Rep. Peter King Says Reporters Should Be Prosecuted For Reporting On Government Leaks

from the that-whole-first-amendment-thing-sure-is-a-bitch dept

Rep. Peter King, apparently, is not a fan of the US Constitution that he's been sworn to uphold. In the past, he wanted Wikileaks put on the official terrorist list, argued that the Boston bombing meant we needed less freedom and more surveillance, and now has announced that reporters should be prosecuted if they report on leaked classified material. Apparently the whole concept of the First Amendment and whistleblowing is foreign to Rep. King, despite the fact that they're some of the fundamental parts of what America is based on.

"If they willingly knew that this was classified information, I think action should be taken, especially on something of this magnitude," King said.

"I think on something of this magnitude, there is an obligation both moral but also legal, I believe, against a reporter disclosing something that would so severely compromise national security."

Of course, as the article correctly points out, publishing classified information is not a crime, and trying to criminalize it would almost certainly go against the First Amendment. Of course, as we've noted in the past, Peter King is against terrorism, unless the terrorists are Irish. Then he's all for it. Apparently, overreactions, complete misunderstanding of the law and hypocrisy all go hand in hand.

Filed Under: classified info, ed snowden, first amendment, free speech, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, leaks, nsa, nsa surveillance, peter king, terrorism

The Current Surveillance State Is The End Result Of Two Consecutive Presidents Rewriting Their Job Descriptions

from the go-back-to-bed,-America,-your-government-is-in-control dept

The escalating build-out of the American surveillance state since 9/11 can't be attributed to any one factor. There have been several contributors, most of which have used the omnipresent "threat" of terrorism as leverage to increase governmental power and control at the expense of its citizens. But one undeniable aspect is the fact that two consecutive presidents have recast their presidential responsibilities, as Micah Zenko points out at Foreign Policy.

When asked last September if he personally chose which individual terrorist suspects could be targeted with lethal force, President Barack Obama gave a response that would have astounded the founding fathers: "What is absolutely true is that my first job, my most sacred duty, as president and commander in chief, is to keep the American people safe." This is false. As the presidential "Oath or Affirmation" in the Constitution reads: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

As Zenko states, Obama should know better. After all, he spent more than a decade lecturing on constitutional law at the University of Chicago. But his predecessor led the way, informing Americans that "safety" would trump rights.

George W. Bush told a cheering crowd at the 2004 Republican National Convention: "I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people.

While on the campaign trail, Obama vowed to correct Bush's skewed priorities. But rather than follow through on that promise, he has gone the other direction, expanding on his inherited policies and defending various agencies accused of abuse. Unfortunately, once this mindset is in place, it is almost impossible to roll back. The policies it creates only move in one direction.

The essential and enduring feature of both post-9/11 presidents has been their shared contention that their core objective -- and by extension, that of the executive branch -- is to protect U.S. citizens from one particular form of harm: terrorist violence. Both success and failure at achieving this objective have justified the expansion of additional authorities and tools. If there are no terrorist attacks, then all policies in place must remain, but when terrorist plots are revealed or the rare attack occurs, then additional tools and secrecy are mandated.

The executive branch is a key part of the system of checks and balances this country's founders mandated in order to prevent the sort of mission creep and rights erosion occurring today. Instead of protecting the Constitution and their constituents, two consecutive presidents have relegated it to the background, preferring to pursue the unobtainable: safety and security.

Other government agencies are tasked with protecting the public. The executive branch is ultimately responsible for preventing abuses and excesses. Instead, this branch has willingly paved the way for a surveillance network that undermines protections and rights in exchange for vague assurances of security.

Filed Under: barack obama, constitution, george w. bush, nsa, nsa surveillance, public safety, terrorism

Sen. Lindsey Graham, Verizon Customer: I'm GLAD The NSA Is Harvesting My Data. Because Terrorists.

from the My-Life-As-An-Open-Book,-by-John-Q.-Public dept

Whenever overreaching surveillance comes to light, whether it's a national security agency or local law enforcement operating the dragnet, there's always one person who will toss out one of these two worn out, used up, dripping-in-paternal-condescension phrases in defense of the privacy abusers.

1. If you've got nothing to hide, what are you worried about?
2. Because terrorism/crime/drugs/child porn.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, usually a critic of the current administration, tends to fall back in line with his allegiances to George W. Bush's overreaching policies during events like these. If it has anything to do with terrorism, Graham is there to back up the abusers, no matter which party has control of the White House. (You may recall Graham's recent support of the FBI's decision to not inform Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of his Miranda rights.)

Graham made an appearance on Fox & Friends the morning after news of the NSA's massive data haul broke. He starts out by invoking the most holy of political rhetorical devices: fighting terrorism.

“I’m glad the NSA is trying to find out what the terrorists are up to overseas and in our country,” Graham said Thursday morning on “Fox & Friends."

He followed it up with his particular spin on the "nothing to hide; nothing to fear" argument defuser.

As a customer of Verizon, the subject of the court order, Graham said he and others had nothing to worry about.

“I’m a Verizon customer. I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.”

A member of the government informing the public that he has no problem with the public handing over things to the government. How refreshing!

There's a big "if" in his second sentence and that part worries people nearly as much as the general idea of national security/investigative agencies hoovering up all the data they can get ahold of.

"If the government is going to make sure that they try..." We, the people, have received no assurances to that effect. Sure, those involved directly and those defending these court orders are all stating publicly that the data is perfectly safe in their hands and won't be abused in the slightest (and quite possibly isn't actually happening at all), but the last dozen years or so have produced much more evidence to the contrary.

As far as he knows, Graham isn't talking to terrorists. But there's really no reason for anyone to believe the NSA and FBI are only interested in terrorists. The NSA may be trying to root out and punish whistleblowers. The FBI may be looking for any phone that's come within 500 feet of a mosque.

As for telling us that we have nothing to fear and, therefore, nothing to hide? Here's the problem with that argument. First off, if I'm not talking to terrorists, why is my data being grabbed along with potential suspects? This is still an anti-terrorism thing, right?

[Sidebar: I don't think I could really say I definitely don't communicate with terrorists. I don't have any friends or acquaintances who display an inordinate fascination with terrorism. On the other hand, if they were terrorists, I would imagine that part of their life is pretty well compartmentalized and that there's more to their life than terrorism 24/7. So... unlike Graham, I'm not going to say I don't talk to terrorists. Ultimately, this shouldn't matter, but Graham seems to think it does.]

Second: I am getting pretty sick and tired of talking heads trying to mollify us by informing us that we have nothing to fear because we have nothing to hide, especially since this phrase is only put into play after the government's encroachment has effectively removed the "hide" option. It's not so much that we have "nothing to hide." It's that we don't have a choice. The government exposes us and then pats us on the head and tells us it will all be alright -- because we're innocent. (And yet somehow still subject to the same treatment as the guilty...)

Third, I'm glad you're glad that we're fighting terrorism by using everyone's data, Lindsey. Since the President has informed us that Congress holds the keys to this whole debacle (in a roundabout way), maybe you could stop assuring us that everything's OK (as long as you're not a terrorist and/or talking to one!) and that we should all aspire to be good little nothing-to-hide citizens, and start rolling back this ongoing, ever-expanding encroachment on our rights and liberty. Maybe start by asking why, if you don't "talk to terrorists," is your data being gathered in the name of fighting terrorists?

Filed Under: lindsey graham, nsa, nsa surveillance, terrorism
Companies: verizon

Eric Holder Claims Terrorists Are Involved In 'IP Theft'

from the oh-come-on dept

You may have heard about a fair bit about Attorney General Eric Holder testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. He was -- quite reasonably -- raked over the coals by members of both parties for the incredible decision to obtain phone records from AP reporters, under very questionable circumstances.

There was one other odd tidbit that might be worth discussing around here as well. Suddenly, in the middle of all the questions about the Associated Press, Rep. Mel Watt -- who, during the SOPA markup famously declared that he didn't understand the technology, or why tech people were concerned, but also that he didn't care and wanted to pass SOPA without bothering to understand -- started asking questions about copyright and "enforcement." Yes, Mel Watt is the ranking member on the IP subcommittee (scary enough in its own right), but it seemed completely off topic.

Most of the coverage on Watt's questioning has focused on the fact that he did most of his questioning with his two-year-old grandson on his lap, who interrupts the questioning at one point. But the questions were ridiculous, as were the answers, and deserve some scrutiny. First, despite it being soundly rejected when SOPA went down in flames, Watt asks Holder if Congress should make online streaming of infringing material a felony, rather than the misdemeanor that it currently is. There are all sorts of problems with this idea, as we've discussed in the past, but Holder embraced the idea wholeheartedly, saying that the Justice Department would love to have "another tool," ignoring just how widely the DOJ has abused existing tools to shut down legitimate companies and websites.

And then Watt directly asks about a connection to terrorism:

Watt: Are there increasing indications of links between this problem and terrorism? Have you found any of those links and would you describe them for the committee?

Holder: Yes, that's a very good question. It's something that's very worrisome. As we saw organized crime get into a variety of other businesses in order to support their efforts, we're now seeing terrorist groups getting into the theft of intellectual property. Again, to generate money to support what they're trying to do for their terrorist means. So we have to broaden our enforcement efforts, broaden the investigative efforts that we take, to examine what are the precise reasons why people are engaging in this kind of intellectual property thievery. And to consider whether or not there's a terrorist connection to it. This is a relatively new phenomenon, but one we have to be aware of.

Watt then asks about things that Congress can do to help, and Holder says he's "particularly concerned" about this problem, and he asks for "enhanced penalties" for "intellectual property theft." That all sounds very interesting. And it might be, if there were any truth to it at all. Unfortunately, there's not. We've yet to see a single piece of evidence supporting the idea that terrorists are involved in infringement. The claim has been around for years, and we've asked for evidence for years, and none has ever been provided. Because it doesn't exist. Researcher Joe Karaganis looked into the issue a few years ago and found that there were some very vague reports of organized crime being involved in counterfeit CDs/DVDs in the 80s and 90s. But that was small and short-lived -- in large part because online infringement basically made that business obsolete:

Arguing that piracy is integral to such networks [organized crime and terrorism] means ignoring the dramatic changes in the technology and organizational structure of the pirate market over the past decade. By necessity, evidentiary standards become very loose. Decades-old stories are recycled as proof of contemporary terrorist connections, anecdotes stand in as evidence of wider systemic linkages, and the threshold for what counts as organized crime is set very low. The RAND study, which reprises and builds on earlier IFPI and Interpol reporting, is constructed almost entirely around such practices. Prominent stories about IRA involvement in movie piracy and Hezbollah involvement in DVD and software piracy date, respectively, to the 1980s and 1990s. Street vendor networks in Mexico City--a subject we treat at length in the Mexico chapter--are mischaracterized as criminal gangs connected with the drug trade. Piracy in Russia is attributed to criminal mafias rather than to the chronically porous boundary between licit and illicit enterprise. The Pakistani criminal gang D-Company, far from "forging a clear pirate monopoly" in Bollywood, in RAND's words, plays a small and diminishing part in Indian DVD piracy--its smuggling networks dwarfed by local production.

The US record isn't more convincing in this regard. Jeffrey McIllwain examined the Department of Justice’s IP-related prosecutions between 2000 and 2004 and found that only 49 out of the 105 cases alleged that the defendant operated within larger, organized networks. Nearly all of these were "warez" distribution groups for pirated software--hacker communities that are explicitly and often fiercely non-commercial in orientation. McIllwain found "no overt references to professional organized crime groups" in any of the DOJ's criminal charges (McIllwain 2005:27). If organized crime is a serious problem in these contexts, it should not be difficult to produce a stronger evidentiary record.

In other words, Rep. Mel Watt, a well known supporter of Hollywood's position on copyright, tossed a bogus softball FUD talking point to Eric Holder in the middle of an important hearing about a very different subject, and Holder proceeded to make claims to Congress that have been made for decades without a single bit of evidence to support it.

Holder has plenty of other serious issues to deal with these days, but it makes me incredibly uncomfortable to see our Attorney General appear to be spreading known scare stories that have been proven bogus from decades ago as if they're new, despite a single bit of evidence concerning any modern connection to terrorism.

Filed Under: copyright, counterfeiting, eric holder, mel watt, terrorism

TIME/CNN Poll Shows Increasing Number Of Americans Won't Give Up Civil Liberties To Fight Terrorism

from the the-government-can't-give-you-safety,-but-it-can-take-your-rights dept

When discussing NYPD Police Chief Ray Kelly's assertion that "privacy is off the table" as a result of the Boston bombing, I mentioned I hadn't heard any public outcry demanding the government and law enforcement step in and do something (i.e., curtail civil liberties) in response to the tragedy. The responses we were seeing seemed to be nothing more than legislators and law enforcement officials pushing their own agendas.

This isn't just me not hearing what I don't want to hear. There's actual data available that explains the lack of concerned noises from Americans. A CNN/TIME poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans aren't interested in sacrificing rights to combat terrorism.

When given a choice, 61 percent of Americans say they are more concerned about the government enacting new anti-terrorism policies that restrict civil liberties, compared to 31 percent who say they are more concerned about the government failing to enact strong new anti-terrorism policies.

This is a vast improvement over 1996, when a post-Atlanta Olympics bombing poll showed only 23% opposed giving up freedom in exchange for fighting terrorism.

Breaking it down further, the poll also shows a bit of split along party lines. Self-identified Democrats are most likely to put their faith in government/law enforcement to make the U.S. "safer" by curtailing freedoms (51%). Republicans are less likely to favor this exchange (41%). For independents, less than a third (32%) are willing to give up some freedom to combat terrorism.

There is a bit of bad news contained within this generally positive indicator that Americans are less willing to give up something of theirs in exchange for the vagaries of "safety." The percentage of respondents who support additional surveillance in public areas has increased to 81% from 63% the week after the 9/11 attacks. On the other hand, there's a growing reluctance among Americans to allow the government to expand its surveillance efforts to cover more private venues, like email or cell phones. Only 38% approve of these efforts, down from 54% after 9/11.

Now, when legislators and law enforcement reps make strides towards reducing civil liberties, they do have some support. Those over the age of 50 (across all political parties) are most likely to support a loss of freedom (50%, as compared to only 34% for those under 50). Tellingly, this is pretty much the same demographic that feels video games are a bigger "safety threat" than guns (72% of respondents over the age of 45).

Unfortunately for the under-50 crowd, the over-50 demographic is historially the most active at the polls. If this perception of widespread support for invasive policies and legislation is going to change, the under-50 demographic is going to need to do a whole lot more voting. If not, these politicians are going to be able to truthfully say they have support for these policies -- at least, the only support that matters: die-hard voters.

Filed Under: civil liberties, fear, fud, terrorism, the public

MA Teen Arrested And Held Without Bail For Posting Supposed 'Terrorist Threat' On Facebook

from the being-a-lousy-rapper-still-not-a-crime dept

I'm going to take a guess and say the national Terrorism Mood Ring is still set to 'OVERREACT' if this story is any indication. Cameron D'Ambrosio, a Methuen, MA high school student, was arrested May 1st and charged with "communicating terroristic threats" based on a Facebook posting. He is being held without bail pending a hearing on May 9th and could face up to 20 years in jail for making a "bomb threat."

The threat (at least the one that appeared on Facebook), as reported by the Boston Herald, reads as follows. (For best results, fill in the blanks Mad Libs-style and spell "bombing" correctly.)

“I’m not in reality, So when u see me (expletive) go insane and make the news, the paper, and the (expletive) federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t (expletive) cry or be worried because all YOU people (expletive) caused this (expletive).

(Expletive) a boston bominb wait till u see the (expletive) I do, I’ma be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!"

This was posted to D'Ambrosio's Facebook page, which looks altogether similar to thousands of teens' Facebook pages. (Source: I am the parent of a teenager.) Also, like thousands of Facebook-using teens, D'Ambrosio fancies himself a rapper and his "threat" appears to be nothing more than some "lyrics" in search of a quality jeep beat. (I'm dating myself with that last term.)

So, how does some par-for-the-course teenage Facebook post become a "threat?" Well, it takes a very specific chain of events. The official Methuen PD blog breaks it all down (and throws a lot of exclamation points around in its headlines for some strange reason).

Today, Tuesday, May 1, 2013, at approximately 12:20, Methuen High School students reported to administration that they had received a Facebook phone message sent by a Methuen High School student with disturbing verbiage. The student made terrorist threats...

The administration acted quickly, contacted school service officer Jim Mellor, who then contacted the police department. The student was not in school but has since been located and placed under arrest. Administration working hand in hand with the Methuen Police Department, diffused the situation maintaining the best possible professional attitude.

In other words, some teens at the high school saw a status update posted by D'Ambrosio and told someone... who told someone. The rest is now hysteria history.

The PD arrested the student, charged him with "communicating terrorist threats" and locked him up pending a "dangerousness" hearing. But was it really a threat? Or was it just D'Ambrosio doing what teens do best -- attracting negative attention? That ellipsis in the quotation from the PD's blog takes the place of a sentence which seems to indicate this entire chain of events should never have happened.

These threats were in general and not directed towards another person or the school.

Non-specific threats are a bit problematic. There generally needs to be more going on than a Facebook post that indiscriminately "threatens" everyone who's able to read it. If it was targeted at specific people, perhaps it would be a more credible threat. (D'Ambrosio can target his threats. According to the Boston Herald, he was charged last year with threatening to stab his sister to death, but the case has been dismissed. Read into that what you will...)

Then there's the wording itself that, when taken in context with D'Ambrosio's rap aspirations, tends to indicate this is simply poorly-worded braggadocio aimed at touting his "skills." The second "stanza" (?) even says "I’ma be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!" This makes the preceding line read more like "I'm going to be bigger than the Boston Bombing," not altogether unlike John Lennon's proclamation that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. Again, rap is full of this sort of self-aggrandizement and D'Ambrosio certainly listened to enough of the music to pick up the basics.

The opening "stanza" starts with "I'm not in reality," another commonality of rap music. Eminem used this as a defense against criticism, stating that Eminem was an alter ego and was far more outrageous than he, Marshall Mathers, was. "It's all an act," in other words. Stating "I'm not in reality" up front should temper any expectations of literality in what follows it. Of course, this rationalizing grants D'Ambrosio additional depth that he may not actually possess. Even so, anyone with a passing knowledge of the art form would know enough to steal a little "depth."

Despite all this, the Methuen police chief seems rather proud of his catch. A rather breathless writeup at The Valley Patriot captures some rather ridiculous quotes from the man of the hour.

“He posted a threat in the form of rap where he mentioned the White House, the Boston Marathon bombing, and said ‘everybody you will see what I am going to do, kill people.”

If it was in the "form of a rap," there's a good chance this is protected speech, rather than a criminal act. Police chief Joe Solomon isn't helping his case by framing D'Ambrosio's words this way.

“I do want to make clear he did not make a specific threat against the school or any particular individuals but he did threaten to kill a bunch of people and specifically mentioned the Boston Marathon and the White House. The threat was disturbing enough for us to act and I think our officers did the right thing."

Strange. When I reread his words, I don't find him threatening to kill anyone. He says he'll "go insane" and make "the news, the paper, the (expletive) federal house of horror the White House." "Go insane" is not the same thing as threatening violence and its takes a lot of willingness to see something that's not actually there to believe it does. Sure, D'Ambrosio mentions both the White House and the Boston bombing, but simply throwing those words into a sentence (and filling the rest out with expletives) doesn't turn this into a credible threat, or at least not one that should result in a 20-year sentence.

By all means, the police should be willing to investigate perceived threats, but putting this into context (your average profane, overdramatic, attention-seeking, rap fan teenager) should have resulted in little more than a discussion about the possibility that word dumps like this could have negative consequences or legal repercussions.

The police also went to his home and seized D'Ambrosio's Xbox and laptop, but were apparently unable to find anything to indicate the teenager was anything more than a mouthy misanthrope. So, they've decided to "dig deeper into his Facebook account."

Tom Duggan, president and publisher of The Valley Patriot, dug a little deeper himself, and reported back (breathlessly) about the "horrors" he found. (All quotes are verbatim, I shit you not.)

D’Ambrosio also had disturbing photos and posts on his Facebook page including “Fuck politics, Fuck Obama and Fuck the government!!”

He also had a “disturbing satanic photo posted as well as a photo of himself on a “Wanted Poster” that reads “Wanted Dead or Alive” a quick perusal of his Facebook page shows D’Ambrosio’s unusual interest in gangs, violence and a criminal lifestyle.

Wow. It's like reading a report from Morality in Media. A teen who wants to stick it to the Man with f-bombs and exclamation points? Do tell! An "unusual" interest in gangs, violence and criminals? Does this make him more or less disturbing than a large majority of the teen population? Looking at his page, I notice D'Ambrosio also has an "unusual" interest in scantily-clad females, video games, Monsters University, puppies, "Fuck Drugs Enjoy Life," the National Guard, tattoos and Mario. And as for the whole "disturbing satanic photo" -- a.) Duggan is about 30 years too late to join the satanic panic, b.) the "photo" isn't actually a photo and c.) it's at least as comical as it is disturbing.

So, unless the police are holding some information back, it looks as if they've managed to turn a harmless bout of stupidity into a terrorist threat. Chief Solomon even credits the "see something, say something" travesty for helping the MPD corral this dangerous rapper. But while we're used to displays of immaturity from the young, there's no excusing the dangerous stupidity of zero tolerance policies, "see something, say something" and the police department's willingness to conjure up a threat out of little more than the use of "Boston" in a badly formed sentence.

Filed Under: massachusetts, terrorism

Armed UK Police Raid House Over Facebook Picture Showing Toy Weapon In Background

from the let's-get-rational dept

One of the reasons Techdirt rails against exaggerated responses to supposed terrorist threats is that it has caused police forces around the world to lose all sense of proportion -- literally, in the case of this UK story from the Daily Mail.

It began when Ian Driscoll decided to post a picture to his Facebook page. It was of an Action Man doll, accompanied by a toy Alsatian dog. Why? you might ask. Well, "as a laugh", he says, because the Action Man figure looked a lot like him, and he had a real Alsatian -- which sounds entirely reasonable. What Driscoll did not note at the time, though, was that lurking in the background of the picture was another toy: a model mortar.

Unfortunately, a few weeks later, someone else spotted that toy mortar and, mindful of the incessant UK government propaganda about terrorists being everywhere, duly over-reacted and reported the image. Even more unfortunately, the police also over-reacted -- to the extent of sending five officers, two armed with sub-machine guns (and you thought they didn't carry them in the UK), ready to smash down Driscoll's front door and go in with guns blazing against this supposed terrorist cell.

Luckily, Driscoll was there, and was able to defuse the situation by showing them the mortar in question. He was able to point out that it was in fact only slightly larger than the nearby Playstation that was clearly visible in the snap he had posted, and considerably smaller than the table that was also prominent in the Facebook picture. He might even have pointed out that the figure and dog in his upload were quite obviously toys to anyone who spent more than three seconds examining the picture. The police had presumably decided not to waste those precious three seconds before acting. Instead, as a spokesperson later said:

'We are sure that the community would rather we acted quickly on information given to us of this nature, in case it had turned out to be a weapon.'

Well, no, actually: what the community would really like is for the police to use some intelligence before reaching for the sub-machine guns. If they had just stopped and looked carefully at the picture, it would have been evident that there was no possible threat here. And that's likely to be the case for many other incidents around the world where the police have assumed the worst.

That not only represents a huge waste of their valuable time and resources, it also perpetuates the corrosive idea that we should be constantly afraid and ready to report anything and anyone odd or vaguely suspicious, no matter how absurd it would seem to anyone looking at things rationally. This then creates a self-sustaining loop of public fear and police over-reaction. It's time to scale the rhetoric back, and to make common-sense judgments common again.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: overreaction, police, social media, terrorism, threats, toys, uk

Thank Joe Lieberman For YouTube Accidentally Censoring Key Syrian Watchdog's YouTube Channel

from the bet-that'll-stop-terror dept

Senator Joe Lieberman may finally be out of the Senate, but his "legacy" lives on. Over the years, we've noted that he's regularly sought to censor technology that terrorists use, on the ridiculous theory that censorship somehow makes the terrorists disappear. One of his campaigns, way back in 2008, was to force YouTube to magically censor videos from terrorists. After putting a lot of public pressure on YouTube, the company caved. And... as a result of that, it recently shut down the video channel of an important Syrian watchdog organization which had been posting video evidence of atrocities occurring in that country. YouTube has apologized and reinstated the channel, but this is what happens when you encourage censorship. It is impossible not to have it lead to censoring important speech.

YouTube sent the Observatory an email on Sunday that said its channels "syrianhro" and "almrsd" had "violated the policy of the site by publishing shocking and offensive videos," the Britain-based watchdog said.

The Observatory, which disseminates graphic videos on YouTube of atrocities from the bloody civil war the UN says has killed more than 60,000 people, condemned the closure.

"This is the second time in two months that the site administration has closed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights channel," it said in a statement, in reference specifically to almrsd.

Of course, if we're to take Lieberman's theory to its logical conclusion, so long as no one can see the atrocities in Syria, we can all pretend they haven't happened, right?

Filed Under: activism, free speech, joe lieberman, syria, terrorism, videos, youtube
Companies: google, youtube

Graphic Novel Declared A Terrorist Operation By US Government, Advance Money Seized

from the insanity dept

This story is almost too bizarre to believe. Journalist David Axe wrote a graphic novel about "the Lord's Resistance Army" rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (which many people may be aware of due to the controversial viral "Kony 2012" story from earlier this year). No matter what you think of the situation with Kony, it seems bizarre that the book itself (which is just about Kony) should be declared a product of a terrorist organization and the money associated with it frozen. But... that's apparently what happened.

In 2010 I went to the Democratic Republic of Congo to report on the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group. In 2011 I wrote a graphic novel script based on my reporting and artist Tim Hamilton agreed to draw it. Cartoonist Matt Bors edited the story and early this year the Dutch Website Cartoon Movement serialized the art online, following which book publisher Public Affairs acquired the paperback rights. And last month, the federal Office of Foreign Assets Control confiscated the majority of the advance payment, claiming that we were laundering the money for onward transfer to a terrorist organization.

Yes, you read that right: the feds believe Tim and I are terror financiers.

This seems like a massive overreaction by the US government (and, perhaps, a First Amendment violation). The graphic novel appears to be a journalistic account of Joseph Kony's actions in central Africa: In the press release that Axe and Hamilton sent out about this, they were told that book's title, Army of God, "threw up a red flag." You would think that once that red flag went up, some bureaucrat somewhere would then have looked at the damn book and realized that it's not some terrorist conspiracy. I guess that's too much to ask.

Filed Under: david axe, graphic novel, joseph kony, ofac, terrorism, tim hamilton, us government

The DHS: Selling Fear And Uncertainty; Buying Sno-Cone Machines And Latrines-On-Wheels

from the blowing-money-fast dept

The Department of Homeland Security's stated aim of protecting the US from terrorism has been used as an ends to justify a variety of "means," many of which do little more than wreak havoc on civil liberties while spending a ton of taxpayer money. All sorts of questionable "solutions" to the terrorist problem have sprung from deep within the DHS, including $430 million spent on tuning its radios to a new frequency (which didn't "take"), alerting various law enforcement agencies on the dangers posed by food trucks and hotel guests, and so-called "Anti-Terror Centers" that failed to generate any useful anti-terrorist intelligence.

The above list is but a mere sampling of the wasteful and useless "programs" created under the DHS' purview. Now, a new report [PDF] by Sen. Coburn is exposing even more wasted tax dollars and questionable actions by the DHS. "Safety At Any Price: Assessing the Impact of Homeland Security Spending in U.S. Cities" was published earlier this month by Coburn's office and is addressed to the taxpayers.

In the opening statement, Coburn points out that throwing money at the "problem" isn't working.

We cannot secure liberty and guarantee security simply by spending more and more money in the name of security. Every dollar misspent in the name of security weakens our already precarious economic condition, indebts us to foreign nations, and shackles the future of our children and grandchildren... We can only defend our freedoms by ensuring the dollars we spend on security are done so in a fiscally responsible manner, meet real needs, and respect the very rights we are aiming to preserve and protect.

Making a point about the rights that have been steadily sacrificed in the name of "security" over the past decade-plus is a step in the right direction. Sacrificing liberty for security isn't popular with US citizens, but we have been given little choice but to keep funding the very machinery that endeavours to remove our rights. Attempting to dig deeper into the damage being done usually results in the invocation of "state secrets" and FOIA requests are delayed, dodged or redacted to the point of abstraction.

Coburn's report deals with both issues, the rights erosion and the reckless spending. He points out that recent cuts to the program, trimming its coverage of major cities roughly in half, have resulted in some aggressive lobbying to restore funding to its previous levels. But, after reading what the money was being spent on, it's a wonder the funding wasn't pulled sooner.

The results of the investigation find that taxpayer money spent on homeland security grant programs has not always been spent in ways obviously linked to terrorism or preparedness. Importantly, this does not mean money was spent outside the bounds of what was allowed. The decision by officials in Michigan to purchase 13 sno-cone machines and the $45 million that was spent by officials in Cook County, Illinois on a failed video surveillance network have already garnered national attention as examples of dubious spending. Both were defended or promoted by DHS.

Other examples have not received as much attention. Columbus, Ohio recently used a $98,000 UASI grant to purchase an “underwater robot.” Local officials explained that it would be used to assist in underwater rescues.

Keene, New Hampshire, with a population just over 23,000 and a police force of 40, set aside UASI funds to buy a BearCat armored vehicle. Despite reporting only a single homicide in the prior two years, the City of Keene told DHS the vehicle was needed to patrol events like its annual pumpkin festival.

Thirteen sno-cone machines and an armed vehicle capable of protecting a town from the terrors of the local pumpkin festival. Any study of government waste will turn up examples of "blank check" spending, where money is thrown at any number of ridiculous purchases simply because the money was available to spend. Just as common is the fact that no one of any import ever seems to question the money being spent before it's actually spent. Any sort of reflection on the waste is almost always limited to hindsight.

More disturbing than sno-cones and festivals patrolled by BearCat is the propaganda created with taxpayer funding that actively exhorts citizens to report their neighbors for a variety of nebulous reasons.

Some urban areas used their awards for local outreach, holding conferences, creating websites and posting videos on how citizens can spot signs of terror in their own neighborhoods. A video sponsored by the Jacksonville UASI alerted its residents to red flags such as people with “average or above average intelligence” or who displayed “increased frequency of prayer or religious behavior.”

Broadly defined "suspicious behavior" is a great way to make every citizen a suspect... and justify every violation of personal privacy. If you need warrantless wiretaps or a reason to indefinitely detain US citizens, all you have to do is start listing everyday activity as "suspicious." The report also points out how ill prepared the nation would actually be in the event of catastrophic terrorist attack, thanks to the fact that FEMA itself receives funding through the UASI program, money that has been spent in an equally careless fashion.

In part, FEMA has done very little oversight of the program, allowing cities to spend the money on almost anything they want, as long as it has broad ties to terror prevention. In fact, according to a June 2012 report by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, “FEMA did not have a system in place to determine the extent that Homeland Security Grant Program funds enhanced the states’ capabilities to prevent, deter, response to, and recover from terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies before awarding more funds to the states.” Moreover, the agency failed to issue preparedness goals, intended to shape the use of UASI funds, until last year—nine years after the program was created.

At this point, despite several billion dollars worth of expenditures, the DHS and its affiliated agencies are still pretty much unable to prevent or respond to a terrorist attack. A lack of accountability may do wonders for politicians "bringing the money back home," but it does absolutely nothing to achieve the stated aims of an agency created directly in response to a terrorist attack. The report states very bluntly that the initial intent of the program has become little more than a new source of pork.

Dealing with the risk of attack requires understanding our limitations and focusing on the best things we do to prevent one—a concept referred to often as “buying down risk.” For programs like UASI that means establishing a framework for conducting a risk analysis and allocating resources where they are most likely to make the biggest difference.

Unfortunately, DHS and Congress have often let politics interfere, diluting any results. Instead of sending funds where they can have the biggest impact, money is spread around to parochial political interests. This ensures fewer complaints and broad political support, but does not necessarily mean we are safer.

As long term, well-funded programs tend to do, the UASI program has become little more than a charade played out to the tune of billions. Instead of focusing the funding and intelligence in areas most at-risk for a terrorist attack, expanding from seven urban areas to 66 over the course of the decade. Now that the list has been trimmed down to 31, the complaints -- and the dubious assertions -- are flowing back into Washington DC, in hopes of turning the money spigot back on.

Describing it as “a mistake,” on May 19, 2011, Rhode Island’s congressional delegation sent a letter to DHS Secretary Napolitano objecting to the Department’s decision to end UASI funding for the Providence metro area saying that Rhode Island is home to 1 million residents and is at greater risk of a terrorist attack because of its proximity to Boston and New York...

Often, those lobbying for large awards cited unlikely worst-case scenarios to inflate the threats they face. Legislators and some in the responder community from smaller cities argued that funds should be disbursed not only to obvious targets like New York City, but also to smaller locations. Some argued that since “terrorist attacks tend to start in smaller locales” and sometimes remote U.S. towns, these areas also need homeland security grants to help protect their communities...

This argument was made by officials from the Oxnard/Thousand Oaks area in California. Arguing against legislation offered by several lawmakers to limit the number of UASI-funded urban areas to 25, officials from the Oxnard/Thousand Oaks UASI asserted that “since most terrorists do not live or plan their attacks in the same city that is being targeted, [eliminating funding] may actually decrease the protection of other […….] Urban Areas.”

Oxnard/Thousand Oaks has been incredibly active in the "give us more money" arena, stating that it is "a safe community, but the threat is present all the time." This despite the fact that after receiving its initial funding, the governor went out of his way to assure the community that "no new information" about an "actual terrorist threat" had been received. It also asked for nearly $100,000 in additional funds to upgrade alarms and CCTV, stating that "minor security incidents have periodically occurred." During this same period of "periodic security incidents," the violent crime rate in Thousand Oaks dropped to an all-time low.

Here's a few more examples of what money can buy when no one's paying attention:

• Texas took in $1.1 billion in homeland security spending in 2011, which covered such purchases as a $24,000 latrine-on-wheels, a hog catcher for Liberty County, body bags, garbage bags, Ziploc bags and two 2011 Camaros at $31,000 a piece.
   
• A HALO Counter-Terrorism Summit held at a resort and spa, with an entrance fee of $1,000 per person paid with UASI funds. Counter-terrorism training was back-burnered in favor of tech demonstrations by visiting contractors. The only training that took place was a mock exercise utilizing "Hollywood magic" and a set with special effects, pyrotechnics and "state-of-the-art structures." The "terrorists" being "countered?" Zombies.
   
• In Louisiana, Jefferson Parish spent $45,000 on license plate readers -- which have been used solely to catch car thieves. Ascension Parish received $2,700 for a teleprompter, which was characterized as a "national priority to expand regional collaboration."
   
• The FDNY claimed $143,000 in "backfill" overtime expenses based on estimates rather than actual hours worked.
   
• The 13 sno-cone machines mentioned earlier? $6,200. Allowable because FEMA stated that could serve a dual purpose -- filling ice packs in an emergency.
   
• $45.6 million to Chicago for Project Shield, a network of surveillance cameras covering 128 municipalities. The program was ultimately shuttered.

There's much, much more in this thorough report, which details exactly how much money is being spent on a program with no end in sight that uses fear as leverage for additional funding. What started as a hurried response to a once-in-a-lifetime event has now become a vehicle for pork barrel spending, rights erosion and hundreds of "security" fiefdoms with their hands out.

 

Filed Under: dhs, sno-cones, terrorism