Intelligence Oversight Committees Are Being Stocked With Former Intelligence Agency Employees

from the circle-of-life dept

RESOLVED: this nation's intelligence oversight is indisputably useless. It's about 99% joke and 1% Ron Wyden dog-whistle questions that go unanswered for months or years. Committees on both sides of the legislature are composed mostly of surveillance cheerleaders and flak catchers profoundly uninterested in performing actual oversight. Reform efforts tend to take place despite the intelligence committees, rather than because of them. Every so often, positive changes are made for purely partisan reasons.

Super-friendly "oversight" committees aren't helping hold our nation's multiple intelligence agencies accountable. But it goes deeper than lawmaking fanboys/girls holding prominent positions in intelligence committees. The desire to limit accountability traces back further than the front-mouths lobbing softballs to IC leaders at Congressional hearings. As Tim Johnson and Ben Wieder report for McClatchy News, the intelligence community has been stocking committees with home teamers for years.

Lawmakers assigned to oversee the sprawling U.S. intelligence apparatus rely strongly on a staff that in recent years has included scores of onetime spooks, analysts and lawyers who previously worked at the spy agencies under scrutiny.

According to a comprehensive analysis by McClatchy, at least one-third, and perhaps far more, of the professional staff members who carry out the work of the House and Senate intelligence committees are themselves veterans of the agencies that the two panels oversee.

Really not a problem, I suppose, if the other two-thirds are staunch civil rights defenders and privacy advocates. But of course they're not. They're just more government employees, many of whom find defending the status quo to be a more sensible career path, one that starts with idealism (sometimes) and ends with a pension, with very little forward momentum during the intervening years.

The "intelligence community" term attempts to humanize a hulking behemoth bristling with surveillance apparati, currently hoovering up $80 billion every year. And that estimate is likely on the low end, as these agencies have another, entirely-opaque budget to utilize on top of this.

The other low estimate at work here is McClatchy's guess at the number of former agency employees currently working for the intelligence oversight committees. It's not always easy to sniff out the origins of staffers, especially if they've possibly spent some time engaged in clandestine activities.

McClatchy’s analysis determined the staffers’ backgrounds based on searches of LinkedIn profiles, congressional records, executive profiles and in a handful of cases, press reports, obituaries or personal interviews in which the former or current committee staff members publicly acknowledged their own intelligence background.

In dozens of cases, McClatchy could not determine whether a given staff member had worked in intelligence. Some have left almost no trace on the internet, itself perhaps a telling sign of a sensitive prior professional life.

According to staffers who spoke to McClatchy, the one-third estimate is way, way off. One said "all but a couple" of staffers he worked with came from intelligence agencies. Others estimated IC oversight market saturation to be 50-75%.

Obviously, a dearth of intelligence experience would be less than useful for oversight committees. Experience is extremely useful but in cases where oversight is already severely lacking, stuffing the roster with IC picks is guaranteed to result in the sort of non-oversight we've become accustomed to. Not only are staffers likely to advise against additional accountability and lobby against reform efforts, they're also likely to know how to ensure any reform efforts are shot full of exploitable holes by the time they hit the president's desk.

And there's no good way of fixing this that won't leave other government committees tied up in policies that prevent them from hiring anyone with subject matter expertise. Pretty much the only thing that can be done is sitting back and marveling at the breadth of the intelligence community's regulatory capture.

Filed Under: house intelligence committee, intelligence committees, oversight, senate intelligence committee, surveillance state

NSA Appears To Be Seducing Sen. John Cornyn With Personal Tours And One-On-One Meetings

from the 702-ways-to-leave-your-lover dept

One of the surveillance state's biggest cheerleaders is seeing his years of support pay off.

Two congressional sources confirmed a May meeting, where Sen. John Cornyn, (R-Tex.), a vocal supporter of the intelligence community, got a private audience with the NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers.

Cornyn also got a private tour of the signals intelligence facility at Fort Meade, Maryland at the same time as the May meeting.

Officials "familiar with the situation" (possibly read "jealous as hell") expressed concern about Cornyn's personal NSA tour. And for good reason. If Rogers and other NSA officials were feeding Cornyn information the rest of the NSA's Congressional oversight isn't privy to, that's a problem. It's more of a problem as the date for Section 702's reauthorization approaches. And it seems even more problematic that Cornyn was given a personal walk-and-talk while oversight members were failing to get substantive answers from the DNI during a Senate hearing.

There's a long history of the IC playing favorites with oversight members (and vice versa) and a long history of those favorites withholding information from other members of Congress. This visit/personal chat may have been innocuous but given its context -- the Section 702 renewal -- it looks shady as hell.

The additional context is the DNI's office believes all is forgiven -- or at least, no longer relevant. Reversing Clapper's promise to hand in something on incidentally-collected US persons' communications, the new Director is saying that's just not going to happen.

The Foreign Policy article notes that it's common for incoming reps and senators to be given a tour and that oversight members routinely visit the NSA as part of their oversight duties, but this Cornyn-only event definitely appears to be the agency making a play for unbridled support from a powerful Senator.

Filed Under: admiral mike rogers, john cornyn, mass surveillance, nsa, oversight, section 702, surveillance

Senator Tom Cotton Introduces Bill That Would Renew Section 702 Forever With Zero Changes

from the shut-up,-they-legislated dept

The debate over the renewal of Section 702 surveillance continues, but a group of legislators is looking to short-circuit the discussion. Senator Tom Cotton and a whole bunch of Republicans have introduced a bill that would ensure this discussion is never raised again. [h/t Julian Sanchez]

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) along with Senators Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Roy Blunt (R-Missouri), James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), John Cornyn (R-Texas), John McCain (R-Arizona), Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), John Thune (R-South Dakota), and David Perdue (R-Georgia) today introduced legislation making Section 702, and the entirety of Title VII, of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) permanent.

This followed Cotton's statements on the Senate floor, where he used recent attacks in the UK to make incoherent points about domestic security.

The attacks in London last weekend exposed in a matter of minutes just how vulnerable our free societies truly are. All it takes is a van or a knife and an unsuspecting bystander to turn a fun night out on the town into a horrific nightmare. Course, we shouldn't need any reminders, but let me give one yet again: We are at war with Islamic extremists. We have been for years, and, I'm sorry to say, there's no end in sight. It's easy to forget this as we go about our daily lives, but our enemies have not-and they will not. They've never taken their eyes off the ultimate target either: the United States.

Attacks in other countries are apparently just pre-game warmups for terrorists. The only way to prevent a domestic attack is to never ask questions about Section 702 again, apparently. If we don't trust our government to respect our privacy and civil liberties, it's not because the NSA constantly abused its Section 702 collection programs (and then hid these abuses from its oversight). No, the real villain here is the man who exposed this abuse to the general public.

Unfortunately, this and other programs were distorted in the public debate by a traitor, disgruntled ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who now sits in the warm embrace of Russian intelligence services. And ever since his very damaging leak of classified material a few years back, many Americans have grown doubtful of these programs-and section 702 in particular.

I love it when someone describes the dumping of internal documents as "distorting." It underlines the speaker's desire to have the Great Unwashed remain in the dark while the government expands its collection capabilities and surveillance powers.

Cotton's Senate statement goes on to make it clear that nothing but a "forever" renewal will do, while handwaving away NSA abuses with meaningless phrases about privacy protections.

It's true that this program occasionally does collect information about American citizens-and that will be true of any attempt to stop any kind of homegrown terrorism. But if you're concerned about protecting Americans' privacy rights, then you should support extending this program. It puts in place a host of privacy protections to scrub raw intelligence of any unnecessary identifying information. To allow this program to expire on December 31 would hurt both our national security and our privacy rights.

That's why today I'm introducing a bill that would reauthorize section 702 permanently, as is, with no changes.

If nothing changes, then the "host of privacy protections" simply don't exist. The NSA itself made the biggest step towards fixing its routine, decade-long run of privacy violations by dropping the "about" program. A clean re-auth adds nothing to anyone's privacy. A forever re-auth would ensure this status quo in perpetuity.

As astounding as Cotton's contradictory assertions are, they're topped by Sen. Lindsey Graham. Earlier in the day, Graham was reported to have stated he would not support the reauthorization of this surveillance program because it could be "politically manipulated." And yet his name appears in the list of legislators pushing this bill.

So here we are, with the debate just officially beginning in the Senate and already surveillance proponents are making it clear they're not interested in discussing Section 702. Ever.

Filed Under: nsa, oversight, section 702, surveillance, tom cotton

Why Is Congress In Such A Rush To Strip The Library Of Congress Of Oversight Powers On The Copyright Office?

from the what's-the-hurry? dept

In the past few weeks, we've written a few times about this weird urgency among some in Congress to rush through a pretty major change to Copyright Office oversight. I wrote a deep dive piece over at The Verge discussing the issues at play, but Congress is pushing a bill to stop the new Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, from appointing a new head of the Copyright Office. Instead, the Congressional plan is to make the position a political appointee, nominated by the President, and approved by Congress. In that Verge piece, we explained why it was a major change, and scratched our heads at the fact that there appears to be no reason for pushing for this change other than (1) the legacy copyright industries know that their lobbying power will mean that the appointment will be to their liking and (2) they fear who Hayden might appoint. But, what's really odd is how quickly Congress is trying to push this through. As if the matter is incredibly urgent. There have been no hearings on the matter. There's been no public discussion on the pros and cons of such a move. Just a mad dash by a bunch of people in Congress to make this change official before Hayden can appoint someone.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren -- who appears to be one of the few people in Congress questioning why this is happening -- has put out a statement highlighting why this move is so problematic. A key point: if there is such a rush to make the change, how does it make sense to put this appointment power in the hands of a President who has left hundreds of federal jobs completely empty without any nominations at all?

... this legislation will harm and delay much-needed modernization efforts by making the Register a Presidentially appointed position. Currently, there is a backlog of 495 Appointee positions that have not even been nominated. This not only will delay effective administration of the Copyright Office, but also puts the efficiency gains made by the Library at risk. Under current modernization plans, the Library believes it can speed up the modernization plan by almost two years and save significant amounts of money. Those plans depend on an active Register of Copyright who is compliant and accountable to the Librarian. The long delay created by this bill in needing Senate confirmation of a Register will only harm these efforts.

In other words, the arguments for "urgency" because the Copyright Register position is currently vacant are undermining their own argument. Considering the nearly 500 federal government positions that have no nominees yet, who actually thinks that Trump will quickly get around to nominating a new Copyright Register, let alone having that person confirmed by the Senate? The current Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, on the other hand, has been reviewing candidates for months now and is likely close to having someone in place.

Similarly, as noted above, if (as is the typical line) this move is necessary to "modernize the Copyright Office," this plan does the exact opposite of that. Hayden has already put forth a plan to modernize the Copyright Office (and has experience modernizing a massive library system). But if the Copyright Office boss has to be nominated by a President who doesn't seem to feel like nominating anyone, and then approved by the Senate, the modernization plan will almost certainly be delayed. So why are supporters of this bill in such a rush if it's going to undermine and delay the key reason they give for supporting this bill: the modernization of the Copyright Office? It's almost as if that's not the real reason.

Separately, Lofgren points out that it's crazy to provide less oversight to the Copyright Office right after it's been revealed that one reason why Hayden likely fired the the previous Copyright Register was because of incredible mismanagement by the previous Register, that included a modernization program that was budgeted for less than $2 million, but ended up spending nearly $12 million before being dumped with nothing to show for it (as we first revealed here on Techdirt).

Removing Dr. Hayden’s ability to appoint the Register of Copyrights means she will be unable to hold employees accountable, and it creates uncertainty and ambiguity in the chain of command between the Librarian and Register of Copyrights.

The previous Register of Copyrights was removed after a Library of Congress Inspector General report found the Copyright Office not only wasted six years and nearly $12 million but hid this information from Congress, falsified information in reports to the Library, and submitted fake budget numbers for annual appropriations requests.

Dr. Hayden took appropriate steps to remove the Register responsible for this mismanagement. This bill would prevent Dr. Hayden from removing or ensuring accountability in any future Register by making the Register answerable only to the President -- a fundamental change in the relationship between Librarian and Register.

Finally, Lofgren notes that it certainly is at least notable and unfortunate that this move to rush through this change certainly appears to be an attempt by Congress to undermine the authority of the first female and first African American Librarian of Congress.

Finally, the bill is a clear affront to the first female Librarian of Congress. Dr. Carla Hayden is not only one of the most highly qualified Librarians ever to serve, but has also worked aggressively and in good faith to pull the Library and Copyright office into the 21st century. I find it deeply disturbing that for the first time in history, a female and a person of color is the Librarian of Congress, and for the first time in history, Congress would take away her power in order to give it to Donald Trump. While this does not point to motive, it is a distressing fact nevertheless.

This bill is a vote of ‘no confidence’ in a Librarian who is aggressively pulling the Library and Copyright Office into the 21st century and, by all evidence, justifiably reassigned an ineffective and negligent Register. It will only serve to delay Copyright Office modernization, harm the public, harm content creators, increase tension between the Library and Copyright Office, and harm Copyright Office employees.

Indeed. There are certainly arguments to be made for changing things up, but no one pushing for this bill seems to be able to answer why this needs to be changed so quickly, when such a change clearly undermines their own stated reasons for supporting the bill. From that, the most logical conclusion is that they are pushing for the change because they are worried about who Hayden is likely to appoint, rather than because of any principled argument.

Filed Under: carla hayden, congress, copyright office, donald trump, library of congress, oversight, politics, zoe lofgren

Upset About Border Patrol Cruelty? It Didn't Start Under Trump

from the speak-up dept

In the last few weeks, there's obviously been a lot of attention on the cruel actions of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), a part of the Department of Homeland Security. Slate has an article detailing some of the awful stories coming out after the Trump executive order on immigration and travel (here are just a few):

At Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, CBP officers reportedly detained an elderly Sudanese woman suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure, and severe kidney stones. They refused to provide her attorney or her family with any information on her health, status, or whereabouts. Her attorney later learned that CBP officers had demanded that his client withdraw her request for admission into the United States or be barred from entering the country for five years. She signed the document and was promptly deported. Her family never got to see her.

Also at DFW, CBP agents allegedly detained a lawful permanent resident along with her 11-month-old daughter, a U.S. citizen. They refused to let attorneys speak with the mother. When the child’s father came to the CBP office, agents refused to let him see his daughter.

CBP officers at Los Angeles International Airport allegedly deported an Iranian student 90 minutes after a federal judge explicitly barred the deportation of anyone targeted by Trump’s order. They ignored efforts by attorneys to halt the deportation.

CBP officers at San Francisco International Airport allegedly detained an elderly Iranian couple with valid visitor visas for 30 hours. Nineteen of those hours came after a federal judge halted deportations under Trump’s order. One officer informed the couple’s attorney that they might soon be deported. When the attorney explained that this action would violate a federal court order, the officer responded that he was “just following orders.”

An elderly Iranian couple—both of whom were lawful permanent residents—say they were detained for 10 hours at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport after returning from their son’s wedding in Iran. The two were denied access to food for the length of their detention. Another elderly person being detained along with the couple was shaking from hunger and nearly passed out. CBP officers refused to inform the couple’s immediate family whether the couple had been allowed to take necessary medications.

A complaint to DHS over the implementation of the travel ban noted 26 accounts of abuse by the CBP.

But here's the thing: none of this is new, unfortunately. Yes, the specifics of the executive order are new, and the awful plan and rollout by the administration are new, but CBP being arbitrarily cruel to people is not at all new. We've reported on it many times in the past. Last week, On the Media put together a collection of stories that it had done in the past about egregious behavior by CBP at the border, almost all of which we covered in the past -- and all of which occurred under President Obama.

There was the horrific treatment of On The Media Producer Sarah Abdurrahman and her family (all US citizens) detained at the US border for hours and treated horribly when trying to return to the US from a wedding in Canada. There's also the insane story of Pascal Abador, a student studying Shiites in South Lebanon (he's an atheist himself), who was detained and had his laptop seized while on a train traveling from Canada to the US. CBP found photos on his laptop of Hamas and Hezbollah and then wouldn't give him back his computer. And then there's the truly sickening stories (plural) of CBP bringing people to doctors to be horrendously strip searched for drugs, often undergoing hours-long "inspections" by medical professionals despite never turning up any actual drugs. Here's one example we wrote about, which is similar to, but not the same one discussed in the OTM recording:

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.
2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

None of this is to say that what Trump is doing is okay. What he's doing is expanding the CBP's power to continue to expand its often arbitrary and capricious activities without any fear of oversight or any sort of reprimand for egregious behavior. But if you're suddenly concerned with how CBP appears totally free to mistreat basically anyone at the border, at least recognize that it's been going on for quite some time and that plenty of people (including us) have been trying to call attention to it for years. And don't assume that just because you're suddenly hearing these stories in the news, that they're a new phenomenon. Unfortunately, they are not. Hopefully, greater attention on CBP cruelty will lead to fixing it, but this administration, unfortunately, seems to want to encourage and expand it.

Filed Under: barack obama, border patrol, cbp, dhs, donald trump, oversight, white house

AT&T's Downright Giddy About Weaker FCC Oversight And The Looming Death Of Net Neutrality

from the who-doesn't-like-zero-accountability? dept

AT&T is pretty damn excited about former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai, Trump's new industry-cozy pick to head the FCC. That's in large part because Pai has made it clear his goal isn't just to gut net neutrality, new broadband privacy rules and most of the other consumer protections pushed by former FCC boss and and former dingo Tom Wheeler -- but to help dismantle the agency's role as consumer watchdog entirely. Of course, AT&T put things a little differently in a blog post applauding the selection:

"Today, on his first official day in office, President Trump designated Ajit Pai as the new FCC Chairman. No one is more prepared to reframe the agency to address the needs of this rapidly changing marketplace. Chairman Pai will work with his fellow Commissioners to quickly and decisively put back in place the commonsense regulatory framework necessary to support the President’s agenda for job creation, innovation and investment."

Anybody who actually believes this has simply not been paying attention to Pai's tenure at the agency, during which he consistently refused to stand up to large ISPs in absolutely any capacity. That includes downvotes on numerous attempts to hold AT&T accountable for outright fraud, whether it was the time AT&T was caught actively making its bills more confusing to help make it easier for crammers and scammers, the time AT&T was caught ripping off a program designed to help low income families, or that time AT&T was busted for turning a blind eye to drug dealers running directory assistance scams on AT&T customers.

So sure. AT&T's pretty excited about the fact it's potentially facing little to no accountability for what's a well-documented history of anti-competitive behavior and fraudulent activity. But it's also just thrilled by the idea that net neutrality rules could soon be sent to the digital dustbin of history, allowing AT&T to, in its own words, "go hard" on this whole zero rating thing:

"With a new operator-friendly FCC chairman in place, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said to expect the operator to “go hard” with its controversial “zero rating” strategy for its virtual MVPD service, DirecTV Now.

“Our customers are loving this value proposition,” Stephenson said during AT&T’s fourth quarter earnings call Wednesday. “We have more than 200,000 DirecTV Now customers on it, the service is not counting against their data cap, and that’s a big deal."

Except the "value proposition" AT&T's presenting isn't much of a value at all. Sure, some consumers labor under the illusion they're getting "free stuff" because AT&T's graciously letting them stream AT&T's content without running afoul of its arbitrary usage caps. But in reality, AT&T's preferential treatment of its own content simply repositions the cost burden to competing services while distorting the overall competitive market. You know, like the outgoing FCC told AT&T when it sheepishly and belatedly told the company it was violating net neutrality and acting anticompetitively just a few weeks and a universe ago.

Moving forward, the name of the game for AT&T will be to play kissy face with the new administration in the hopes of blind, blanket deregulation, some lovely tax cuts, additional unaccountable subsidies (these telcos have received billions over the years for networks either barely or half-deployed), and approval for the company's $100 billion acquisition of Time Warner:

"I got to tell you, I was impressed,” Stephenson said (after meeting Donald Trump). “It was obvious I was meeting with a CEO. He has a very clear agenda—tax reform and regulatory reform. I can tell you that he’s focused on these things. And I left with a degree of optimism that this could be pulled off this year."

Describing himself as a “supply-side guy,” Stephenson added that “If you saw tax rates move to 20-25%, we know what we would do. We would step up our investment rate."

In regards to deregulation, he added, “Nobody thinks that regulations should go away. We all believe the customer needs protection. But the problem is that we’ve had regulation that’s unpredictable, and it’s interfering with how we’re designing products, how we enter markets."

AT&T's a master in promising broadband deployment it never actually delivers in exchange for regulatory favors and government handouts, and has been doing it for decades without much fact-checking from the media. AT&T's also incredibly good at bullshitting the press and public into falsely believing that massive telecom megamergers actually create jobs, despite thirty years of documentable history proving the exact opposite.

So despite Trump's campaign-trail promise to block AT&T's latest megamerger (largely believed to be little more than pouting over negative CNN coverage), there's an incredible opportunity here to field a merger sales pitch bullshit supernova -- the scope and scale of which we've never seen before.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, net neutrality, oversight, privacy, randall stephenson, zero rating
Companies: at&t

Philly PD Bows To Union Pressure, Guts Independent Officer-Involved-Shooting Board Ordered By The DOJ

from the model-of-servitude dept

The Philadelphia Police Department is one of many to be on the receiving end of a consent decree with the DOJ. Most PDs finding themselves in this position earn it through years of abusive policing and a consistent disregard for constitutional rights and civil liberties. The Philly PD is no exception.

This department has been trying to make the changes recommended by the Justice Department, but apparently found some of the DOJ's hurdles too high for it to jump… at least willingly. That hasn't stopped police officials from declaring their inability to live up to the DOJ's standards a success, however.

An Officer-Involved Shooting Investigation Unit was established within the Philadelphia Police Department Jan. 1, Commissioner Richard Ross announced Friday.

The creation of the unit was a result of a Department of Justice study that recommended departmental reforms focused on the use of deadly force by police officers.

[...]

"The Philadelphia Police Department will now be a model for departments across the country," said COPS director Ronald Davis.

Hold your applause…

However, one of the study's major recommendations - that an outside agency should investigate officer-involved shootings - could not be fulfilled, Davis said.

"Philadelphia tried many alternatives but it could not work," Davis said.

The COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) has an interesting definition of "could not." It could have worked, but the commissioner was unwilling to go up against the force behind the city's police force to do it. The federal government proclaims something must happen. The commissioner runs up against some resistance and decides it's impossible. Now, the city's residents can look forward to shootings by officers being handled completely internally, which will do little to deter the sort of activity that led to the DOJ's intercession in the first place.

The commissioner did at least obliquely address the obstacle he's unwilling to remove to better implement the DOJ's recommendation.

Finally, Ross said the "elephant in the room" was that the department faced opposition on the proposal from its union, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5.

This is why we can't have nice accountable things. The FOP managed to defang the OIS Board, turning it into an internal, opaque process where officers have a 72-hour "cooling off" period before having to face a series of lobbed softballs by the PD's internal review board.

As an alternative to an outside agency conducting investigations, Ross established the Officer-Involved Shooting Investigation Unit so the process is now bifurcated - the criminal aspect will be handled by the new unit, and the administrative aspect will continue to be handled by the department's Internal Affairs Unit.

And yet, it's being hailed by a federal COPS official as a "model" for the nation's police departments. Yeah, this is a model, alright -- a model for every police union faced with a DOJ consent decree. Flex enough muscle and police officials will blow off federal recommendations to ensure future cooperation in policymaking and labor negotiations.

Filed Under: civil liberties, doj, officer involved shooting, oversight, philadelphia police, philly police department

Congressman Goodlatte Decides To Refill The Swamp By Gutting Congressional Ethics Office... But Drops It After Bad Publicity

from the no-lobbyists-left-behind dept

Update: So... literally a minute before this post was about to go live came the news that House Republicans have magically dropped this plan, after it received a ton of negative press overnight, and had tons of inbound phone calls and, yes, even our President Elect sort of (but not really) came out against the plan. While the Bloomberg article above credits Trump for this, if you read what he actually said, he does call the Office of Congressional Ethics "unfair," he just says this isn't a priority now (perhaps meaning the following plan will come back in the future). Since this is still a possibility, here's the original post.

Well, we're into a new year, and the promised "swamp draining" in Washington DC continues to move in the other direction. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (whose name you may remember from the fact that he's leading the charge on copyright reform (but who has a history of being terrible on copyright), or perhaps from the fact that he's also bad on surveillance) has made the surprise move of completely gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics, and basically taking away its independence from Congress.

The OCE was created in 2008 in response to the Jack Abramoff scandal, and some other Congressional corruption scandals, that resulted in three members of Congress going to jail. The OCE was an independent office that was set up to investigate Congressional ethics and corruption violations. Not surprisingly, not everyone in Congress was thrilled about having an independent office investigating them, so Goodlatte seems to have made sure that won't be a problem -- and he did so without any warning, without any debate and even against the wishes of the leadership of his own party:

The move to effectively kill the Office of Congressional Ethics was not made public until late Monday, when Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change. There was no advance notice or debate on the measure.

The surprising vote came on the eve of the start of a new session of Congress, where emboldened Republicans are ready to push an ambitious agenda on everything from health care to infrastructure, issues that will be the subject of intense lobbying from corporate interests. The House Republicans’ move would take away both power and independence from an investigative body, and give lawmakers more control over internal inquiries.

It also came on the eve of a historic shift in power in Washington, where Republicans control both houses of Congress and where a wealthy businessman with myriad potential conflicts of interest is preparing to move into the White House. Continue reading the main story

Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, spoke out during the meeting to oppose the measure, aides said on Monday night.

Goodlatte, has put out a somewhat ridiculous statement defending the move, claiming (incorrectly) that this strengthens OCE's mission. Of course, then he also notes that it "improves upon the due process rights" of members of Congress. But experts note that all it's really doing is letting Congress take control over the previously independent organization, and giving Congress the power to kill investigations. I guess that's one way to "improve due process rights." But, really, was there really a problem with the "due process rights" of members of Congress being investigated for corruption and ethics violations?

In fact, Buzzfeed does a nice job showing all of the ways in which this does the exact opposite of what Goodlatte claims concerning "strengthening" OCE's mission: If you can't read that, here's what it says:

1. The OCE should no longer be independent. Insteads, it will be under the House's Committee on Ethics, which is run by members of Congress.
2. The office will no longer be able to accept anonymous tips from whistleblowers.
3. The ethics office must stop any investigation if the House ethics committee tells them to.
4. The ethics office cannot investigate any tips of misconduct that took place before Jan. 3, 2011
5. The office can no longer talk about its findings -- even hire a spokesperson.
6. OCE cannot investigate any criminal cases or turn allegations of corruption over to law enforcement.

That, uh, does not sound at all like "strengthening" OCE's mission. It sounds like the exact opposite. In other news, Rep. Goodlatte's statement over this is a blatant lie.

Politico has some details of how some members who had been investigated by the OCE supported gutting it, claiming that they felt unfairly targeted -- even though all of the examples given resulted in OCE deciding there were no ethics violations. It's entirely possible that OCE may have been annoying for Congress to deal with, but no one seems to have presented any evidence that it ever came to conclusions that were incorrect or unfair -- just that their investigations were annoying. And... so what? Congress should be under a microscope when it comes to ethics and corruption. The whole idea that Congress itself can just unilaterally undermine its own oversight is pretty ridiculous -- especially at a time when so few trust Congress, and so many believe it to be so corrupt.

Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news, Rep. Goodlatte famously dined with the MPAA right after a hearing on copyright reform, and MPAA boss Chris Dodd has told every MPAA studio that they need to donate at least $40k each to Rep. Goodlatte. Again, I'm sure that's a total coincidence and completely unrelated to the story above.

Filed Under: bob goodlatte, congress, corruption, drain the swamp, ethics, office of congressional ethics, oversight

Oversight Board Spares NYPD's Feelings By Softening Language In Taser Complaint Report

from the say-a-prayer-for-the-people-in-power dept

The NYPD's estranged relationship with its oversight continues. The Civilian Complaint Review Board -- put into place after it became apparent the NYPD wasn't interested in policing itself -- has noticed the department is vocally supportive of better policing, but has no interest in actually making any changes to the way it disciplines its officers.

The NYPD has yet to see a civilian complaint it can't make disappear and has almost always recommended a lesser punishment for misconduct than the Board has recommended. In controversial "chokehold" cases, the Board found the NYPD was completely uninterested in doing anything about officers' use of a tactic it has outlawed.

In those cases where CCRB substantiated chokeholds, recommended Administrative Charges, and DAO became involved, none of the substantiated cases ever went to trial before a NYPD Trial Commissioner. Instead, DAO departed from CCRB’s recommendation every time. Rather than pursue the more serious Administrative Charges, DAO recommended lesser penalties or no discipline whatsoever.

Despite being shown no respect by the NYPD, the CCRB has decided to protect the badged-and-armed delicate flower of the department by softening the language in its Taser use report before publication.

In the spring, an oversight agency for the New York Police Department circulated a draft report on the use of Taser stun guns. The report highlighted “troubling” findings and issued stern recommendations: The police should create an annual report on the use of Tasers and prohibit their use on handcuffed suspects.

But the latter recommendation was removed from the final version of the report, quietly released in October by the agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, with no formal announcement. The other was removed from the executive summary and relegated to the report’s final page.

The agency also removed language highlighting what police reform advocates and civil liberties groups later said was the board’s central finding: In most Taser encounters reviewed, officers used the stun guns on people who were unarmed.

What the CCRB found wasn't encouraging. The NYPD already has a troubled history of Taser misuse. Not much is made of it because Taser deployment in the force is severely limited. But the NYPD's ability to make even a small number of civilian complaints vanish into the ether remains unchanged. The New York Times highlights the report's findings, which are disturbing and have remained unaltered.

Over the period studied in the report, from 2014 through 2015, the board’s investigators conducted full investigations of 51 of the 153 complaints filed and substantiated only three of them.

The other 102 fell by the wayside because the complainants failed to cooperate with the investigation. Perhaps some of them felt the outcome would be no different than the 94% that did make it all the way through the process. Perhaps some had outstanding warrants, unpaid tickets, a general disinterest in interacting with law enforcement, or whatever. But with only six percent of complaints being substantiated, the outcome of the NYPD's internal efforts are par for the course: lots of complaints, almost zero repercussions.

But just as disheartening is the fact that the CCRB edited its report to ensure the NYPD wouldn't even feel the weight of PRINTED WORDS.

The alterations to the report run throughout and appear to play down the findings — which remain unchanged — and remove language that could be considered charged or critical of the Police Department.

This is an organization with an inordinate amount of power -- both over the people it serves as well as the politicians that ostensibly control its budget and activities. Specific edits were made to turn the report into something as proactively exonerative as statements made by the NYPD itself in the wake of excessive force allegations. Police brass say things like "the officer's gun discharged." The CCRB -- post-editing -- says things like this:

[T]he draft report found that “there is also evidence” that Tasers were being used in response to unruly or obstinate behavior by suspects. That phrase was changed in the final version to say that “there is concern.”

Also excised was the Board's "troubling" finding that Taser deployment often occurred when suspects were already in custody. The stat -- 30% of the time -- remains. The word "troubling" is nowhere to be found. Another sentence was removed completely, apparently out of concern the NYPD might react badly to it.

"[A] review of several of the police custody complaints supports the perception that the Tasing may have occurred unnecessarily."

The NYPD needs to be subjected to strong language that draws attention unavoidably to its use of excessive force. This is the sort of thing the NYPD finds to be "appropriate" Taser use.

Mr. Sells said in an interview that during the discovery phase of the lawsuit, he learned that two separate officers used Tasers on Mr. Paul, striking him a total of 13 times — six by one officer; seven by the other — over the course of 41 seconds.

Anthony Paul is dead. He was 29 years old when he died in NYPD custody. The NYPD brushed off accusations of excessive force with the above "appropriate" statement, as well as the excuse that the Tasers failed to deliver even more electricity to the eventual corpse of Mr. Paul.

"...not all of the “activations” resulted “in actual electrical circuit charge transmissions.”

A government entity that has the power to kill civilians who do not immediately subject themselves to an arrest is apparently too weak to handle direct criticism of its actions. The Board has wiped any implications from its findings, leaving the stats to speak for themselves. The facts aren't pretty, but the NYPD has no problem ignoring hard numbers and incontrovertible facts. But it must be protected from any insinuations that its use of force is sometimes too much… or occasionally unjustifiable.

Filed Under: abuse, ccrb, nypd, oversight, police, taser