Indian Gov't Orders YouTube To Block 20 Channels For 'Blasphemy' And 'Impinging On National Security'

from the wherein-Piss-Christ-is-the-same-thing-as-a-pipe-bomb dept

India's Information Technology Act has been problematic since its inception. Almost a decade ago, it was deployed to justify the arrest of an Indian citizen who'd done nothing more than criticize a politician, insinuating the politician had used his position to amass personal wealth.

Once the politician complained, the government ignored available libel law, which would have resulted in a civil case and opted to use a clause of the IT Act which allowed prosecution for "sending an email or other electronic message that causes annoyance or inconvenience." That's how the law was used in 2012.

The 2021 version of the law is much more dangerous. Folding into the act passed in 2000 are new rules about national security. This escalates the Act's abusability, since nearly anything can be called a threat to national security and drastically limits the defenses those targeted by this part of the act can raise.

Added into this revision are new mandates for social media companies, which allows the government to hold companies responsible for content created by their users. There's a long list of forbidden content that starts with child sexual abuse material and terroristic content and ends with things like "promoting tobacco use," "blasphemy," and "harms minors in any way."

It is those changes that have resulted in the banning of 20 supposedly "anti-India" YouTube channels.

India banned 20 YouTube channels and two websites on Monday for allegedly running anti-India propaganda from Pakistan, invoking for the first time the emergency powers under the newly notified intermediary guidelines and digital media ethics code in the IT Act.

I&B secretary Apurva Chandra wrote to YouTube and the Department of Telecom, directing them to immediately block the content as it affects the sovereignty and integrity of India, people aware of the development told ET on condition of anonymity.

According to officials, these channels were being run by a Pakistan government agency. The officials also made reference to fake news and reporting on farmers' protests. The first is another term as abusable as "national security." The latter is something the Indian government has expended a lot of effort to control the narrative, often through censorship.

This is censorship as well. Even if we accept the Indian government's assertions about the origin and intent of the banned channels, the government can't even decide why it's doing this. It claims two violations -- neither of which should have anything to do with each other.

The inquiry revealed that these websites were being run from Pakistan. The content run on these channels is blasphemous and hugely impinges on national security," said the official, who was part of the review.

If your national security and national religion are intertwined, a law addressing both is a censorial cudgel. And it won't make anyone safer or make your religion any more unassailable. What it will do is allow the government to disappear information and content it doesn't like with impunity.

This has been the point of the law all along. Every iteration gives the government more power and takes it away from the country's citizens and the services they use. It elevates the government, placing it on the same level as its preferred deities. When a government does that, it no longer serves the public. The public is now expected to serve (and revere) the government.

The Indian government has all the tools it needs to ensure its narrative is the most prominent. Even before these amendments affecting intermediary liability went into effect, the government had pulled the plug on the internet in areas where farmers' protests were taking place and threatened Twitter employees with arrest for restoring accounts and content the government had ordered removed. More assertions about god(s) and country are undoubtedly on their way, forcing those carrying third party content to give the Indian government control of the narrative or face fines, fees, and possible imprisonment.

Filed Under: blasphemy, censorship, content moderation, free speech, india, information technology act, national security, pakistan
Companies: youtube

Tenth Circuit Appeals Court Says Fourth And Sixth Amendment Rights Are Meaningless When National Security Is On The Line

from the wherein-'more-than-a-half-decade'-means-'speedy' dept

A case involving the first criminal suspect to be notified by the DOJ that evidence against him was derived from Section 702 surveillance has just reached an end. The Tenth Circuit Appeals Court has decided there's nothing wrong with the government's FISA-enabled warrantless surveillance programs. It also says the word "speedy" can be redefined at will by the government's national security concerns, changing the definition to "however long it takes."

The ACLU, which helped represent the US resident whose communications were collected and intercepted with FISA court orders, summarizes the outcome of this decision:

In a sharply divided ruling, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals today wrongly held that the warrantless surveillance of Jamshid Muhtorov — a legal permanent resident whose email communications were searched by the U.S. government under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — was lawful. The court also ruled that the egregious seven-year delay leading up to Mr. Muhtorov’s trial did not violate the Speedy Trial Act.

Muhtorov, whose path to arrest involved surveillance programs exposed by Edward Snowden and an FBI informant pretending to be a terrorist sympathizer, was arrested January 21, 2012. His trial didn't begin until May 14, 2018. He spent those six years in jail as a pre-trial detainee.

The Appeals Court doesn't have a problem with any of this. It says the surveillance that targeted the foreign entities Muhtorov communicated with was constitutional… mainly because those rights aren't applied to foreign surveillance targets. Muhtorov, a legal US resident, was targeted after his communications were incidentally collected, resulting in the government intercepting an untold number of emails and 39,000 hours of audio recordings.

The incidental collection of a US person's communications is also lawful, says the Appeals Court. It says those were in "plain view," the other end of targeted foreign communications that the government needs no warrant to obtain. If the initial action was legal, everything that flowed from it was likewise constitutional.

As for the extremely long delay between Muhtorov's arrest to his trial, the court says, in effect, that this all would have gone a lot quicker if Muhtorov hadn't engaged in his right to examine the evidence the government planned to use against him. That national security precautions meant he wasn't able to actually see much of the evidence being used is somehow beside the point. The fact that the government had to gather it and run it past the district court judge shouldn't be held against the government, the court declares.

The long dissent [PDF], written by Judge Carlos Lucero, excoriates the majority for nearly every conclusion it reached, but spends a considerable amount of time taking the court to task for deciding it was the defendant's fault the government took so long to produce requested evidence.

I begin with approximately two years of delay that are uncontestably attributable to the government. For just over 21 months, the government did not notify Muhtorov of the involvement of § 702 evidence in the case against him. My colleagues contend that this delay “did not extend the pretrial period,” because this almost two-year delay was encompassed within the six-and-one-half-year delay caused by discovery production. This approaches double-speak: what the majority is saying is that any and all government delay is excusable because of its own delay in discovery production. As I note below, the government’s delay in discovery production is swept aside by my colleagues in conclusory terms to the end that nearly six-and-a-half years in bringing these defendants to trial is excused, thereby setting a new Sixth Amendment “standard of speed.”

That two year delay might have been even longer if not for Ed Snowden. That disclosure of the use of Section 702 surveillance was prompted by his leaks, which not only revealed what the government could obtain under Section 702, but made it clear the DOJ had completely ignored its disclosure obligations for years. As Judge Lucero notes, this delay is entirely the government's fault. It cannot be used to justify Speedy Trial Act violations.

The government offers no explanation for its belated initial § 702 disclosure. When the government elects to bring national security cases, surely it must know, or should know, whether it is going to present § 702-derived evidence. The attendant delay in doing so cannot be attributed to the defendant.

That was one delay. The other delay was even longer.

Next, the government required four years, seven months, and eleven days to meaningfully respond to the defendant’s discovery requests. A relative pittance of information was provided within the first four years followed by massive production in August 2016. At argument, this production of discovery material was described as a “discovery dump.” Muhtorov’s counsel tell us that only then, after September 1, 2016, were they able to begin to assess the evidence against him. Additional discovery followed, extending well beyond the trial-court-imposed deadlines to the eve of trial in May 2018. Again, I recognize that the extensive nature of Muhtorov’s discovery requests can account for part of the delay, but close to five years of delay cannot be explained away by such summary acceptance of governmental excuses.

Nor should the government be excused simply because the evidence being handed over was sensitive or classified. This was a national security case from the beginning, so the DOJ should have been prepared for the additional complications of preparing and turning over this evidence. Instead, it appears to have started its CIPA (Classified Information Protection Act) evaluation of the evidence nearly four years after it had arrested and charged Muhtorov.

Nor can the factors relied upon by the majority explain the inexplicable: that the government awaited the district court’s denial of Muhtorov’s second motion to suppress on November 19, 2015 to commence its CIPA § 4 evaluation of the evidence. The government began this necessary process only after Muhtorov had been deprived of his liberty for nearly 46 months. Once it deigned to begin, the government managed to complete the bulk of these evaluations within nine months. If the government could complete all these admittedly difficult discovery tasks in nine months in 2016, why could it not have completed them in the first year following Muhtorov’s arrest? Or the second? Or the third? Reason dictates it could have.

The defense tried to speed things up on this front by asking for the appointment of counsel with security clearances that would allow them access to classified evidence. The government objected to this, resulting in even more delays. It wasn't the only thing the government did to drag out the pre-trial procedures, all of which added up to Muhtorov serving his 11-year sentence before the court took up his appeal of his conviction.

These decisions include (1) opposing the appointment of cleared defense counsel; (2) failing to adequately resource translation services; (3) seeking a third superseding indictment on May 18, 2016 that added charges subsequently dismissed by the government; and (4) discretionary decisions within the CIPA process to restrict or deny information to the defense, including the unilateral implementation of specific techniques to protect a small portion of evidence.

The government shouldn't get away with this, Judge Lucero argues. The bandying of buzzwords isn't the same thing as showing justification for trial delays.

Mere incantation of the phrase “national security” does not, and should not, in and of itself justify violations of the speedy trial right. Likewise, the terms “complex discovery” and “translation difficulties” should not stand stead for the term “national security.”

The case may have been complex, but the government is still obliged to respect Muhtorov's rights. That it took longer for the defense to parse the information it was actually able to access isn't on the defendant. And US persons shouldn't be expected to sacrifice one right (challenging evidence used against them) to access another (a speedy trial).

To the extent that the defense was unable to engage in the normal winnowing of issues because of the redacted or summarized nature of the discovery (and as in this case, its late provision), any delay arising from good faith motions should not be weighed against Muhtorov. Although a criminal defendant may be required to make hard strategic choices in the context of a criminal trial, the government’s heads-I-win, tails-you-lose approach to this issue cannot comport with due process.

Lucero also tackles the Fourth Amendment conclusions drawn by the majority and finds them lacking.

I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the incidental collection of Muhtorov’s communications with a target of § 702 surveillance is likely reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, but I find unacceptable the majority’s decision to accept the government’s assertion that no pre-warrant querying took place in light of the complete dearth of supporting evidence in the record. [...] By accepting the government’s bare assertion to resolve this dispute of fact, the majority avoids the thorny constitutional issues that querying presents.

If the defendant was unable to adequately challenge the evidence, that's because the government has stacked the deck against defendants in national security cases. The deck was further stacked here by its refusal to allow the appointment of defense counsel with security clearances who could view the evidence firsthand. Instead, the law forces courts to examine the evidence without acting on behalf of the defendant. Accused persons are pretty much left without any representation in cases involving ex parte submissions. That cuts defendants out of the loop. Courts shouldn't make this worse by disregarding challenges raised by parties who are working blind.

Through passage of CIPA, Congress has mandated that we step out of our traditional role as neutral arbiters overseeing adversarial presentation of issues and step into a role much closer to that of an inquisitor. As explicitly acknowledged by the government, a district court’s role in cases involving CIPA is to act as “standby counsel for the defendants.” Similarly, on appeal “we must place ourselves in the shoes of defense counsel, the very ones that cannot see the classified record, and act with a view to their interests.” Amawi, 695 F.3d at 471. The judiciary is neither institutionally suited nor resourced to fulfill this role. Yet this is the role that Congress has assigned us. Our colleague on the trial bench said it well when he described acting in this role as feeling like “an illegitimate child at a family reunion.”

[...]

If the defense does not have access to the evidence or to arguments presented by the government in ex parte proceedings because of CIPA, any failure to make arguments with sufficient specificity, to assert specific grounds before the district court, or to produce evidence to contradict the government’s presentation cannot be held against the defendant.

With limited info and, perhaps, an inability to thoroughly parse the government's evidence, the court relies heavily on the government's assertions. Too many of these go unchallenged, though. And when that happens, rights evaporate into the national security ether. Judge Lucero says the record -- albeit not one before the court -- shows the government has regularly abused its surveillance powers. That alone should have resulted in courts at both levels refusing to take government assertions about legality at face value.

Although the government presents the relevant targeting and minimization procedures for the relevant years in its classified record, it never describes in detail how and when the “acquisition” of the information occurred in Muhtorov’s case. This may be explained by the FBI’s documented history of widespread U.S. person querying and of non-compliance with its record-keeping responsibilities under its own minimization procedures. Perhaps as a result, there is no evidence in the record either that querying did not occur or that the government agents who directed or sought the traditional FISA application did not know of its existence or results. Without that information, it is impossible for us, acting as standby defense counsel, to resolve the derivative evidence question. The government’s reframing of the issue—as requiring only our evaluation of the limited basket of intercepted communications it chose to submit to the FISC—borders on disingenuous, given the breadth of the derivative evidence inquiry. Deprivation of liberty based on the government’s mere say-so is antithetical to established constitutional order.

And the majority's refusal to consider the implications of incidentally collected US persons' communications basically codifies mass rights violations.

My colleagues rely on the plain view and incidental overhear doctrines to countenance the use of millions of § 702-acquired communications that are stored in vast databases. This reliance risks fundamentally undermining heretofore reasonable expectations of privacy of U.S. persons whenever they communicate with another person located abroad.

Oof. If this damage is going to be undone, it will have to be the Supreme Court doing it. And historically it hasn't shown much interest in challenging government national security claims or its bulk surveillance programs. Things look pretty dire here in the Tenth Circuit. Rights just aren't rights when national security is involved.

Filed Under: 10th circuit, 4th amendment, 6th amendment, doj, national security, section 702, warrants

Hong Kong Government Arrests Four Members Of Pro-Democracy Hong Kong Alliance, Shuts Down Its Online Presence

from the collect-them-all! dept

The Chinese government's national security law -- adopted/acquiesced to by Hong Kong politicians apparently handpicked to serve the country that agreed not to interfere in Hong Kong's government business until 2047 -- is still paying off for the region's impatient overseers.

The handover of Hong Kong to China has provoked an never-ending stream of pro-democracy protests. China doesn't care for democracy, nor does it care for any other form of autonomy. To combat its opponents, the Chinese government -- with an assist by a China-controlled Hong Kong government -- has declared advocating for democracy to be an act of terrorism. Dissent has been equated with undermining national security, and will be punished accordingly.

The latest news in this ongoing attack on Hong Kong's autonomy -- one that is being committed in broad daylight in front of a world full of witnesses -- is the arrest of even more pro-democracy activists and the shuttering of their website.

Earlier this month, the Hong Kong police state came for activists who ensured the Chinese government was never allowed to forget 1989's Tiananmen Square Massacre -- an act that made it clear what the government thought about people who demanded some say in their representation. In response to its annual Tiananmen-related rally and other demands for democracy, four activists were arrested.

Activist and barrister Chow Hang Tung of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China was arrested along with three others, the group said.

“I want to tell Hong Kongers that we need to continue to resist, don’t surrender to the unreasonable power quickly and easily," Chow told media on Tuesday when she went to police headquarters to tell officers she would not provide information they had requested.

Police sent a letter to the alliance in August requesting information about its membership, finances and activities by Sept. 7, according to a copy the group sent to reporters.

The letter accused the alliance of being "an agent of foreign forces". Failure to provide the information by the deadline could result in a HK$100,000 fine and six months in jail, the letter said.

The follow-up arrived a little later, with the Hong Kong police exercising new powers under the national security law that allow officers to literally police the internet.

If you can't see the tweet, it reads:

NEW: Hong Kong Alliance said police has invoked power to remove messages on its website and social media under NSL, and will comply starting from 10pm tonight. New FB to come, it added.

And the Hong Kong Alliance website is now offline as well, with a notice stating only that "the authors have deleted this site." This suggests some more demands made by Hong Kong law enforcement, as even the involuntary deletion of a site will trigger the same WordPress notice.

It's all far from subtle. The Chinese government is big enough and threatening-to-world-peace enough that things like this will go unchallenged until it has brought Hong Kong under its ideological as well as its physical control.

Filed Under: censorship, china, democracy, free speech, hong kong, hong kong alliance, national security, national security law

Chinese Government Now Using National Security Law To Censor Art Being Displayed In Hong Kong

from the less-freedom-for-all;-tiny-Chinese-flags-for-others dept

Hong Kong's new "national security" law -- thrust on it by the Chinese government that's supposed to stay out of Hong Kong's governmental business until 2047 -- continues to increase the amount of censorship in the supposedly still-independent region.

Once the Chinese government began interfering, Hong Kong residents revolted. This only encouraged the Chinese government to apply a heavier hand. The new law allows prosecutors to seek life sentences for anti-government protesting. It also hands police the power to censor the internet and compel assistance to decrypt communications.

To further ensure its desires go unchallenged, the Chinese government adopted a resolution that forced four pro-democracy legislators out of office in Hong Kong. This led to another dozen sympathetic lawmakers resigning from their positions in protest. Unfortunately, this means there are even fewer Hong Kong politicians willing to stand up to the Chinese government's impositions.

The national security law has already enabled the punishment of dissent, censored the internet, silenced pro-democracy press, and ousted pro-democracy legislators. Now it's coming for culture, seeking to limit Hong Kong residents to government-approved creative works.

The updated rules announced Friday require Hong Kong censors considering a film for distribution to look out not only for violent, sexual and vulgar content, but also for how the film portrays acts “which may amount to an offense endangering national security.”

Anything that is “objectively and reasonably capable of being perceived as endorsing, supporting, promoting, glorifying, encouraging or inciting” such acts is potential grounds for deeming a film unfit for exhibition, the rules now say.

This gives China-approved censors the freedom to forbid anything they perceive as being anti-China. And it's not just limited to content. The rules also allow films to be censored if the perceived "effect" of viewers of the work might cross the multiple lines the Chinese government says now threaten the security of the nation.

The new rules have already had their intended impact on theaters and filmmakers, including those participating in an annual Hong Kong film festival.

A local cinema was pressured into scrapping the screening of a documentary on the fierce clashes between police and radical protesters occupying the Hong Kong Polytechnic University at the height of the social unrest, while the M+ Museum in the city’s cultural hub came under similar pressure not to show exhibits deemed to be anti-China art.

In a separate development on Friday, organisers of the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival, which nurtures local young film talent, cancelled its screenings for Far From Home, saying the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration had failed to issue either a certificate of approval or notice of refusal to approve in time.

And so it continues. China isn't going to wait until 2047 to take control of Hong Kong. It wants subservience now. The pro-democracy protests that have rocked Hong Kong for the past few years will continue. But it looks as though China's national security mandates will ultimately turn Hong Kong into a directly controlled subsidiary of the Chinese government a couple of decades ahead of schedule.

Filed Under: censorship, china, culture, free speech, hong kong, national security

CBP Facial Recognition Program Has Gathered 50 Million Face Photos, Identified Fewer Than 300 Imposters

from the more-buck-than-bang-at-this-point dept

The CBP and DHS have released their annual report [PDF] covering trade and travel. It touts the agencies' successes in these areas but raises some questions about the use of facial recognition tech to make the nation safer.

Dave Gershgorn, writing for One Zero, points out the system the DHS and CBP claim is essential to national security isn't doing much to secure the nation. And it's not for a lack of input data.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection scanned more than 23 million people with facial recognition technology at airports, seaports, and pedestrian crossings in 2020, the agency recently revealed in its annual report on trade and travel.

The agency scanned four million more people than in 2019. The report indicates that the system caught no imposters traveling through airports last year and fewer than 100 new pedestrian imposters.

There are two ways of looking at this -- neither of which justify the DHS's aggressive expansion of biometric collection at airports, border crossings, and any other place travelers might be found.

This low number of imposters recognized could indicate the system is flawed -- incapable of accurately doing the job it's supposed to do: recognize faces. This is a problem inherent to every facial recognition algorithm being used anywhere. The tech tends to be most accurate when presented with white male faces. Everyone else is subjected to higher risk of being misidentified, which can lead to false arrests or being prevented from traveling.

But it could also indicate imposters aren't all that common -- certainly not common enough to justify the erection of a mass surveillance system that gives travelers the option of giving up their biometric info or not traveling.

The CBP only began tracking and publishing stats in 2018, trailing its biometric rollout by a couple of years. Since 2018, the government has caught less than 300 imposters. Over that same time period, it performed 50 million face scans. That's a pretty terrible return on investment. But that's not how the CBP portrays this in its report:

Biometrics have proven an effective tool to combat the use of stolen and fraudulent travel and identity documents. Since the program’s inception, in 2018, CBP officers at U.S. airports have successfully intercepted seven impostors who were denied admission to the United States and identified 285 imposters on arrival in the land pedestrian environment.

I guess it all depends on what your definition of "effective" is. The CBP's expansive definition suggests literally any number above zero justifies the cost of the tech and its attendant surveillance creep.

Of course, if the real purpose of the program is to create a massive database of facial photos and personal information, it's been a tremendous success. And if that's all the CBP and DHS expect from it, it will continue to perform this task with minimal interruption.

But travelers and taxpayers should expect more from the DHS and its agencies. Spending millions to deal with a minor problem by deploying tech that remains unproven shouldn't be considered acceptable. Neither is the alternative: a system that rarely recognizes imposters, allowing government agencies to assume it's less of a problem than it might actually be.

Filed Under: cbp, dhs, facial recognition, national security, privacy, security theater, surveillance

Hong Kong Court Revokes Bail For Jimmy Lai After Deciding It Didn't Interpret Vague National Security Law Vaguely Enough

from the criminalizing-impolite-disagreement dept

The Chinese government has been showing its impatience over its impending takeover of Hong Kong. China agreed to allow Hong Kong to run under its own government until 2047, but the last couple of years have seen the Chinese government indicating its willingness to perpetually violate this agreement with the region.

As pro-democracy protests continue to rage against the Chinese machine, the Chinese government has begun forcing its will on Hong Kong residents. This has been greatly aided by complicit Hong Kong government legislators, who have basically agreed to all the Chinese government's demands. The latest attempt to undermine the will of the people came packaged in a "national security" law -- one that outlawed demonstrations against the Chinese government's early and uninvited interloping, threatening dissenters with a lifetime of imprisonment.

Since then, the Chinese government (again with the assistance of Hong Kong's supposedly-independent government) has been arresting and jailing prominent critics, along with dozens of other vocal protesters. One of the most famous arrestees is Jimmy Lai, a vociferously pro-democracy media tycoon -- one with the power and reach to do serious damage to the Chinese government's unwanted advances.

Lai was arrested under the new national security law last August. The Chinese government -- via its Hong Kong mouthpiece -- claimed Lai's pro-democracy agitation was an illegal "collusion" with "foreign governments." This vague assertion likely referred to Lai's visits with world leaders -- visits in which he expressed his displeasure with the Chinese government.

In late December, Lai was granted bail by a Hong Kong court, reversing its earlier denial. It came with very tight strings attached. Lai was placed on house arrest and, more importantly, forbidden from doing anything that might make the two governments engaged in his prosecution look bad.

[Lai was] banned from meeting officials from foreign governments, attending or hosting media interviews or programmes, publishing articles in any media, and posting messages or comments on social media, including Twitter.

He was also hit with a $10 million HKD fine ($1.3 million USD) and ordered to surrender all travel documents.

The government apparently felt this punishment wasn't heinous enough. Or, at the very least, unlikely to silence the outspoken government critic. It went back to the court and got the reversal reversed, putting Lai back behind bars. This time around, the court bought the government's national security arguments, relying on unexplored areas of the brand new law to deprive Lai of his very limited freedom.

In its determination, the court held that it was “reasonably arguable … that the learned judge may have erred in his construction or application” of Article 42(2) of the national security law, under which bail can only be granted to a criminal defendant if a judge has sufficient grounds to believe that the defendant will not commit acts endangering national security.

The new law apparently makes speaking out against the Chinese and Hong Kong governments a national security issue, even if it's nothing more than speaking out against the Chinese government's violation of an agreement it struck with the UK back in 1997. This is the problem with national security laws, no matter where they're deployed. A little imagination is all it takes to turn dissent into a threat and outspoken criticism into a criminal act. That's why there's so many of these laws in countries that thrive on punishing dissent. And that's why countries that are considered more "free" find them handy to have around, just in case.

Filed Under: authoritarianism, china, democracy, hong kong, jimmy lai, national security

Just As #DiaperDon Starts Trending, Trump Claims That Twitter Uses 'Fake' Trends, Calls For 'Termination' Of Section 230

from the for-national-security? dept

It's no secret that Donald Trump doesn't like Section 230. Wait. Actually, let's back up and try that again: it's no secret that Donald Trump doesn't like what he thinks Section 230 is about, which has little-to-no-resemblance to what Section 230 is actually about. However, over the long weekend, things took an even more ridiculous turn than usual. It started on Thanksgiving when the President was signing some legislation and taking some questions from the press. For unclear reasons, the setup where he had to sign things was with a very small desk affixed with the Presidential seal. While this desk has been used before for such things -- and Trump has even joked about the size of it, the framing of the shot -- the lack of people around him, the wide frame of the shot, the tread over carpet, and just... everything really made it look like the President was sitting at an elementary school desk.

The internet started to have some fun. Actually, lots of fun.

It was not long until #DiaperDonald started trending on Twitter.

And, then, it was not much longer beforel the Commander-in-Chief of the military, and the leader of the United Stated of America decided to throw a tantrum on Twitter and claim that Twitter made up its trending topics (it does not).

That's the supposed leader of the free world saying:

Twitter is sending out totally false "Trends" that have absolutely nothing to do with what is really trending in the world. They make it up, and only negative "stuff". Same thing will happen to Twitter as is happening to @FoxNews daytime. Also, big Conservative discrimination!

All of that is, of course, nonsense, but it was followed up just five minutes later with:

That's him saying:

For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!!!

The fact that this comes so close to the tweet whining about #DiaperDon trending suggests that this has literally nothing to do with "national security." If Trump has learned one thing while he's in office, it's that one way that the President can actually get stuff done (such as start trade wars) without the need to get Congress's approval is to claim "national security" to make it happen. But you can't just get rid of laws that way. That's not how any of this works. At all.

Also, um, if Section 230 was terminated, it wouldn't change the fact that Twitter might show trending topics that are critical of the President. Because that's protected by the 1st Amendment. You know... part of the Constitution that the President swore to protect and uphold when he was sworn into office?

Of course, if 230 were terminated, meaning that Twitter (and others) might face more annoying and costly lawsuits for the actions of its users, one thing it might be a lot more prone to do is to delete the account of troublemakers spewing conspiracy theories and nonsense on its platform. Such as the soon-to-be-leaving President Donald Trump.

Filed Under: diaper don, donald trump, intermediary liability, national security, section 230, temper tantrum, trending, trends
Companies: twitter

Government Argues In Court That It Can Kill US Citizens At Will With Zero Judicial Oversight

from the your-tax-dollars-incoming dept

The federal government is back in court, arguing for its unilateral right to kill US citizens. Two journalists who had appeared to have been mistakenly targeted by drone strikes sued the government in 2017, seeking an injunction forbidding their own government from extrajudicially killing them.

The journalists, Ahmad Zaidan and Bilal Kareem, both experienced near misses by drone strikes. The suspicion they were mistakenly targeted was confirmed by an NSA document leaked by Ed Snowden that claimed Zaidan -- an Al Jazeera journalist -- was a member of Al Qaeda. His targeting was related to the government's bulk collection of metadata, which would have placed Zaidan close to several Al Qaeda members. His proximity to Al Qaeda members was to be expected, given his coverage of Al Qaeda activity and other events/incidents in the areas he covered.

All it takes is metadata to get someone killed -- even US citizens like Bilal Kareem who, like Zaidan, routinely covered Al Qaeda activity and spoke to Al Qaeda members. Kareem's solo lawsuit demanding confirmation that he had been placed on the government's kill list was terminated by the DC Circuit Court in 2019, which held that the information was too sensitive to share with US citizens possibly marked for death by their own government.

His joint lawsuit with Zaidan lives on, however. And it may finally provide the journalists with some answers. As Megan Mineiro reports for Courthouse News Service, the DC judges handling the case seemed rather shocked by the government's assertions.

Drawing alarm at the D.C. Circuit, a lawyer for the United States argued Monday that the government has the power to kill its citizens without judicial oversight when state secrets are involved.

“Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett asked Justice Department attorney Bradley Hinshelwood, paraphrasing his claim as giving the government the ability to “unilaterally decide to kill U.S. citizens.”

The "state secrets" assertion was the same claim used to escape Kareem's solo lawsuit. But it doesn't appear to be working quite as well this time -- not when the government is saying it can engage in extrajudicial, extraterritorial killings of US citizens and other non-terrorists. "We kill people based on metadata," a former US government official gleefully exclaimed in response to Snowden leaks. That still holds true, and it appears the government loses no sleep when it kills the wrong people based on flawed assumptions about patterns in its metadata stash.

The government's alternate argument wasn't much better. It basically claimed Kareem couldn't prove the US targeted him because lots of people were throwing around bombs and missiles.

Shrugging off Kareem’s claims as baseless speculation, the government argued the alleged airstrikes occurred at a time when Syria was wracked by civil war.

“In all of these circumstances, he’s not even the only person present, much less is there anything to suggest that he’s actually the target of any of these specific attacks,” Hinshelwood said.

Of course, the government could easily prove it never targeted these journalists by handing over information about the contested drone strikes. But it won't. It would rather argue it can kill whoever it wants without oversight or judicial review. The government would rather make this bold statement in open court than submit classified info directly to judges and lawyers with security clearance that would confirm or refute the placement of the plaintiffs on kill lists. The government's priorities are incredibly screwed up. And we have a long and pointless "war on terror" to thank for its refusal to answer questions about its drone strike programs -- programs that may well be targeting innocent people (including US citizens).

Filed Under: ahmad zaidan, al qaeda, bilal kareem, doj, drone strikes, extrajudicial assassination, judicial oversight, kill list, metadata, national security, nsa, state secrets, terrorism, us citizens