an all-too-common federal agency bug. It has asked the National Archive to treat many of its misconduct records as "temporary," giving it permission to discard these as soon as possible rather than having them preserved for posterity.

The Border Patrol’s proposal to the National Archives, which makes decisions about the retention of U.S. government documents, would designate as temporary all records regarding CBP’s dealings with DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: a recipient of complaints of civil rights abuses from across the department. These records include reports on concluded investigations, sworn witness statements, and transcripts of interviews — material that constitutes invaluable testimony of CBP’s conduct. The proposal would also mark as temporary internal records concerning administrative and criminal investigations of CBP agents, as well as records collected by CBP in connection to the Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA.

If granted this request, the CBP could start shredding some records in as little as four years. Others would have to be retained for 25 years, but the CBP would have no obligation to turn records over to the Archives, where they would become part of the agency's permanent record.

History isn't always written by the winners. Sometimes it's written by those who can find a way to control the narrative in perpetuity. The record of the CBP's wrongs will be allowed to vanish into the ether. With a four-year plan for some documents, the CBP has a shot at destroying records before requesters know they exist or before litigation commences.

The problem here is that the National Archives has already allowed ICE to selectively edit its history, which the CBP is hoping will pave the way for its history-erasing proposal to be accepted by the federal government's historians.

In their review of CBP’s proposal, National Archives officials referred to the designation of ICE’s abuse complaints records as temporary to justify marking CBP’s complaints records the same way. The officials argued that “these records do not have value beyond their functional use for tracking complaints and ensuring fulfillment of obligations.”

And the CBP isn't the only problem here. Somehow the National Archives has convinced itself that a running record of civil liberty abuses and other misconduct isn't historically significant enough to preserve.

None of this may ultimately matter. The National Archives has been pretty much ignored by multiple administrations. It has been gradually stripped of funding as the amount of documents created by the government has increased. As the Intercept's article notes, it's been years since Congress has shown any interest in preserving the preservers. No hearings have been held and no effort made to shore up an entity swamped with other agencies' paperwork.

If Congress won't act, it's aiding and abetting in the destruction of historically significant records. It's allowing federal agencies to whitewash their abusive pasts. This shouldn't be acceptable but somehow the National Archives has become less than an afterthought in Washington. Without more oversight, it's just going to become the Ministry of Truth, housing only records agencies feel show them in the best light.

Filed Under: border patrol, cbp, dhs, ice, misconduct, national archive, records, transparency

Federal Officers Are Still Struggling To Find Evidence Of A Massive Antifa Conspiracy

from the content-to-settle-for-lowball-arrests-of-randos-instead dept

Donald Trump's lurid myths about bad hombres crossing the border to wreak havoc in the United States have failed to be ushered into existence by CBP and ICE. Try as they might, the two agencies have done little more than process a bunch of bog-standard illegal entries. And... um... target college students here legally. Numbers were fudged, but it has proven to be an exercise in futility. This attempt to villainize immigrants has been abandoned by both Trump and these DHS components.

Trump's new favorite enemy-of-America is "antifa." The president seems to believe antifa is a hierarchical organization capable of being crippled by intelligence gathering, strategic arrests, and the occasional extrajudicial killing. He's wrong about this as well. But that's not stopping the DHS and its protest-centered task forces from doing everything they can to prove some massive anti-facist conspiracy exists. This includes flying in FBI analysts and their tech to "exploit" data taken from arrestees' phones in hopes of finding some link between ongoing protests and Big Leftist.

All the money being spent in hopes of toppling an idea and prosecuting federal crimes isn't really accomplishing either of those tasks. As the AP reports, the feds aren't having any luck massaging Trump's antifa fever dreams into coherent shape. Nor are they really finding much federal crime to prosecute.

President Donald Trump portrays the hundreds of people arrested nationwide in protests against racial injustice as violent urban left-wing radicals. But an Associated Press review of thousands of pages of court documents tell a different story.

Very few of those charged appear to be affiliated with highly organized extremist groups, and many are young suburban adults from the very neighborhoods Trump vows to protect from the violence in his reelection push to win support from the suburbs.

[...]

In thousands of pages of court documents, the only apparent mention of antifa is in a Boston case in which authorities said a FBI Gang Task Force member was investigating “suspected ANTIFA activity associated with the protests” when a man fired at him and other officers. Authorities have not claimed that the man accused of firing the shots is a member of antifa.

Some of those arrested by federal officers are more profa than antifa.

John Malcolm Bareswill, angry that a local Black church held a prayer vigil for George Floyd, called the church and threatened to burn it to the ground, using racial slurs in a phone call overheard by children, prosecutors said. Bareswill, 63, of Virginia Beach, faces 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to making a telephonic threat.

Two Missouri militia members who authorities say traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to see Trump’s visit in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake were arrested at a hotel in September with a cache of guns, according to court documents. An attorney for one of the men, Michael Karmo, said he is “charged criminally for conduct that many Americans would consider patriotic,” as authorities have alleged his motive was to assist overwhelmed law enforcement.

There have been more than 300 arrests since this Trump-propelled charade began, but the feds are really stretching of the term "federal crime" to keep federal prosecutors in the mix. Arson (or attempted arson) isn't normally a federal charge but that makes up about a quarter of the fed's caseload. This allows the federal government to pursue sentences far harsher than those levied by states. In one case, the government's lawyers argued the attempted torching of a cop car required federal charges because the police car was "used in interstate commerce."

There's also a lot of miscellaneous garbage being treated as federal crime. Nearly a third of the cases deal with things like disorderly conduct, impeding a federal officer, failing to obey lawful orders, and obstructing law enforcement. There are more serious tangents to these charges (assaulting an officer, rioting) but these are often handy ways to bring criminal charges against people who fail to show officers the respect they feel they're owed. And "assaulting" an officer can mean something as harmless as pulling away from one when they try to grab you.

This zealousness to find an antifa link -- and keep cases federal for maximum vindictiveness -- has resulted in tragic absurdity.

A top federal prosecutor appointed by President Donald Trump held a news conference this week to announce that the “outstanding investigative work” of federal and state law enforcement officers had resulted in a federal felony charge against a 29-year-old bassist in an anarcho-punk band over a bag of weed.

An investigation was triggered after someone reported the bassist's staged photos of him carrying a mock molotov cocktail. These were supposed to be promo shots for his band, but he released them after the George Floyd killing. Law enforcement raided Justin Coffman's home in June. All they uncovered were a couple of legal guns, the fake molotov, and 24 grams of marijuana. Coffman was interrogated by the FBI after the raid. The agent questioning didn't seem too concerned officers had found a personal use amount of pot in the home. But the agent was very interested in Coffman's political beliefs. The FBI ultimately let the locals handle it. He was originally charged only with possession.

But the feds came back, apparently intent on making this anarcho-punk an example. The government brought federal gun charges against Coffman because it's illegal to own guns when you're a drug user. Those charges didn't stick but the state's creative "hoax device" charge did. That didn't stop the president from congratulating law enforcement for managing to turn nothing into some handy "we're taking apart antifa" propaganda.

This is your tax dollars working overtime to satisfy the cravings of an uninformed president content to traffic in conspiracy theories. And it's a handy way to deter future protests against police brutality. But it does nothing to make the country safer or serve the people paying for it.

Filed Under: antifa, cbp, doj, ice, protests, william barr

Location Data Obtained By CBP Comes From Phone Apps, Is Capable Of Tracking People On Both Sides Of The Border

from the what-Carpenter-decision? dept

More details are coming out about federal law enforcement's purchases of location data from data brokers. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported ICE and CBP were both purchasing large amounts of data from Venntel, using this information to track down people in this country illegally. Supposedly the data was "anonymized," which the CBP felt was enough to dodge any Constitutional concerns. Of course, the more data you have, the easier it is to de-anonymize it. And if it was truly anonymous and unable to be converted into traceable human beings, there would be no reason for ICE and CBP to be purchasing it.

This led to some Congressional scrutiny. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform opened up an investigation into federal agencies' purchases of location data from Venntel. This investigation didn't stop the CBP from re-upping its contract with the now-controversial broker and continuing to explore the edges of this legal gray area.

A couple of months later, it was revealed the IRS was also buying location data from Venntel, presumably in hopes of tracking down tax cheats. This led to Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren asking the IRS's oversight to look into this. The Inspector General has already replied, stating an investigation is underway to determine whether the IRS's warrantless acquisition of this location data complies with the Supreme Court's Carpenter decision, which enacted a warrant requirement for cell site location data.

More documents obtained by Motherboard explain where all this controversial data is coming from. It's not Google or cell providers' towers, but from any phone app that harvests location data for their multiple Big Data overlords.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought access to "global" location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on peoples' phones, meaning it could track devices even outside of U.S. borders, according to a document obtained by Motherboard.

[...]

"I know I could find signals in non-U.S. territory but they may have been U.S. users/devices," a former worker for Venntel, the company that CBP bought the location data from, told Motherboard.

This explains CBP and ICE's interest in this particular data. Looking for illegal entrants gets a whole lot easier when you can start tracking them from the other side of the border. It's far more useful to these agencies than it is for the IRS, which apparently couldn't find the suspect it was looking for in Venntel's database.

This is also why CBP feels compelled to keep throwing money at a vendor targeted by a Congressional investigation and (indirectly) by IRS oversight. It's too valuable not to have, no matter what the Fourth Amendment implications are.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, border, cbp, data, ice, location data, location info, phone apps

ICE Spent Your Tax Dollars Dragging A Journalist Through The Internet Sewer Over A Mistake She Apologized For

from the fine-people dept

Law enforcement officers protect their own. Even when they shouldn't. They are quick to react when one of them is slighted and they do so knowing their position as arbiters of law affords them more protection against internet randos than the little people they're supposed to be serving.

But something that gets lost in these far-too-common reactions is that this is how taxpayers' money is being spent: on vindictive actions that could have been handled with a 30-second statement or a press release that might take all of 20 minutes to compose.

But instead of letting things go and realizing their position of power is probably all the response that's needed, tax dollars are spent converting hurt feelings into investigations of private citizens who managed to offend the powers that be. Ken Klippenstein has obtained documents from a FOIA request (and the de rigueur FOIA lawsuit) that shows ICE decided to get all investigatory when someone mistook a tattoo on one of its officials for a racist symbol. That this person was a journalist makes it all that more problematic.

In June of 2018, Talia Lavin, then a fact-checker for The New Yorker, found herself in an unusual position for a journalist: She personally became the target of a government agency. She had come under the scrutiny of ICE’s Office of Public Affairs, the public face of the agency that played a central role in President Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.

[...]

When Lavin saw a tweet from ICE featuring one of its officials, Justin Gaertner, with a cross-shaped tattoo, she wondered if it was the Iron Cross familiar to Nazi iconography. She posted a tweet comparing them. When people began pointing out that it could be another symbol, like a Maltese cross, Lavin promptly removed the tweet. But it was already too late.

ICE first responded with a press release. It was not your normal press release. It accused Lavin (mentioning her name [but misspelled as "Levin") of "baselessly slandering" the "American hero" who worked for the agency. It demanded an apology and a retraction from Lavin and The New Yorker. Following ICE's public flogging of Lavin, she became a target for vitriol and abuse by white supremacists and alt-right figureheads. Fox News called her a "little journo terrorist."

Eye for an eye and all that, I guess. You'd think ICE would have been satisfied with the shitstorm it had stirred up. It provoked a response and got some of what it wanted. Lavin not only apologized but she resigned from The New Yorker.

ICE's main focus -- according to the documents obtained by Klippenstein -- was securing the future of the official pointed out in Lavin's since-deleted tweet. The Public Affairs office began burnishing the official's war record and claimed to have evidence of credible threats to the official's life. But the only "threat" detailed in email threads was one from someone responding to Lavin's tweet, stating that the person wished whoever had wounded the official in combat "would've finished the job." Cue a whole bunch of government gears, all grinding tax dollars into salve for skin-deep scratches.

“HSI Tampa will be carefully assessing the twitter based threats and will take appropriate action,” an HSI official replied. “Looping in AD [Assistant Director] Ip for C3 [ICE Cyber Crimes Center] support. HSI Tampa will be submitting a SIR [Significant Incident Report] shortly.”

More remarkably, the email communications indicate ICE may never have seen Lavin's tweet before it was deleted. ICE's press office -- for all the time it spent making sure its official remained unslighted -- didn't bother preserving the tweet it found so offensive that it issued a press release decrying the person who had published it.

One tweet by a journalist containing one innocent mistake (it's no secret white supremacists are drawn to law enforcement positions) led to multiple DHS agencies being apprised of non-credible threats while ICE's public affairs office decided it was in the best interest of the public to publicly attack a journalist for screwing up. It got what it wanted -- a retraction, an apology, and a resignation -- but at what cost?

Certainly ICE took a hit to its credibility. It may have been correct about the innocuous nature of the tattoo, but it made its point by turning a journalist into a target for internet pitchforks. This is called "punching down." It could have issued a statement in support of the official and left it at that, but instead, it felt compelled to turn this into a public flogging and an internal investigation handled so sloppily the multi-billion dollar agency couldn't even search the Wayback Machine for the tweet prompting its deluge of unprofessional behavior.

Filed Under: dhs, foia, hsi, ice, intimidation, investigation, journalism, justin gaertner, talia lavin, the new yorker

Appeals Court Says ICE Detainees Should Be Able To See A Judge In 48 Hours, Just Like Criminal Suspects

from the Fourth-for-everyone,-including-those-ICE-feels-have-no-rights dept

The Fourth Amendment says law enforcement needs probable cause to effect an arrest. Further probable cause is needed -- as determined by a neutral judge -- to continue holding this person. This isn't even controversial. It has been established law for years. And yet, when ICE goes hunting for people it wants to deport, the Fourth Amendment just kind of vanishes. This happens even when ICE is wrong, and the person officers want to eject from the country is actually a US citizen.

It seems awful to have to describe this recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as "upending" the Fourth Amendment status quo. It really isn't. It simply affirms what's far too often been ignored by ICE and other border security agencies.

Here are the facts leading up to this lawsuit, as recounted in the court's decision [PDF]:

Gerardo Gonzalez is a United States citizen. He has never been removable from the United States. The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), however, came to a different conclusion in December 2012. After Gonzalez was booked on state law criminal charges by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), an ICE agent ran his name through electronic databases, an automated procedure that ICE uses to determine whether an individual is a removable noncitizen. Because one database flagged Gonzalez’s birthplace as being in Mexico, and the agent could not find records showing that Gonzalez had lawfully entered the United States, the agent determined that Gonzalez was removable from the United States. ICE issued an immigration detainer, requesting that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) detain Gonzalez for up to an additional five days in the Los Angeles County Jail after when he was entitled to release from custody on state criminal charges so that ICE could take him into its custody.

This situation used to be even worse. Prior to December 2012, ICE didn't even need probable cause to issue a detainer. So, even if people were free to go, that freedom to go could be removed if ICE had done nothing more than initiated an investigation into whether the person targeted by a detainer was actually removable. Thanks to some litigation, ICE began requiring probable cause. But that probable cause was limited to an officer's "belief" that a person was removable. Because one database said Gonzalez's birthplace was Mexico and the officer could find no records of legal entry, Gonzalez was held for another five days after he was prepared to post bail for the state criminal charges. Here's how this worked out for Gonzalez:

On December 31, 2012, ICE issued the immigration detainer against him. Although the detainer had no effect on Gonzalez’s custody when lodged due to a then-applicable parole hold, Gonzalez became eligible for release on bail from LASD custody on state criminal charges in May 2013 when the hold expired. He attempted to post bail with the assistance of his girlfriend, who went to a bondsman. The bondsman informed her that Gonzalez was subject to an immigration detainer. The detainer requested that LASD keep him in custody for up to five additional days after his release from custody on state criminal charges. The detainer, however, prevented him from posting bail. Even if he posted the $95,000 bail as he had intended to do, Gonzalez would remain in custody. Indeed, it was LASD policy to comply with all ICE detainers.

ICE dropped the detained when Gonzalez sued, presumably in hopes of getting him to drop the lawsuit. It didn't happen. And now there's precedent on the books that says ICE can't do this sort of thing in future.

The lower court said ICE can't rely solely on the database used in this case to make probable cause determinations. The database is too inaccurate to be relied on, according to the district court.

In finding for Plaintiffs on this Database Claim, the district court concluded that the databases are unreliable for determining probable cause of removability, and thus the Government violates the Fourth Amendment by issuing detainers based solely on searches of the databases.

The Ninth Circuit says the district court didn't do enough fact-finding to make this determination. However, the Appeals Court does reach this conclusion, which has the potential to vastly alter the way ICE enforces detainers. Without probable cause, ICE can't hold people more than 48 hours on a detainer or, as in this case, five days past the point the person was due to be released by local law enforcement. Detainees should be treated the same as arrestees and given their day before the judge as soon as possible.

[T]he panel concluded that, because the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause to seize or detain an individual for a civil immigration offense, it follows that the Fourth Amendment requires a prompt probable cause determination by a neutral and detached magistrate to justify continued detention pursuant to an immigration detainer.

Thanks to Trump, our immigration courts are already overloaded. And again, thanks to Trump, ICE keeps loading them up even more by going after anyone it believes is subject to removal, rather than concentrating on the "dangerous" immigrants this Administration claims infest our nation. If ICE can't get them before a judge within 48 hours, they should be free to go, just like anyone arrested on actual criminal charges.

It hardly makes sense for the Fourth Amendment to be less effective for people detained on civil violations. The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court has corrected that error and its reach covers a whole lot of border territory.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 9th circuit, dhs, due process, gerardo gonzalez, ice, probable cause

ICE Is Hauling In More Data Than Ever And Palantir Is Helping It Turn Data Into Detainments

from the surveillance-state-adds-surveillance-capitalism dept

ICE has gotten bigger and bolder under the Trump Administration. The minimal constraints placed on it by previous administrations have been removed, allowing the agency to gorge on data and engage in widespread surveillance. Billions of dollars and an untold amount of tech are being thrown at a "problem" that isn't even criminal. Living in this country while undocumented is a civil violation, but ICE (and the Administration) treats it as one of the most severe threats to the nation.

America is apparently going to be made great by tossing out those aspiring to be Americans, or at the very least just trying to escape the horrors or poverty of their native countries. To ensure ICE can remove as many people as possible, the agency has tapped into national ALPR databases, run facial recognition searches against drivers license databases, and hooked up with a tech company nearly as reviled as ICE is.

But that's not the full extent of ICE's surveillance/deportation efforts. As Alvaro M. Bedoya reports for Slate, the agency is leveraging everything it can get it hands on to ensure a steady flow of undocumented immigrants out of this country.

In 2017, breaking with prior practice, ICE started to use data from interviews with scared, detained kids and their relatives to find and arrest more than 500 sponsors who stepped forward to take in the children. At the same time, ICE announced a plan for a social media monitoring program that would use artificial intelligence to automatically flag 10,000 people per month for deportation investigations. (It was scuttled only when computer scientists helpfully indicated that the proposed system was impossible.)

And it's not enough for immigrants to steer clear of the entities that may help them get ejected from the country. ICE is all over anything that might lead it to more deportees.

Many immigrants avoid contact with any government agency, even the DMV, but they can’t go without heat, electricity, or water; ICE aimed to find them, too. So, that same year, ICE paid for access to a private database that includes the addresses of customers from 80 national and regional electric, cable, gas, and telephone companies.

There's a private company weaving this massive amount of data into usable intel for ICE. Palantir provides the software that analyzes data, builds profiles, and makes sense of ICE's massive data stash. The company even fills in any blanks ICE might have by adding in information purchased from data brokers.

Palantir doesn't like to talk about its work with ICE. Bedoya points out the company's most recent securities filing makes no mention of ICE or the company's assistance in tracking down undocumented immigrants. It prefers to discuss its military customers and its supposed commitment to keeping this country safe. When asked directly about ICE, Palantir has downplayed its involvement. This is how Palantir's CEO, Alex Karp, spins things.

When criticized, Karp has described Palantir’s work for ICE as “limited,” “a de minimis part of our work”—strange things for American contractor to say about its second-largest U.S. government client.

This toxic partnership has done little to damage Palantir's reputation -- at least as far as investors are concerned. Its work with ICE targets what many consider to be unimportant people: immigrants who are in the country illegally. If the company is good at what it does and customers like ICE are happy and willing to sign multi-million dollar contracts, any moral and legal qualms shareholders might have will be papered over with money.

Filed Under: big data, data, deportation, dhs, ice, immigration, trump administration
Companies: palantir

CBP Is Still Buying Location Data From A Company Currently Being Investigated By Congress

from the dodging-oversight-from-two-other-branches dept

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal revealed that ICE and CBP were buying location data from third-party data brokers -- something that seemed like a calculated move to dodge the requirements of the Supreme Court's Carpenter decision. There's a warrant requirement for historical cell site location data, but the two agencies appear to believe gathering tons of "pseudonymized" data to "help identify and locate" undocumented immigrants isn't a Fourth Amendment problem.

At this point, they're probably right. They may not be correct but they don't have court precedent telling them they can't do this. Not yet. So, they're doing it. It may not be immediately invasive as approaching a cell service provider for weeks or months of location data related to a single person, but this concerted effort to avoid running anything by a judge suggests even the DHS feels obtaining data this way is quasi-legal at best.

In late June, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform opened an investigation into Venntel's sale of location data to ICE and CBP. The Committee asked Venntel to hand over information about its data sales, whether or not it obtained consent from phone users to gather this data, and whether it applied any restrictions to the use of data by government agencies. The answers to the Committee's questions were due in early July. So far, Venntel has yet to respond.

Venntel's business hasn't slowed despite being investigated by Congress. Joseph Cox reports for Motherboard that CBP has just signed another deal with the data broker.

Earlier this month U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) paid nearly half a million dollars to a company that sells a product based on location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on peoples' phones, according to public procurement records reviewed by Motherboard.

[...]

CBP paid just under $476,000 for "Venntel Software" on August 5, according to the public procurement record.

Venntel's data collection does have limitations that makes it more useful for these agencies than others that have tried it.

The office of Senator Ron Wyden found that the criminal investigation unit of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tried to use Venntel data to identify and track potential criminal suspects. The IRS failed to locate any targets of interest during the year-long contract.

The Venntel data is more useful for tracking "herds of people," the second former worker told Motherboard. The Wall Street Journal's February report mentioned agencies have used Venntel data to identify border crossings and then arrest people.

But even with these limitations, it's still powerful enough to be of concern, especially when it appears federal agencies are willing to buy data from brokers rather than approach service providers with subpoenas and warrants. Venntel's "product" comes from cellphone apps that collect location data. Venntel generates its own identifiers for each device to tie location data together. Customers like ICE can either ask for all data gathered at certain locations or search by identifier to collect all data tied to that device.

And it's not just about securing the border. ICE and CBP are also authorized to use Venntel's data to assist in "law enforcement operations." Venntel claims it doesn't sell access to local law enforcement agencies, but it appears CBP and ICE have the capability -- and presumably the willingness -- to perform proxy searches for agencies Venntel won't sell to.

If it's questionable for a private company to sell data to the federal government while under investigation from another branch of that same government, it's doubly questionable for a federal agency to continue doing business with a company being investigated by Congress. But people without papers must be caught, I guess, even if some rights must be violated (or evaded) to do it.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, cbp, data brokers, dhs, ice, privacy, warrant
Companies: venntel

DHS Agencies Are Taking Millions In Cash From Travelers Every Year, Can't Be Bothered To Stop Any Crimes

from the taking-taxpayers'-dimes-on-the-taxpayers'-dime dept

In a little over 15 years, DHS agencies interacted with millions of travelers passing through our nation's airports… and relieved them of over $2 billion in cash. (And that's just agencies like the CBP and ICE. The DEA also lifts cash from airline passengers -- something it loves doing so much it hires TSA agents to look for money, rather than stuff that could threaten transportation security.)

That's just one of several disturbing findings in the Institute for Justice's (IJ) new report [PDF] on the DHS's ability to separate travelers from their money. Utilizing the Treasury Department's forfeiture database, the IJ discovered the DHS is a fan of taking cash and does so more frequently at certain airports. The most popular airport for cash seizures is, by far, Chicago's O'Hare. In 2014, the airport accounted for 34% of all cash seized despite handling only 6% of all air travelers.

More travelers means more opportunities, which explains some of the increase in seizures over the past decade. But as the IJ points out, seizures are outpacing the bump in travel stats.

Between 2000 and 2016, the number of air travelers increased 46%, while the inflation-adjusted value of currency seized at airports by DHS agencies increased 140% and the number of airport currency seizure cases grew 178%.

Any international airport will be patrolled by CBP and ICE agents looking for cash to seize. And they're not looking to catch drug dealers, human traffickers, or any other criminals that might be carrying cash around. No, the most common criminal activity to result in forfeitures is nothing more than a reporting violation.

Federal law requires travelers to declare any currency over $10,000 when traveling into or out of the country. It's pretty easy to get this done when traveling into the US, as arriving visitors will be required to go through Customs and declare anything they're bringing into the country, including cash. Outbound travelers may not realize this applies to them and since they're not required to pass through Customs on the way out, they may have no idea they're violating the law. That's an opportunity DHS agencies are more than happy to capitalize on. Half of all seizures between 2000-2016 were for violating this reporting requirement.

In fact, serious criminal activity is something no one seizing money seems very concerned about. Asset forfeiture isn't about dismantling criminal empires. It's about taking cash from people who have limited means to fight back. If the government has all your cash, it's pretty tough to hire a lawyer and fight an uphill battle against a system that dispenses with the property's former owner completely to engage in litigation against the cash itself.

Overall, 69% of DHS agency airport currency seizure cases were not accompanied by an arrest, regardless of the alleged offense. This means less than a third of the time was an offense egregious enough, or the evidence strong enough, to warrant an arrest.

This isn't just a DHS thing. It's an everybody thing.

In 2017, the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General conducted an in-depth study of a sample of 100 Drug Enforcement Administration forfeiture cases. The study found that only 44 of those cases advanced or were even related to a criminal investigation. That same year, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reviewed a sample of 278 cases in which currency was seized under “structuring” laws, which prohibit conducting bank transactions below $10,000 to evade federal reporting requirements. The law is in place to prevent crimes like money laundering, but the study found that in 91% of cases, the seized funds were from a legal source, such as a family-owned business. The study also found that IRS agents were encouraged to conduct “quick hits,” where property was easier to seize, “rather than pursue cases with other criminal activity (such as drug trafficking or money laundering), which are more time-consuming.”

Taking money from people has always been easier than fighting crime. That much has been obvious for years. The IRS said the quiet part loud on accident. This report says everything the government isn't willing to admit to the public, much less itself: the point of forfeiture programs is to enrich those performing the forfeitures. That's it. That's the entire thing. Any reductions in criminal activity are purely coincidental.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, cbp, civil asset forfeiture, dhs, ice, legalized theft, tsa

DHS's Anti-Protest Gestapo Tactics Headed To Other Major Cities, Starting With Chicago

from the all-part-of-the-new-dissident-treatment-protocol dept

The tactics seen recently in Portland, Oregon -- unidentified federal officers grabbing demonstrators off the street and hauling them away in unmarked vans -- are apparently going to be deployed in other cities. The federal government's response to ongoing demonstrations provoked by a Minnesota police officer's killing of an unarmed Black man has been escalating in recent days. In cities like Portland -- where protests have been a continuous fixture since early May -- a blend of CBP, ICE, US Marshals Service, and Bureau of Prisons personnel have been brought in to, supposedly, protect federal property and investigate federal crimes.

But the tactics are disturbing. Dragging people off the street into unmarked cars and taking them to unknown destinations for questioning isn't how America is supposed to work. There doesn't appear to be much probable cause involved (simply being near federal property while protesting isn't indicative of any criminal act) and the lack of identifying info on fatigue-clad officers just makes it that much easier for them to get away with rights violations. Detainees are being released without any paperwork, suggesting a lot of this federal intervention is off-the-books: undocumented and unsupervised.

The DHS likes its new Gestapo-esque tactics so much it's taking them to other cities.

Chicago may see an influx of federal agents as soon as this week as President Donald Trump readies to make good on repeated pledges he would try to tamp down violence here, a move that would come amid growing controversy nationally about federal force being used in American cities.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security, for example, is crafting plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to the city this week, the Chicago Tribune has learned.

Homeland Security Investigations -- a division that includes agents from several components -- will be heading to Chicago to "assist in crime-fighting efforts." No details have been provided by the DHS, leaving it open to speculation whether this will be more spirited-away-in-unmarked-vans action or something more conventional that targets the non-protest-related crime that has been an ongoing issue in Chicago for far longer than the recent unrest.

Money is on it being more of what was observed in Portland. President Trump has already made public statements about sending federal agents to cities "run by liberal Democrats," apparently with an eye on shutting down anti-law enforcement protests.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is one of the "liberal Democrats" Trump is referring to. That's why Chicago is next in line for some secret policing. Lightfoot would prefer this didn't happen.

“We don’t need federal agents without any insignia taking people off the streets and holding them, I think, unlawfully,” Lightfoot said.

But she's not completely opposed to federal help -- as long as it's actual help rather than a show of force meant to intimidate people engaging in protected speech.

If Trump wants to help, she said, he could boost federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives resources and fully fund prosecutors.

Even the Chicago PD seems concerned about the DHS's tactics. The department issued a statement saying it is "critical" that federal law enforcement officers "coordinate" with the PD to "fight violent crime." There's nothing in the statement that says the PD has any desire to deploy its force against peaceful protesters or be perceived as standing idly by while federal agents drag people off the street and into unmarked vehicles.

The city's police union, on the other hand, is pleased with any law enforcement activity -- local or federal -- that gives it an opportunity to criticize the mayor.

“I am certain you are aware of the chaos currently affecting our city on a regular basis now,” John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, wrote in a letter that was posted on the FOP’s Facebook page. “I am writing to formally ask you for help from the federal government. Mayor Lightfoot has proved to be a complete failure who is either unwilling or unable to maintain law and order here.”

Catanzara's opinion is not to be trusted. He runs an organization that helps keep bad cops employed. And he's the best fit for the FOP, given its "no bad cop left behind" focus. Catanzara is one of the most disciplined officers ever to serve in the Chicago PD. He's also the only one to be elected head of the union while stripped of his police powers.

If this is the blueprint for the future, it's goddamn frightening. President Trump may not understand the implications of the words he's using or how they sound to people listening to him, but this statement at a recent press conference appears to indicate Trump prefers martial law and order to regular law and order.

“We’re going to have more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you,” he said. “In Portland, they’ve done a fantastic job. They’ve been there three days and they really have done a fantastic job in a very short period of time, no problem.”

When the feds step in to do the local cops' jobs, that's a move in the direction of martial law. Trump's pro-cop rhetoric -- something that never lets up even when cops are at their worst -- indicates he'd prefer cops to be making the laws, rather than simply enforcing them. His willingness to send federal agents to cities led by politicians he doesn't like suggests he wants to run those cities by proxy. This is a federal police state in the making, one that's going to be increasingly difficult to differentiate from martial law if the feds aren't able to shut down protests quickly enough.

Filed Under: chicago, cities, dhs, federal law enforcement, hsi, ice, portland, protests, secret police, us marshals