Border Patrol Looking To Become One Of The First Federal Agencies To Utilize Body Cameras

from the an-agency-in-need-of-additional-accountability-actually-accepts-it dept

Most of the nation's law enforcement agencies seem to accept body-worn cameras as inevitable. The DOJ supports their use of body cameras and has set aside $20 million in funding assistance for state and local agencies.

However, the federal government doesn't seem nearly as interested in equipping its own agencies with body cameras. FBI agents don't wear them. Neither do DEA agents. US Marshals haven't discussed any plans to implement the technology. And while it appears Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has at least entertained the idea, it has only done so with the forced politeness that greets unwanted -- but familially-related -- houseguests.

Customs and Border Protection staff concluded after an internal review that agents and officers shouldn't be required to wear body cameras, positioning the nation's largest law enforcement agency as a counterweight to a growing number of police forces that use the devices to promote public trust and accountability.

The yearlong review cited cost and a host of other reasons to hold off, according to two people familiar with the findings who spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings have not been made public. It found operating cameras may distract agents while they're performing their jobs, may hurt employee morale, and may be unsuited to the hot, dusty conditions in which Border Patrol agents often work.

Of all the excuses for not wearing body cameras, only the last has any merit. Law enforcement officers seem to have fought through the distractions "created" by several other recording devices (and certainly don't appear concerned about the potential distracting effects of their outward-facing recording equipment) over the years. As for the morale damage… well, I'm sure we'll all shed a few tears for officers whose actions over several years have resulted in current demands for greater accountability.

The CBP is no exception. The agency has been under additional scrutiny for its use of deadly force, thanks to its involvement in 40 deaths since 2010. While some deployments of deadly force were justified, other incidents involved CBP officers greeting thrown rocks with gunfire and deliberately standing in front of moving vehicles to create the justification needed to "discharge" their weapons.

Fortunately, the excuses have been dismissed. As Megan Geuss of Ars Technica reports, the CBP's "thanks, but no thanks" response to body camera proposals was only the result of an early "feasibility study" and not reflective of the agency's current views.

On Thursday the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner announced that the law enforcement agency would be moving forward with a plan to equip its ranks with body cameras. The cameras, Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske said, would be used during "operations such as checkpoints, vessel boarding and interdictions, training academies, and outbound operations at ports of entry.” The commissioner added that CBP would also be assessing how it currently uses stationary and car-mounted cameras to see if additional cameras are needed.

The CBP could have dodged the additional accountability body cameras potentially offer. It had all the excuses lined up. But instead it chose to overcome its mostly self-imposed obstacles and expand the documentation of CBP officers' interactions with members of the public. More encouragingly, the new report points out that body cameras will have a "wide variety of benefits" for the CBP. While many law enforcement and security officers tend to view body cameras as existential threats to their employment, they've already shown they can just as clearly capture the public's "misconduct."

Filed Under: body cameras, border patrol, cbp, doj

Texas Attorney General Sues Self To Stop Self From Releasing Documents He Says Can't Be Released

from the ourobouros dept

Don't mess with Texas. It's already a mess.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been in the news quite a bit lately. He tried to block the state from recognizing a common-law marriage between two women (who had been together for eight years), but had his efforts undone by a Travis County court.

Around this same time, a second convening of a grand jury managed to do what the first one couldn't: bring an indictment against Paxton for alleged financial fraud. Paxton apparently wasn't very forthcoming about what he stood to gain from the sale of $200,000 in Servergy stock to a couple of investors. The apparent sketchiness of Paxton's actions was compounded by an ongoing investigation of the company by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Now, he's in the middle of another conflict. Texas legislators aren't too happy that the state's Department of Public Safety keeps asking for money, but failing to provide many details on how it's being spent.

When the DPS in March this year asked for another $123 million to help "secure the border," state Rep. Cesar Blanco blasted the DPS for taking credit for work done by the federal government, and failing to back up its claims with data.

"The state has nothing to show for its money," Blanco, D-El Paso, told El Paso Times on March 30.

According to the DPS, it was partnering with Customs and Border Patrol on a "surge" effort to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking. The CBP, on the other hand, portrayed the so-called "partnership" as the DPS's attempt to do a little coattail-riding on an ongoing effort by the DHS agency. It claimed it had not participated in a joint effort with the state entity.

Two local newspapers started digging into the dubious claims the DPS was making to justify the need for more handouts. What they uncovered was some very dubious math.

"DPS merged Border Patrol's massive drug seizure statistics with its own to tout the operation's effectiveness," the American-Statesman reported in June, and when state lawmakers asked for "DPS-specific statistics," the DPS refused.

The newspaper continued digging for information, seeking receipts and other documents related to expenses racked up by scattered DPS agents sent ostensibly to "aid" the CBP in its border-securing efforts. The DPS apparently has no intention of handing over these records and has sued to keep them secret.

That's where things get really twisted. AG Ken Paxton has the final say on the release of public records by the DPS. To obtain an injunction, the DPS has to sue Paxton to prevent the release of documents. It has done so, claiming the usual stuff about "safety" and "terrorism."

Public records law requires the DPS to sue the attorney general if it wants to keep secret information the attorney general wants to release. It did sue him, on Tuesday, claiming the information could endanger state troopers' "physical safety" or create a "substantial threat of physical harm."

It also claims that the information is confidential because it involves "preventing, detecting, responding to, or investigating an act of terrorism or related criminal activity."

The DPS asked a Travis County judge to exempt it from disclosure under the "common-law physical safety exception" and the Homeland Security Act.

And the twist? Another conflict of interest.

The DPS is represented, oddly, by Attorney General Paxton.

So, Paxton is suing Paxton to prevent Paxton from releasing documents Paxton claims (by proxy) can't be released for safety/terrorism reasons. However, Paxton must obtain a favorable ruling from a judge to force himself not to release documents he possibly feels shouldn't be released in the first place. It all comes down to Paxton, who can press either side of the argument, depending on his personal feelings.

This won't be the first time Paxton has basically sued himself. Courthouse News Service covered a similarly incongruous legal filing back in February.

The Texas Department of Public Safety sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, claiming DPS information about anti-terrorism operations in its school marshal program is exempt from disclosure, in Travis County Court.

And, as if everything couldn't get any more conflicting/interesting, the Texas House voted in April to move the authority for prosecuting corruption allegations against state officials from the county's Public Integrity Unit to the Department of Public Safety -- which is represented by an attorney general currently facing securities fraud charges.

It appears the left hand indeed knows what the right hand is doing, at least in terms of the DPS and its various interests. This normally would be a good thing, as government entities often seem to operate as free agents, rather than as complementary parts of a cohesive whole. But in this case, the guy who has the final say on document releases has to sue himself to override his own decisions. On top of that, should Paxton decide to participate in any more (allegedly) fraudulent behavior, he'll be doing so as the legal representative of the agency charged with charging him.

Filed Under: border patrol, conflict of interest, department of public safety, dps, foia, ken paxton, lawsuits, money, texas, transparency

Border Patrol Agent Forwarded All Emails To Someone Else's Gmail; Only Discovered When 'Civilian' Responded

from the oops dept

Intercept reporter Jenna McLaughlin alerts us to a rather stunning security mistake by a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agent, as outlined in some DHS released "incident reports" concerning "cloud data breaches." The very first one involves the CBP agent forwarding all of his email to a personal account, but messing up the configuration, so that it actually forwarded to someone else's Gmail account (someone with a similar name) -- and this mistake was only noticed when this "civilian" responded to an email he had received via this forwarding, and the response was sent to a wider mailing list of Homeland Security employees: If you can't see that, here's what it says:

CBP reports that one (1) CBP user had an auto-forwarding rule setup to have emails sent externally to a civilian's personal Gmail account. There is a possibility that sensitive information to include Personally Identifiable Information (Pll) has been accidently sent out due to this rule. The incident was discovered when a civilian responded to a CBP user's email to a distribution list of other CBP/DHS users. The CBP user noticed the civilian's Gmail address and reported it to the FTO who then reported the incident to the CBP CSIRC. Upon investigation and confirmation from EaaS, one (1) CBP Border Patrol Agent who was on the email distribution list had an auto-forwarding rule setup within their Exchange account to a non-CBP/DHS user's personal Gmail account. The name of the Border Patrol Agent and the civilian are very similar, but it was determined that the Border Patrol Agent misconfigured the rule by using the civilian's personal Gmail address instead of his own. Technical remediation will include working with the EaaS team to implement a rule to disable the auto-forwarding rule and only allow it when requests are made to the Exchange team. The incident has been reported to the CBP Privacy Office and Joint Intake Center for action (assisting the user to have all government emails removed and confirmed).

It seems rather stunning that CBP/DHS didn't already have such a rule in place. Then again, this is Customs and Border Patrol, who has something of a history of not really giving a fuck because they can get away with doing whatever they want and no one ever does anything about it.

Later in the same report, it is revealed that this auto-forwarding from inside DHS to private accounts happened somewhat frequently. An investigation just a month after the incident above showed 771 such rules set in DHS staffers Exchange systems: If you can't read that, it says:

DHS SOC reports that a total of 771 rules are configured in Exchange to auto-forward emails external to DHS. DHS SOC requested and received a list of 771 automated email forwarding rules created by DHS Email as a Service (EaaS) users. Auto-forwarding or redirecting of DHS email to address outside of the .gov or .mil domain is prohibited and shall not be used per DHS 4300A policy, section 5.4.6.i and poses a high risk of accidental disclosure of Pll, SBU, FOUO, LES, or classified data. The incident has been reported to the Joint Intake Center (JIC). Affected Components (CBP, FEMA, DHS HQ, and DC2) are asked to identify and remediate the rules.

Not sure about to you, but this doesn't make me feel much safer about DHS at all. And, remember, DHS is one of the government bodies currently looking to manage the government's cybersecurity efforts -- and they're considered the better option given just how little people trust the NSA or the FBI (the two other main contenders).

Filed Under: border patrol, cbp, cybersecurity, dhs, email, email forwarding, homeland security

Laura Poitras Sues US Government To Find Out Why She Was Detained Every Time She Flew

from the time-for-some-answers dept

These days, Laura Poitras is known as the Oscar-winning director of the Ed Snowden documentary CITIZENFOUR, and with it, one of the reporters who helped break Snowden's story in the first place. Pre-Snowden, she was a not-as-widely-known-but-still-celebrated documentary filmmaker, who also got some attention after her future colleague Glenn Greenwald wrote an article about how she was detained at the border every time she flew into the country (which was frequently, as she had made a documentary, My Country, My Country, concerning the Iraq War, along with The Oath, which reported on two Yemenis who had worked with Osama bin Laden). As Greenwald wrote back in 2012:

But Poitras’ work has been hampered, and continues to be hampered, by the constant harassment, invasive searches, and intimidation tactics to which she is routinely subjected whenever she re-enters her own country. Since the 2006 release of “My Country, My Country,” Poitras has left and re-entered the U.S. roughly 40 times. Virtually every time during that six-year-period that she has returned to the U.S., her plane has been met by DHS agents who stand at the airplane door or tarmac and inspect the passports of every de-planing passenger until they find her (on the handful of occasions where they did not meet her at the plane, agents were called when she arrived at immigration). Each time, they detain her, and then interrogate her at length about where she went and with whom she met or spoke. They have exhibited a particular interest in finding out for whom she works.

She has had her laptop, camera and cellphone seized, and not returned for weeks, with the contents presumably copied. On several occasions, her reporter’s notebooks were seized and their contents copied, even as she objected that doing so would invade her journalist-source relationship. Her credit cards and receipts have been copied on numerous occasions. In many instances, DHS agents also detain and interrogate her in the foreign airport before her return, on one trip telling her that she would be barred from boarding her flight back home, only to let her board at the last minute. When she arrived at JFK Airport on Thanksgiving weekend of 2010, she was told by one DHS agent — after she asserted her privileges as a journalist to refuse to answer questions about the individuals with whom she met on her trip — that he “finds it very suspicious that you’re not willing to help your country by answering our questions.” They sometimes keep her detained for three to four hours (all while telling her that she will be released more quickly if she answers all their questions and consents to full searches).

It wasn't only at the border that she was subject to such searches. Often, even when flying domestically within the US, she was called out for further scrutiny and searches.

After Greenwald's article, a bunch of documentary filmmakers signed a petition protesting the treatment of Poitras, and between the press coverage and the petition, the harassment of Poitras suddenly stopped.

After this, she filed some FOIA requests to find out why she had been supposedly given a high threat rating in the DHS database, causing such detentions. Not surprisingly, the government refused to reveal any such information. And that brings us to the latest, where Poitras, with help from the EFF, has now sued the US government (specifically the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice) to get them to reveal why she was considered a threat.

As the filing itself explains, Poitras filed FOIA requests with basically every part of the government that might have information on her detentions, and basically got nothing in response from any of them, either by mostly ignoring the requests or rejecting them.

As the lawsuit also notes, Poitras took detailed records of her detentions (when she could -- in at least one instance she was denied the use of a pen to take notes after being told she might use it as a weapon). And the lawsuit includes some detailed descriptions. Here's just a snippet from a much longer list.

On or around August 22, 2006, while traveling from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to John F. Kennedy International Airport (“JFK”) in New York City after attending the Sarajevo Film Festival, Plaintiff was paged to security while transiting through the Vienna International Airport in Vienna, Austria. Plaintiff was thereafter taken into a van and driven to a security inspection area. All of Plaintiff’s bags were searched and xrayed. The head of airport security at the Vienna International Airport told Plaintiff that her “Threat Score” was 400 out of 400 points. Plaintiff was eventually allowed to board a plane to the United States. Upon her arrival at JFK, CBP agents again met her at the gate. Plaintiff was thereafter escorted to a holding room, where she was detained and questioned for roughly two (2) hours, and where her bags were searched for a second time, before being allowed to enter the United States.

On or around November 26, 2006, while traveling from Paris, France to Newark on her way home from a vacation, Plaintiff was met by boarder agents upon her arrival at Newark. She was detained and questioned for 30 minutes.

On or around December 17, 2006, while traveling from Dubai, United Arab Emirates to JFK after attending the Dubai Film Festival, Plaintiff was met by border agents upon her arrival at JFK. She was again detained and questioned before being allowed entry into the United States. The CBP agents asked Plaintiff when she had last been to Atlanta, Georgia and told her that she had a criminal record, despite that she had never been arrested.

Unfortunately, the courts have been pretty deferential to the government concerning things like the "no fly" list and the terrorist database, which means this lawsuit might be a long shot. However, one hopes that a judge will see both the clear ridiculousness of the treatment and the rather obvious fact that it was designed to intimidate Poitras and chill her First Amendment rights, and consider forcing the government into releasing these documents.

Filed Under: border patrol, cbp, chilling effects, detained, dhs, laura poitras, travel, tsa
Companies: eff

Border Patrol Agents Tase Woman For Refusing To Cooperate With Their Bogus Search

from the the-question-that-has-no-real-answer dept

Jessica Cooke, a New York native who had recently applied for a position with Customs and Border Protection, asked the only question that needed to be asked after being tased by CBP agents for asserting her rights: "What the fuck is wrong with you?!?"

Cooke was driving from Norfolk to her boyfriend's house in Ogdensburg, the northern border of which is the St. Lawrence River. If you cross the river, you are in Canada, but Cooke was not crossing the river. She nevertheless became subject to the arbitrary orders of CBP agents by driving through one of the country's many internal immigration checkpoints, which can be located anywhere within 100 miles of the border (a zone that includes two-thirds of the U.S. population). For some mysterious reason, she was instructed to pull into a secondary inspection area, where she used her cellphone to record a five-minute video of the stop (below). [Language possibly NSFW]

These CBP agents -- like too many other law enforcement officers -- had no idea how to react when their authority was challenged. They only saw one route to take: escalation.

Cooke knew the CBP agents needed something in the way of reasonable suspicion to continue to detain her. But they had nothing. The only thing offered in the way of explanation as they ordered her to return to her detained vehicle was that she appeared "nervous" during her prior interaction with the female CBP agent. This threadbare assertion of "reasonable suspicion" is law enforcement's blank check -- one it writes itself and cashes with impunity.

The CBP supervisor then stated he'd be bringing in a drug dog to search her vehicle -- another violation of Cooke's rights. The Supreme Court very recently ruled that law enforcement cannot unnecessarily prolong routine stops in order to perform additional searches unrelated to the stop's objective.

If the purpose of CBP is to secure borders and regulate immigration, then this stop had very little to do with the agency's objectives. Cooke is an American citizen and had not crossed a border. If the CBP's objective is to do whatever it wants within x number of miles of the border, then it's apparently free to perform suspicionless searches. In this case, the CBP was operating in drug enforcement mode, but even so, it still hadn't offered anything more than Cooke's alleged "nervousness" to justify the search and detainment. Additionally, the CBP's decision to bring in a drug dog raised the bar for justification.

While nervousness alone might be deemed enough for reasonable suspicion, SUNY Buffalo immigration law professor Rick Su told the local NPR station, "it is not sufficient" to justify a vehicle search, which requires probable cause to believe the vehicle contains evidence of a crime.

Things escalated when Cooke refused to return to her vehicle and wait passively for the CBP to perform its questionable search. Cooke told the officers she would leave if the search wasn't performed within 20 minutes. The supervisor told her she could leave, but her car couldn't and if she tried, spike strips would be deployed.

Shortly thereafter, this exchange occurred:

CBP agent: I'm going to tell you one more time, and then I'm going to move you.
Cooke: If you touch me, I will sue your ass. Do you understand me?
CBP agent: Go for it.
Cooke: Touch me then.
CBP agent: Move over there.
Cooke: Go ahead. Touch me.
CBP agent: I'm telling you to move over there.

Cue said "touching," followed almost immediately by screams of pain and swearing as Cooke is tased. Before the recording end, you can hear the CBP agent claiming Cooke "assaulted a federal officer." (As one does…)

And for all the hassle, the CBP came up with nothing.

During an exterior inspection of her vehicle by the unit, nothing was found, Ms. Cooke said. She said agents then opened the car doors, got her keys and opened the trunk.

Again, nothing was found, Ms. Cooke said, adding that agents did a second search of the vehicle with the K-9 unit, but found nothing.

There will always be those who feel citizens who refuse to meet law enforcement instructions with anything but meek obedience deserve whatever happens to them. "It's tough being in law enforcement," they claim. And it is. But considering the job contains the constant threat of injury or death, a little mouthiness or stubbornness shouldn't be met with this level of force.

Things are slowly changing, though. Law enforcement officers can no longer rely on the belief that citizens know less about their rights than they do. They will need to do more to justify searches and seizures in the future, instead of just making vague claims about perceived nervousness. Otherwise, their unconstitutional search attempts are either going to rely heavily on ensuring compliance through inapproriate use of force, or head to the other end of the spectrum, where they won't even get a chance to take a look. [Language possibly NSFW]

Filed Under: 4th amendment, border patrol, search, taser

DHS Watchdog Says Border Patrol's Drones Are Expensive, Useless

from the 'just-like-your-mom,'-the-report-DIDN'T-add dept

The CBP's drone squadron has been a tightly-held secret. Documents have been pried loose by FOIA lawsuits, but it's pretty clear the DHS and the CBP would rather not discuss its flying surveillance technology. Not that the CBP drones are strictly for patrolling our nation's borders. They've been spotted far inland, being used by law enforcement agencies taking advantage of the CBP's drone lending library.

Finally, more details on the CBP's drones have made their way into the public domain, thanks to an Office of the Inspector General report. [pdf link] The information contained in this document points to two seeming contradictions, albeit the sort of contradictions often found in government agencies that run long on Congressional support but short on effective oversight.

They're expensive:

We estimate that, in fiscal year 2013, it cost at least $62.5 million to operate the program, or about $12,255 per hour.

And they're worthless:

Given the cost of the Unmanned Aircraft System program and its unproven effectiveness, CBP should reconsider its plan to expand the program. The $443 million that CBP plans to spend on program expansion could be put to better use by investing in alternatives, such as manned aircraft and ground surveillance assets.

This table makes it completely clear how little this technology has contributed to safer borders.


The drone program began with the assumption that long-range eyes in the sky would be cheaper than running agents all over the place. Supposedly, the drones would be able to cover areas that wouldn't be feasible using humans and ground vehicles. The CBP has 7,000 miles of land borders and 2,000 miles of coastal waters to cover, but its long-range drones, for the most part, kept an eye on only two very small areas.

[A]ccording to CBP, in FY 2013 UAS operations along the 1,993-mile southwest border focused on about 100 miles of Arizona border and operations in Texas concentrated on about 70 miles of that state’s border.

The OIG found that the CBP's enthusiasm for drones far exceeded the agency's grasp. It envisioned nearly round-the-clock surveillance over large areas. It delivered minimal coverage for nearly $13,000/hour.

[T]he unmanned aircraft logged a combined total of 5,102 flight hours, or about 80 percent less than what OAM anticipated.

The OAM (CBP's Office of Air and Marine) blames budget constraints. It wants $443 million to acquire more drones and keep the ones it has airborne more often. But the OAM seemingly has no idea what its actual costs are, much less what it might need to reach its 16-hour-a-day goal. It underreported drone operating costs to the OIG by nearly $10,000/hour. And yet, it wants to be trusted with more money and more toys.

The Office of Air and Marine’s calculation of $2,468 per flight hour does not include operating costs, such as the costs of pilots, equipment, and overhead. By not including all operating costs, CBP also cannot accurately assess the program’s cost effectiveness or make informed decisions about program expansion.

Even with 5,100 hours of flight time being logged, the eyes in the sky contributed to only 2,300 apprehensions. The CBP's ground forces made over 10 times as many apprehensions. An apprehension for every half-hour of flight time is a pretty good ratio (said here without any meaningful stats to compare it to), but that works out to about $6,000 per detainment -- hardly an indicator of efficiency.

The CBP argues that apprehensions aren't a good measure of the drones' value. It prefers to use "detections." All well and good, but even though that number is higher (18,239), the agency was unable to demonstrate to the OIG that there was a meaningful connection between what the drones "saw" and effective border enforcement. The OIG notes the CBP's objection, but still sticks with the lower apprehension measurement.

The CBP also claims drug seizures to be a better measuring stick of effectiveness than apprehensions, but even this self-selected metric is underwhelming.


The report also calls out the CBP for vastly misrepresenting the amount of area covered by its drones.

According to CBP, our statements that unmanned aircraft are not operating along the entire southwest border are inaccurate. CBP said OAM has authorization to fly, and has flown, the unmanned aircraft along every stretch of the southwest border, from California to the Texas gulf coast.

OAM provided additional flight hour information that showed 44.6 hours flown over California and 3.8 hours flown over New Mexico. The California hours involved an unmanned aircraft flying over that state to conduct missions over water off the state’s southern coast. We do not know what the 3.8 hours over New Mexico flight hours involved. OAM did not provide information that showed surveillance missions in either of these states.

We believe it is misleading for CBP to report that its unmanned aircraft operate over every stretch of the southwest border when these flights appear to be simply on the way to another mission.

It's not that drones are completely useless. It's that these particular ones are. Ars Technica quotes drone law expert Brendan Schulman:

"Smaller drones, used in closer proximity to border areas, may turn out to be far more efficient and effective at this type of mission," he wrote in an e-mail. "The Predator is a very large airframe that is over a decade old. One of the recommendations of the report is to conduct a study on whether investments in alternatives, such as manned aircraft and ground technologies, might work better. Newer, low-cost drones that have been developed over the past year or two might be another alternative worth investigating."

The best thing the CBP can do at this point is drop its defensiveness about its underutilized (but overhyped) drone program. There is no doubt the agency will continue to use drones, but it needs cheaper and more agile technology. And while it's updating its fleet, it should also update its Privacy Impact Assessment. We know the FBI has yet to make its public, and the CBP's current PIA makes no mention of its drone lending program -- nor does it require similar assessments from those it lends its fleet (and operators) to.

Drones will continue to be a part of border surveillance, but just because they're inescapable doesn't mean the CBP is justified in its insistence on throwing more money at a program that clearly needs a major overhaul.

Filed Under: border patrol, dhs, drones

Border Patrol Given New Deadly Force Guidelines After Report Shows Officers Created Dangerous Situations To Justify Opening Fire

from the bringing-a-gun-to-a-rock-fight dept

The US Border Patrol has handed down new guidelines for use of deadly force after its agents killed 19 people in 67 shooting incidents between 2010-2012.

The U.S. Border Patrol has restricted border agents' authority to shoot at moving vehicles or at people throwing rocks, changing a controversial policy that has contributed to at least 19 deaths since 2010…

The new rules would bring the Border Patrol's practices closer to those used routinely by the nation's major urban police departments. They are a response, in part, to widespread complaints from immigrant advocates that border agents have shot and killed people in some cases when deadly force was not necessary to protect the lives of agents or the public.

Why did the CBP open fire on so many people? Well, it's because agents feared for their safety. Why did they fear for their safety? Because they put themselves deliberately in that position, according to a report commissioned by the CBP and written by law enforcement experts.

House and Senate oversight committees requested copies last fall but received only a summary that omitted the most controversial findings — that some border agents stood in front of moving vehicles as a pretext to open fire and that agents could have moved away from rock throwers instead of shooting at them…

"It is suspected that in many vehicle shooting cases, the subject driver was attempting to flee from the agents who intentionally put themselves into the exit path of the vehicle, thereby exposing themselves to additional risk and creating justification for the use of deadly force," the report reads. In some cases, "passengers were struck by agents' gunfire."

Judging from this, one would almost believe certain CBP agents were just looking for excuses to shoot someone. And the CBP agents' response has been to claim that new guidelines -- telling them not to stand in front of escaping vehicles and to move away from rock-throwing individuals -- will somehow make the job more dangerous.

The response, marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," states that a ban on shooting at rock throwers "could create a more dangerous environment" because many agents operate "in rural or desolate areas, often alone, where concealment, cover and egress is not an option."

If drug smugglers knew border agents were not allowed to shoot at their vehicles, it argues, more drivers would try to run over agents.

The authors of the report had this to say in response to the CBP's speculative assertion (spearheaded by CBP union reps, who have stated that they will "oppose any restriction on CBP officers' use of force").

"It should be recognized that a half-ounce (200-grain) bullet is unlikely to stop a 4,000-pound moving vehicle, and if the driver … is disabled by a bullet, the vehicle will become a totally unguided threat," it says. "Obviously, shooting at a moving vehicle can pose a risk to bystanders including other agents."

So, while the new guidance lays out some common sense rules in hopes of decreasing the number of deadly shootings, some feel it still doesn't go far enough. The ACLU is recommending the use of body cameras to ensure each use of force is properly documented. Zoe Lofgren has called for more transparency from the agency itself, which has still refused to reveal how many officers (if any) received any sort of disciplinary action for inappropriate use of force.

The CBP obviously has transparency issues. Every effort was made to prevent this report from being made public, despite the CBP itself commissioning it. And, as we've covered earlier, the CBP has obscured the use of its drone "lending library" by failing to produce documents and heavily redacting those it did turn over in response to FOIA requests.

It's one thing for these agents to defend themselves against deadly force. It's quite another to put yourself in harm's way simply to justify the use of deadly force (the it's-coming-right-for-us loophole). If the agency is truly seeking to rid itself of its trigger-happy reputation, it needs to enforce these guidelines and open up its use of force track record to public scrutiny.

Filed Under: aclu, border patrol, cbp, zoe lofgren

Homeland Security Relies On Secrecy To Violate People's Rights And Humiliate Them At The Border

from the disappointing dept

Back in September, we wrote about the horrific and depressing story from On the Media about how one of its producers, Sarah Abdurrahman (a US citizen) along with her family and friends (all US citizens) were detained at the Canadian US border. The story involved all of them being detained under horrible conditions, with no one explaining anything to them. Their electronic devices were taken and searched. Some of them were physically searched multiple times. Perhaps the most horrific was that one guy was detained for longer while his family was told they could leave. When the guy's wife asked where her husband was, she was told that "an agency" was coming to "pick him up," implying that it was some sort of federal agency. It turned out that the guy had an unpaid ticket from seven years ago for a crooked license plate, and the Michigan State Police were called.

This past week, OTM spent its entire show looking at Homeland Security's secrecy at the border, kicking it off with replaying the original story by Abdurrahman. When I realized they were doing a full hour on the issue, I immediately figured that it would finally include some sort of explanation or some sort of response from DHS. But here's the depressing thing: months have gone by and DHS seems to simply be reveling in the fact that what it does at the border can be a black box, and it doesn't think it needs to answer to anyone. All of the attempts to find out about DHS's policies and how and why it treats people (especially American citizens) this way have resulted in dead ends. Even the few attempts by Congress to find out what's happening have gone nowhere.

The episode is actually quite depressing, because it appears that DHS has learned that as long as it keeps its collective mouths shut and with what appears to be no oversight, no one can find out about its policies or activities, and that allows it to act with impunity, to attack and humiliate people, to violate their rights, to leave people with lasting mental scars, often requiring therapy, and to never have to answer for any of it. As Trevor Timm, at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, notes, the number of stories of DHS using this process to intimidate American journalists is positively scary -- but at least journalists have an outlet for speaking out about it. An unknown number of others face equal or possibly worth treatment and there's absolutely no recourse at all.

Yes, some will say, that there are people out there who seek to attack the US. And, as such, Homeland Security's Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers have a big responsibility. But abusing that authority to create such a horrific results at the border clearly does more harm than good. On The Media is still asking people to use their "Shed Light on DHS tool" to demand Congress do something about this, and we highly encourage you to make use of it. It makes it easy to call your representative and raise these issues with them. If enough people call, perhaps Congress will finally stop abdicating its responsibility and start looking into DHS' abusive practices at the border. To make it even easier, we'll embed the tool below. Go test it out.

Filed Under: border patrol, cbp, customs, dhs, search

Crowdsourcing Journalistic Pressure On Congress To Get Answers About DHS's Treatment Of US Citizens At The Border

from the join-in dept

A few weeks ago, we were among many who were stunned to hear the story of On the Media producer Sarah Abdurrahman on the show about how she, her family, and a bunch of friends were all detained at the Canadian/American border by US Customs and Border Patrol agents (CBP) in two different locations. Every single one of the people detained were American citizens, and they were all treated absolutely horribly. Many had their electronics confiscated, and they were kept in freezing conditions without any explanation or recourse. One man was taken away from his family, put in a cell, and then his family was told that "an agency" was coming to deal with him, and they were told nothing further (only later to find out it was because of an unpaid ticket from years ago.

Perhaps even more horrifying than the treatment that they all went through was the complete lack of response to any and all journalistic questions about this. The DHS basically refused to return any calls and just ignored the matter. Abdurrahman was able to get one person from one of the border crossings on the phone at one point, and was basically told that he wasn't going to tell her anything. The sheer lack of accountability, concern or transparency was both shocking and depressing. Since then, On the Media has continued to try to get answers... and has come up empty. Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol appear to be taking the position that maybe if they ignore this situation it'll go away.

Not likely.

In talking their situation over with some experts, the OTM team was told that the way to deal with this was to get Congress to hold DHS accountable, and the way to do that is to have constituents of Representatives who have oversight authority concerning DHS to call their Reps and demand answers. OTM has tried calling their own Reps without much luck, so they've instead decided to crowdsource the journalistic effort. They're asking basically all of their listeners to put on their journalist hats, and to call Congress, asking some specific questions. If that listener happens to be represented by someone on a DHS oversight committee, it connects you directly to that office. Otherwise, they'll pick randomly from the list (of course, non-constituent calls tend to have less sway with Congress).

To make this even easier, they've built a tool to make it easy to call Congress, complete with the list of questions they'd like you to ask and a form to fill out the answers. Oh, and they've made the whole thing embeddable. It's at the bottom of this post. For those who think this doesn't have an impact, you should never underestimate the power of phone calls to your Representatives. They tend to have significantly more influence that most people expect.

Filed Under: border patrol, cbp, crowdsourcing, customs and border patrol, homeland security, journalism, on the media

Border Patrol Drone Fleet Straying Far From The Borders When Not Being Loaned Out To Whatever Agency Comes Asking

from the the-CBP:-everywhere-you-want-to-be dept

"How much spying on Americans is too much spying?" is the question no one seems to be asking, unless prompted by document leaks or a handful of legislators. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has had access to drones for a few years now, mainly using them to (you guessed it) patrol the borders. The immigration legislation that is working its way through Congress seeks to expand the CBP's drone armada.

This wouldn't seem to be much of an issue if these drones were used as intended. Instead, the CBP has been acting as a drone lending library, loaning out its drones to other government agencies.

As Congress considers a new immigration law that would expand the fleet of unmanned drones along the border, the agency in charge of border protection is increasingly offering the military-grade drones it already owns to domestic law enforcement agencies and has considered equipping them with “nonlethal weapons,” according to documents recently made public...

The flight logs provided by the agency show that it has become increasingly generous with its unmanned aerial vehicles. They have been used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the North Dakota Army National Guard, Texas Department of Public Safety and the United States Forest Service, among others.

Agencies that have used the 10 Predator drones owned by the Customs and Border Protection Agency have deployed them to investigate fishing violations, search for missing persons and inspect levees along the Mississippi River, among other things.

The uses listed here are acceptable, with the drones acting in an investigative fashion targeting specific areas or activities. The concern is more with the fact that each drone is capable of 20 hours of flight between refuelings and usage by other agencies doesn't seem to be subject to oversight.

Skeptics say the use of drones raises the prospect of ubiquitous monitoring, especially by law enforcement, and several states have already proposed measures to restrict their use by police.

“What concerns me is the lack of clear, transparent rules for domestic drone use,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from Northern California, who recently introduced legislation to limit their use in domestic airspace. She said she was concerned about “the government’s increased interest in using drones for domestic surveillance and security, including the potential use of force. But the law today has weak requirements for individual privacy protection, transparency of drone use, and limitations on arming drones with weapons.”

The CBP itself has already broadened its usage of the drones, mainly by broadening its definition of the word "border," according to the EFF.

According to the documents, CBP already appears to be flying drones well within the Southern and Northern US borders, and for a wide variety of non-border patrol reasons. What’s more — the agency is planning to increase its Predator drone fleet to 24 and its drone surveillance to 24 hours per day / 7 days per week by 2016.

The FBI's usage of these drones is also problematic. A few weeks ago, the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, admitted the FBI was using drones for domestic surveillance, although he claimed it was done in a "very, very minimal, very seldom" way. Mueller said the issue was "worthy of debate and legislation down the road." One would think the debate and legislation should have preceded the drone usage, but this is how things are done, apparently. Get the fleet up and circling overland before agreeing to discuss it further at some undetermined point in the future.

Not only is there no legislation covering the FBI's drone usage, but the FBI itself couldn't even be bothered to whip up some internal controls before sending the drones skyward.

[Mueller] said the FBI was in "the initial stages" of developing privacy guidelines to balance security threats with civil liberty concerns.

As for the CBP, its drone usage is escalating sharply.

CBP’s three years of daily flight logs detail when, where and how the agency flew its Predator drones on behalf of other agencies. These logs show a marked increase in drone flights over the years. In 2010, CBP appears to have flown its Predators about 30 times on behalf of other agencies, but this number increased to more than 160 times in 2011 and more than 250 times in 2012.

While CBP blacked out important information about dates, geographic location of flights, and, in most cases, agency names, these logs do provide some insights into the agency’s drone program. For example, we’ve learned that CBP conducted drone surveillance for law enforcement agencies ranging from the FBI, ICE, the US Marshals, and the Coast Guard to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the North Dakota Army National Guard, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. These missions ranged from specific drug-related investigations, searches for missing persons, border crossings and fishing violations to general “surveillance imagery” and “aerial reconnaissance” of a given location.

Again, as is the case with the FBI, the CBP has provided no details on what it's doing to protect the privacy of American citizens. The EFF is calling for a halt of the CBP's drone flights until it answers a few questions on flight locations, privacy protection and its intentions to arm these drones, with lethal or non-lethal weapons.

Not every drone is bad news and they can serve some very important functions. Unfortunately, the agencies using these drones don't have a very solid track record when it comes to civil liberties. They've also demonstrated they'd rather get their drones airborne first, and sort out the impact on American citizens at some point in the future. It's a clear indication of how these agencies view the rights of Americans: as an annoyance to be dealt with only when forced to.

Filed Under: border patrol, drones, loans