Homeland Security Threatens Legal Action Against Employees Who Read News About Leaks

from the while-one-politician-looks-to-stop-it dept

We've talked about procedures within the Defense Department to block computers from accessing the website for The Guardian newspaper -- along with similarly short-sighted moves to apply a sledgehammer approach to pretending that public information isn't really public. I've heard from a few people within the Defense Department who defend this approach on basic procedural grounds of trying to "make sure" that classified info remains classified, but the real problem is considering any publicly revealed documents as still classified. As I've said each time this debate comes up, in the business world, the equivalent situation involving trade secrets or non-disclosure agreements almost always are recognized as null and void if the info becomes public through other means.

However, that's not the way the government works. The latest is that Homeland Security sent around a memo warning employees that merely opening up a Washington Post article about some of the leaks might violate their non-disclosure agreement to "protect National Security Information," and it even says that merely clicking on the story might make the reader "subject to any administrative or legal action from the Government." Got that? Working for the government and merely reading the news about things the government is doing might subject you to legal action.

Stunning.

At least someone in Congress realizes the insanity of all of this. Rep. Grayson, who displayed the very same NSA slides that DHS is warning its employees about in Congress itself, has offered up an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill, stating that nothing in the defense appropriations should be used to block employees from reading the news on their own time.

None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to restrict the access of members of the Armed Forces to publically available online news media during morale, welfare, and recreation periods.

While this is one way to deal with the problem, I still think you solve a lot more problems with a basic recognition of reality: if classified documents become public, they shouldn't be considered classified any more, because (a) that's stupid and (b) it actually hinders the ability of government employees to be as knowledgeable as everyone else in the world. Also, Grayson's amendment only applies to the members of the armed forces, but not to civilian employees of the Department of Defense, or any employees of Homeland Security, who are subject to the crazy threats above.

Filed Under: alan grayson, appropriations, defense department, homeland security, leaks, news, reading, websites

Up Against The Wall, America! Sen. Schumer Touts NYPD Chief Kelly For Next Head Of Homeland Security

from the if-anyone-has-any-reason-why-these-two-should-not-be-joined... dept

Janet Napolitano is leaving her post as the head of the DHS and leaving a vacancy that some (particularly Sen. Chuck Schumer) think would be best filled by Ray "Stop and Frisk" Kelly. (Or, if you prefer, Ray "Privacy Is Off the Table" Kelly.)

This isn't a particularly surprising selection. Schumer's home state is New York and picking Kelly is sort of a no-brainer. As Mike Riggs at Reason points out, the case for Kelly as head of the DHS goes all the way back to 2008, when national security insiders floated the suggestion.

Unfortunately for fans of civil liberties, adding Ray Kelly to the DHS takes a bad thing and makes it worse.

First off, there's the NYPD's infamous stop and frisk program, which has targeted minority youths almost exclusively. Putting Kelly in charge of Homeland Security is just asking for a national rollout of stop and frisk, bringing the fun of being a minority in New York City to citizens around the country. There's no dissuading Kelly (or Commander in Chief of the "seventh largest military in the world," Mayor Bloomberg) of its effectiveness, even if the numbers don't back up their claims.

Kelly also famously announced that "privacy is off the table" as a result of the Boston bombing. Kelly has no qualms about expanding law enforcement surveillance networks, no matter how unpopular it is with the public. He has expressed his admiration for London's network of cameras, which he hopes to emulate in New York City. The NYPD has taken steps towards all-encompassing surveillance aided by (oddly enough) Microsoft. Take that set of ideals and expand it nationwide.

Despite his willingness to invade everyone else's privacy, Kelly's own police force is positively opaque when it comes to transparency. FOIA requests are routinely stonewalled when not being actively battled in courtrooms, much to the dismay of taxpayers' wallets.

The one thing Kelly does feel government/law enforcement/intelligence agencies should be open about is how much spying they're planning on doing. His only reaction to the NSA leaks was dismay at the fact that the NSA didn't just tell Americans they're going to be spied on.

“I don’t think it ever should have been made secret,” Kelly said yesterday, breaking ranks with other US law-enforcement officials. “I think the American public can accept the fact if you tell them that every time you pick up the phone, it’s going to be recorded and it goes to the government. I think the public can understand that. I see no reason why that program was placed in the secret category.

There's Kelly's version of transparency: telling the public how its privacy is going to be violated. If nothing else, Kelly's theoretical term as the head of the DHS would result in a brave, new world of confrontational transparency -- top-down blasts of invasive programs, delivered in a like-it-or-leave-it tone that leaves no room for debate or discussion.

Beyond this, we also have the NYPD's pitiable record of constitutional violations when it comes to its joint anti-terrorist efforts with the FBI. Plenty of spying, surveillance and privacy violations. Very little in the way of actual terrorists rounded up.

So, here's a guy with a track record that features a combination of wholesale civil liberties violations and an aversion to any form of accountability. Kelly has proven he's willing to alienate constituents in pursuit of an all-encompassing police/surveillance presence. He's also made it clear that he unreservedly buys into the "because terrorism" rhetoric.

Unfortunately for America, every listed argument against Kelly as head of the DHS is a point for him under the current administration. The boundless expansion of Bush's domestic surveillance under Obama has laid the perfect foundation for a man who believes citizens should be seen and heard -- at all times. If the Constitution is holding back a preferred program, there's always the secret court ready to provide secret interpretations of existing laws, thus assuring that everything is properly overseen and above board.

Kelly isn't necessarily a "yes man," but he's a perfect fit for an agency that has steadily trampled on the Constitution since its formation. The "welcomed debate" on privacy vs. security would become little more than a faint memory. Kelly's arrival would signal an end to the discussion no one in Washington really wants to have. There are precious few people who believe the DHS and its accompanying agencies weren't invasive enough, but adding Kelly to the mix should take that number down to zero.

It's Kelly's world. You're all just living in it "persons of interest."

Filed Under: chuck schumer, dhs, homeland security, janet napolitano, mike bloomberg, nypd, ray kelly, stop and frisk

Judge Tells Homeland Security To Shut Up And Release Aaron Swartz's File

from the about-time dept

After Aaron Swartz's suicide, Kevin Poulsen filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Homeland Security, asking for the Secret Service's file on Aaron Swartz, since it was the Secret Service that handled the bulk of the investigation. Aaron, himself, was a big user of the FOIA process, including retrieving his own FBI file concerning his earlier run-in with the authorities over downloading PACER material. So it seemed bizarre that the Secret Service denied Poulsen's request, "citing a FOIA exemption that covers sensitive law enforcement records that are part of an ongoing proceeding." Considering that the case was closed and Swartz was dead, that seemed like a ridiculous excuse.

Poulsen went through the official appeal process, which was ignored leading him to officially sue. In May, the government admitted that the law enforcement exemption no longer made sense, but then continued to do nothing about releasing the documents. However, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (a former FISA Court judge, and a name associated with various other high profile cases over the years) has now ordered the government to begin releasing the documents it has held about Aaron.

DHS claims that just last week it found a new stack of documents, and that it needs time to go through them all. The judge gave them a deadline of August 5th, but said it needs to already start releasing the documents it has already reviewed.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, colleen kollar-kotelly, foia, homeland security, kevin poulsen, secret service

Federal Judge None Too Impressed With Government's Defense Of Its 'No Fly' List

from the we-have-several-reasons;-here-are-none-of-them dept

The top secret "No-Fly" list has been problematic since day one. The DHS and FBI apparently believe over 20,000 people are too dangerous to allow to board a plane but not dangerous enough to arrest.

This is the process the government follows to place would-be travelers on the no-fly list.

1. The government places a person on the no-fly list.

That's all there is to it. The list is too "sensitive" to publish and exposing its methodology would apparently result in airliners raining down around us.

If you're a lucky recipient of the "no-fly" designation, here's how you're informed of your new status.

1. Purchase a ticket and attempt to travel.
2. Be rebuffed by TSA personnel.

This process can sometimes be applied with more flexibility.

1. Purchase a roundtrip ticket and fly to a foreign destination.
2. Attempt to return home.
3. Be rebuffed by local customs/security officials.

You won't know you're on The List until the list is triggered, which could happen when you're a few thousand miles from home. And if you think you're boarding the next boat back to the US, think again. The list is also "no-sail," meaning passenger ships are out of the question.

Now, if you're on the list and wish to be removed or, at the very least, informed of why you've been banned from commercial airline travel, there's no reason to panic. The DHS has a resolution process that relies very heavily on "process" and skips the "resolution" completely.

Their only recourse is to file a request with the Department of Homeland Security's "Traveler Redress Inquiry Program," after which DHS responds with a letter that does not explain why they were denied boarding. The letter does not confirm or deny whether their names remain on the No Fly List, and does not indicate whether they can fly. The only way for a person to find out if his or her name was removed from the No Fly List is to buy a plane ticket, go to the airport, see if he or she can get on the flight – taking the risk of being denied boarding and marked as a suspected terrorist, and losing the cost of the airline ticket.

One wonders what a letter that answers no questions and explains nothing is supposed to "redress."

Dear Sir/Madam No Fly,

Thank you for expressing an interest in our Traveler Redress Inquiry Program. The Department of Homeland Security works in conjunction with all domestic airports, as well as those in 22 other nations worldwide, in order to provide you with a safe traveling experience. We hope that you will continue to make use of our products and services.

Thank you again for your support.

If you have additional comments or questions, please dial (202) 282-8495.

Sincerely,
The Department of Homeland Security

This decade-long lack of specifics or actual redress has led to the ACLU suing the federal government on the behalf of thirteen no-fly list members.

Thirteen people on the no-fly list have sued the U.S. government, arguing that their placement deprives them of due process and smears their reputation by branding them as terrorists. Several of the men who filed suit have been surrounded at airport security areas, detained and interrogated.

The suit seeks to either remove the plaintiffs from the no-fly list or tell them why they are on it.

Government attorney Scott Risner addressed these complaints by arguing that air travel is not a "right" but a "convenience."

Risner said placement on the list doesn't stop people from traveling, and stopping people from using one mode of travel doesn't deprive them of their liberty. That's a key question in determining whether the government must ensure due process and one that's at the heart of the constitutionality of being placed on the list.

"We're not suggesting that there's not a convenience in air travel," Risner said. "(But) there's no right to travel without impediments. That's what's happening here.

Risner went so far as to point out that those stranded by sudden inclusion on the no fly list had made it back to the US via alternate forms of travel, thus "proving" a lack of air travel isn't preventing traveling.

Unfortunately for Risner, Judge Anna J. Brown wasn't buying it.

"To call it 'convenience' is marginalizing their argument," Brown said. [She] said alternatives to flying are significantly more expensive. "It's hugely time-consuming, and who knows what impediments there are between the Port of Portland and other countries."

She also pointed out that sea and land travel options aren't suitable replacements for flying, especially when time is of the essence and that the government's argument "fails to take into account the realities of modern life."

The DHS and FBI would obviously like everything to proceed the way it has for years, which means convincing the judge that flying isn't a fundamental right. This removes the question of constitutionality, as least as far as flight restrictions go.

The ACLU has gone further, though, declaring the entire system to be screwed up.

"We're asking the court to finally put a check on the government's use of a blacklist that denies Americans the ability to fly without giving them the explanation or fair hearing that the Constitution requires. It's a question of basic fairness," said ACLU Staff Attorney Nusrat Choudhury, one of the ACLU attorneys who will argue the case Friday in Portland. "It does not make our country safer to ban people from flying without giving them an after-the-fact redress process that allows them to correct the errors that led to their mistaken inclusion on the list."

It also points out that issuance of notice and due process are required for much less far-reaching actions.

The ACLU argues that this system violates the Fifth Amendment's command that the government cannot deprive a person of liberty "without due process of law." Courts have ruled that the Constitution requires some kind of notice and hearing for far less severe actions, such as losing state assistance for utility bills or being suspended from school for 10 days.

Judge Brown hasn't said when she'll issue a ruling, but so far she seems less than impressed with the government's arguments. In the meantime, 20,000 people, including the 13 US citizens represented here (four of which are military veterans), are still stuck in War on Terror limbo -- unofficially "detained" in the US by secretive travel restrictions.

Filed Under: dhs, due process, homeland security, legality, no fly list, tsa

DHS Says Agent 'Hunches' Trump Citizens' Rights In Searching Your Computer At The Border

from the burns-through-a-handful-of-black-toner-cartridges-as-well dept

The Dept. of Homeland Security has finally coughed up its Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Impact Assessment of its suspicionless electronic device searches performed at border crossings by ICE and CBP agents. It's been a long time coming.

The DHS announced it would take a look at this policy's impact on civil liberties "within 120 days." That was back in 2009. The report was released (but not publically) in December of 2011. In February of this year, it finally published a two-page executive summary of its findings for the public's perusal. There wasn't much contained in the release, but what was included was disturbing enough. In its own estimation, the DHS felt it complied with the Fourth Amendment but went on to state that imposing a "reasonable suspicion" requirement for device searches would be "operationally harmful" without any "concomitant civil liberties benefit." In other words, the public wouldn't be appreciably better off if these searches didn't violate anyone's rights, but the DHS felt its agencies would be worse off if forced to respect them.

The actual report has finally been pried loose, thanks to a FOIA request by the ACLU. There's a lot of information available in the report, including an explanation as to why the agency feels a "reasonable suspicion" threshold is "inadvisable." This is significant, the ACLU points out, as it's the first time the government has explained why it believes suspicionless searches "enhance" security. It begins with some familiar language and expands on that thought process a bit

[A]dding a heightened [suspicion-based] threshold requirement could be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefit. First, commonplace decisions to search electronic devices might be opened to litigation challenging the reasons for the search. In addition to interfering with a carefully constructed border security system, the litigation could directly undermine national security by requiring the government to produce sensitive investigative and national security information to justify some of the most critical searches. Even a policy change entirely unenforceable by courts might be problematic; we have been presented with some noteworthy CBP and ICE success stories based on hard-to-articulate intuitions or hunches based on officer experience and judgment. Under a reasonable suspicion requirement, officers might hesitate to search an individual's device without the presence of articulable factors capable of being formally defended, despite having an intuition or hunch based on experience that justified a search.

So, a CBP/ICE agent's hunch trumps a US citizen's rights. Rather than take the chance that someone dangerous might pass through its net, the agencies would prefer to be allowed to use "I've got a bad feeling about this" as justification for digging through not just someone's laptop, but anyone's laptop. The report supports the agencies' hunch-based investigative processes with anecdotal evidence but no real data.

Any data actually produced comes from outside parties concerned about the First and Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens. The Constitution Project's recommendations for border policy reform are included with the freed documents and it concludes that suspicionless searches not only have a very low "hit rate," but that the policy itself, as it stands now without limitations, actually creates a burden for the CBP and ICE.

Moreover, requiring reasonable suspicion to conduct a search of electronic devices would focus limited law enforcement resources where they can be most effective. Suspicionless searches are not well-suited to identifying and locating contraband or illegal material, as the CBP's own data show. In 2009, for example, only about 5% of the electronic devices searched at the border were seized as a result of the search. Put differently, in the vast majority of instances involving border searches of electronic devices, the traveler has had to needlessly withstand a significant intrusion into his or her privacy for no legitimate law enforcement purpose.

This hit rate puts it right in the neighborhood of another rights-violating law enforcement tactic -- NYC's stop-and-frisk program. Lots of busywork but very little in the way of results.

But this report is almost more about what it doesn't include than what it does. If you're looking for some in-depth discussion of the DHS' views on various civil liberties, you're going to be disappointed. Here's what greets readers when they reach the "Fourth Amendment" section.


This continues for four straight pages. First Amendment? A page and a half of redacted text before this concluding sentence:

The laptop border searches in the ICE and CBP policies do not violate travelers' First Amendment rights as defined by the courts.

Interesting. Of course, the involved agencies don't really seem too concerned about any definitions provided by any court. If they did, they might have paid a bit more attention to a Supreme Court decision dealing directly with the Fourth Amendment.

Even more problematic is the government's claim that the "hard-to-articulate" hunch of a border agent is enough for the government to scrounge around through our personal photos, medical and financial records, email, and whatever other sensitive information may be stored on our laptops and phones... As the Supreme Court explained in Terry v. Ohio, if law enforcement agents are allowed to intrude upon people's rights "based on nothing more substantial than inarticulate hunches," then "the protections of the Fourth Amendment would evaporate, and the people would be ‘secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects,' only in the discretion of the [government]."

This evaporation process seems to be nearly complete in the so-called "Constitution-free zone" and things continue to get noticeably drier elsewhere. The DHS clearly believes that citizens' Constitutional rights end where its jurisdiction begins -- and unfortunately at this point in time, that's pretty much everywhere.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, border searches, homeland security, hunches, ice, laptops

Homeland Security's ICE Group Cuts Off Dwolla Bitcoin Transfers

from the no-explanation dept

Update: The DHS has released a copy of the warrant, which claims probable cause to believe that Mt. Gox is engaging in money transmitting without a license.

We've discussed in the past how the government seems very skeptical of Bitcoin, and now it may be doing something about it. As a whole bunch of you have sent in, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement), a division of Homeland Security -- best known around here for its cowboy attitude towards censoring websites with no basis -- has cut off Dwolla transfers to Mt. Gox, the biggest Bitcoin exchange, preventing Dwolla from processing any Bitcoin transfers. According to Declan McCullagh at News.com:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed it has initiated legal action that prompted the Dwolla payment service to stop processing bitcoin transactions.

Nicole Navas, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed the legal action to CNET this afternoon.

Chris Coyne, from Ok Cupid, posted a screenshot of an email from Dwolla claiming that ICE had "seized" the account of Mt. Gox: Mt. Gox, for its part, claims this is the first it's heard of anything:

MtGox has read on the Internet that the United States Department of Homeland Security had a court order and/or warrant issued from the United States District Court in Maryland which it served upon the Dwolla mobile payment service with respect to accounts used for trading with MtGox. We take this information seriously. However, as of this time we have not been provided with a copy of the court order and/or warrant, and do not know its scope and/or the reasons for its issuance. MtGox is investigating and will provide further reports when additional information becomes known.

I would imagine there will be a lot more to this story, but for the moment details are scarce.

Filed Under: bitcoin, homeland security, ice
Companies: dwolla, mt gox

FBI Didn't Even Inform Fusion Center About Tamerlan Tsarnaev

from the perhaps-they-only-do-that-with-their-own-plots dept

Last year we noted that a Congressional investigation revealed that Homeland Security's "anti-terrorism fusion centers" were a complete joke. They created no useful intelligence, even though they cost a ton of taxpayer money, and they regularly violated American's civil liberties. In the wake of the Boston bombings, then, it might be useful to wonder how much the local fusion centers were involved in the process -- especially since the FBI had been aware of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and had interviewed him. Well... it turns out that the FBI didn't bother to share that with the fusion center. The FBI did share info with state and local police, but not with the fusion center:

A spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department said the Boston Regional Intelligence Center [] was never notified about the FBI investigation.

In response, FBI supervisory Agent Jason Pack e-mailed a statement suggesting that state and local officials had ample access to information about the Tsarnaev investigation in 2011, through their participation in an FBI unit in Boston, the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Once again, this has people wondering why we have these fusion centers in the first place.

If the FBI’s investigatory work with state and locals on terrorism is situated at the JTTFs, as it appears to be, what useful purpose do fusion centers serve with respect to terrorism? The jury is out on that question. But we know a bit about some non-terrorism related activities at the BRIC.

A public records lawsuit in 2011 showed that the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, like other fusion centers nationwide, devoted resources and time to spying on perfectly peaceful dissenters like Veterans for Peace and Code Pink.

Perhaps the FBI only makes use of the fusion centers when stopping some of its self-created terrorist plots.

Filed Under: dhs, fbi, fusion centers, homeland security, tamerlan tsarnaev

New Evidence: Homeland Security Spied On Peaceful Protestors; Worried About Protests Getting News Coverage

from the homeland-security? dept

We just recently had a post on the head of one of Homeland Security's "Fusion Centers" (the same Fusion Centers found by a Congressional investigation to be a near total waste of time and money, finding no terrorists, but violating the public's civil liberties) who claimed that the DHS centers did not spy on Americans, and then immediately admitted that they spied on "anti-government" Americans.

The definition of "anti-government" was mostly left as an exercise to the reader. However, in a bout of good timing, the Partnership for Civil Justice has released some new DHS documents it received via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, showing that DHS regularly spied on peaceful demonstrators and activists. Because exercising your First Amendment rights must make you one of them there "anti-government" Americans, which means the DHS is free to spy on you.

Functioning as a secret political police force against people participating in lawful, peaceful free speech activity, the heavily redacted documents show that the DHS “Threat Management Division” directed Regional Intelligence Analysts to provide a “Daily Intelligence Briefing” that includes a category of reporting on “Peaceful Activist Demonstrations” along with “Domestic Terrorist Activity.” (p. 68)

The PCJF has obtained thousands of pages of documents pursuant to its Freedom of Information Act demands and made them available for public viewing. The newly obtained documents show coordination and intelligence monitoring by the DHS, the FBI, the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies of “Occupy-type” protests.

The documents show the routine use of Fusion Centers for intelligence gathering on peaceful demonstrations as well as the use of DHS’ “Mega Centers” for collection of surveillance information on demonstrations.

And it's not just the big cities. The new documents show that DHS is involved in spying on peaceful protesters and activists around the country. It also shows that DHS helped local law enforcement "crack down" on the various Occupy gatherings. But the key thing is that DHS seems to have no qualms at all about spying on anyone who disagrees with the prevailing positions of today's federal government. And it's clearly not because they're trying to protect others from any threat of actual harm. They seem to be focused on spying to further the goal of preventing the administration from looking bad:

The documents show a Department of Homeland Security that appears obsessed with the question of whether any and all protests that are being surveilled receive media attention and coverage. Reporting within the DHS on media coverage of First Amendment protected activities, even in the smallest places, appears to be a routine part of DHS intelligence reports. None of the documents explain why media coverage of peaceful demonstrations is of interest to law enforcement or concerns “homeland security” in any way.

That's because it doesn't concern "homeland security" at all. It concerns the job security of those employed by Homeland Security.

Filed Under: americans, dhs, fusion centers, homeland security, protesters, reputation, surveillance

Homeland Security 'Fusion' Center Director: We're Not Spying On Americans... Just Anti-Government Americans

from the uh-that's-not-how-this-works dept

You may recall that, last fall, a Congressional investigation completely slammed Homeland Security's "Fusion Centers" -- noting that despite DHS insisting that they were critical to "fighting terrorism," the actual evidence showed that they had done nothing helpful in the fight against terrorism, but were instead chock full of wasteful (possibly fraudulent) spending... and with an added dose of civil liberties violations (just for fun).

Apparently, the Fusion Centers are trying to rehabilitate their own image, but they might want to send their officials to press training a bit more before sending them out into the wild. Reason alerts us to an interview that the director of the Arkansas State Fusion Center did with some local TV stations in which he appears to completely contradict himself -- first arguing that the Fusion Centers don't spy on Americans... and then saying they spy on "anti-government" Americans. First, there was this:

"There's misconceptions on what fusion centers are," he says. "The misconceptions are that we are conducting spying operations on US citizens, which is of course not the fact. That is absolutely not what we do."

Okay then. We've established won't you don't do. So, tell us, what do you do?

Davis says Arkansas hasn't collected much information about international plots, but they do focus on groups closer to home.

"We focus a little more on that, domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government," he says. "We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information."

Okay, hold on a second here. It would seem that his first statement is completely proven untrue by that second statement. Unless he's arguing that if someone classifies you as "anti-government" then you're no longer a US citizen, which would be a rather unique (and wrong) interpretation of the Constitution.

Elsewhere in the article, Davis defends what he does by playing the patriotism card, in which he can't actually explain what good he's doing, but just the fact that he's "doing something" after 9/11 is important.

"I do what I do because of what happened on 9/11," Davis says. "There's this urge and this feeling inside that you want to do something, and this is a perfect opportunity for me."

This line of argument is such ridiculously lazy and dangerous thinking. People who feel they need to "do something!" without caring as to what that something is or (more importantly) if it actually helps (or hurts) are not doing anyone any favors. They're just bound to cause more trouble.

Filed Under: activists, dhs, fusion center, homeland security, spying, surveillance

The Real Reason Janet Napolitano Doesn't Like Email -- Accountability

from the don't-make-me-back-up-my-statements dept

We've already detailed the cognitive dissonance created by DHS head Janet Napolitano's statements on email usage. Last September, she blithely pointed out that she doesn't use email "at all," and in fact, "avoids many online services." She went on to say that some would call her a "Luddite" and seemed to present the incongruous situation as comical. Hilarity ensued. Powerful government official says, "What, me internet?" LOLS at 11.

So, we all had a good, if disbelieving laugh at her our own expense (we're still paying her salary), and Janet Napolitano went back to not checking the email account she doesn't have and not internetting with any regularity -- the sort of thing that might be considering endearing if it weren't for the fact that so many politicians openly brag about their lack of computer skills, while simultaneously crafting, amending, voting on a variety of computer-related laws.

Napolitano broached the email subject again recently at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor. She restated her view on email as a non-essential annoyance, rather than, say, an extremely useful communication tool.

Ms. Napolitano said she cut the email cord while governor of Arizona “because I was just getting — you know, you get hundreds and hundreds of things all the time.”

In her current job, “which has a hundred thousand different things that happen on any given day, [not using email] allows me to focus on where I need to focus,” she added.

I can understand feeling overwhelmed by incoming email, but many other people have to deal with the overflowing inboxes and, while they may not like the tedium of dealing with the incoming traffic, they also realize it's an important part of their job and a byproduct of changes in the way people communicate. I'm also fairly sure Napolitano has a staff at her disposal and the power to delegate much of email busywork to others.

So, there's the "it's too much" angle. But her followup comment seems to indicate the real reason she's abandoned email.

“I also don’t like the process where people could send you an email, then say, see, you were told, or you know this. And then it comes back two years later to say, hey, you got this email — among the thousands you get every day.

“I want to be a little more selective on how that goes,” she concluded.

Oh, I see. Napolitano doesn't want to be accountable. That's interesting bullshit. Once again, she has a staff to use. She has any number of resources available to help her organize her incoming mail. She has a lot more tools at her disposal than most, and yet she'd rather just turn the switch to OFF in order to avoid any accountability for statements made, answers given or issues ignored.

Cutting off a heavily-used communication form isn't being "selective." It's willful exclusion, and it places Napolitano's self-interest above the interests of the public and the responsibilities of her position. Would anyone cut her any slack if she had announced she took her phone off the hook back when she was governor of Arizona and STILL HASN'T REPLACED THE HANDSET? "I don't like this process where people call you, then say you were told or you know this. And it comes back two years later, hey, we spoke on the phone -- among the thousands of phone calls I get every day." Would that be acceptable?

There are people out there who think Napolitano should be excused for abandoning email. I would imagine many of these people find this form of communication just as tiresome as she apparently does, but their personal antipathy (and hers) doesn't excuse this sort of exclusionary behavior. Many people hate the demands this accessibility places on them. But they just can't ignore it, especially if they're in the sort of position Napolitano's in.

It was already irritating when she was just doing her "I'm a Luddite LOL" schtick. By openly admitting she's not thrilled that stored electronic communication can be used to hold her responsible for statements or actions, she's crossed the line from obtuse into contemptuous. Our leaders are supposed to be accountable for their actions, and yet many of them do everything they possibly can to avoid it. The DC motto has become "With great power comes selective responsibility," and Napolitano's statement is sadly, unsurprising.

Filed Under: accountability, government, homeland security, janet napolitano, transparency