Clinton Friend, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Now Pretends Hillary Never Supported TPP

from the that's-just-wrong dept

The whole silliness around Hillary Clinton and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement just keeps getting sillier. She should admit what pretty much everyone already recognizes: she supports the deal. She could then explain why she supports it and perhaps the public could have an honest and open conversation about the nature of these agreements. As we've noted more than once, we tend to support free trade here at Techdirt, but the TPP agreement is barely about free trade. It's mostly about investment and creating other regulatory/protectionist barriers. But Clinton's constant flip flopping on the issue is silly. Back in 2012, she declared the TPP to be "the gold standard" in trade agreements. It was only last fall, after she started facing primary pressure from Bernie Sanders, who was against the agreement, that she flip flopped and said:

“As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it,” Clinton said, later adding, “I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set.”

It got so ridiculous that Clinton deleted the section of her memoir where she talks about her support of the TPP. That's just literally trying to rewrite history.

Meanwhile, pretty much everyone has assumed that after the election, she'd flip flop right back into supporting the TPP. Back in February, the head of the US Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, made it clear that he fully expected she'd flip back, and this week a US Chamber of Commerce employee who spoke at the Democratic Convention (officially as a member of "Republican Women for Hillary") has also said she expects Hillary to flip back and support the agreement.

But, of course the bigger headlines came when the Clintons' close family friend and advisor, current Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, admitted that he fully expected she'd support the TPP after the election. As we noted, this resulted in a bunch of other Clinton supporters to scream loudly about how this was crazy and Hillary was never going to support TPP. Apparently the message got back to McAuliffe, who when approached at a bar late at night by a Gawker reporter now claims not only that Hillary will never support the agreement, but that she never did in the past either.

She’s wrong. I support it. She doesn’t. She never supported it. I create jobs in Virginia, I always supported it. We’re best friends. She has never supported it.

Except, of course, she has supported it, quite clearly in the past. And almost certainly still is. I understand the political calculations here. Historically, Democrats (especially the progressive wing) have generally been against free trade. So these agreements (even when they're actually good!) are usually a tough sell to Democratic voters. But this is a weird year. Because while these agreements have almost universally been supported by Republicans, this year Donald Trump suddenly hates them -- not for all the legitimate reasons to hate them, but mainly because he doesn't understand how international trade works.

But wouldn't it be nice if Clinton could just come out and say what she really thought about the TPP and have an open conversation about it, rather than playing this "wink wink nod nod" game where basically everyone knows her true position, but she won't say it?

Filed Under: hillary clinton, politics, terry mcauliffe, tpp, trade agreements

Clinton Friend Admits What Everyone Knows Is True: Clinton Still Supports TPP & Will Back It

from the but-of-course dept

If you've followed the whole TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) thing at all, and/or the Presidential election this year, you probably already know that Hillary Clinton famously flip-flopped on TPP. She was for it, before she was against it (and tried to rewrite history to hide her support of it). Of course, basically everyone recognized that her newfound concerns about TPP were made up, as a response to (at the time) surging support for Bernie Sanders, who was vocally against the agreement. But, of course, as tons of people have been saying all along, everyone expects that after the election she'll magically flip flop back to supporting TPP.

But, of course, because we're doing this big elaborate stage play called an election, no one's supposed to admit that's what's happening. Someone apparently forgot to tell that to Terry McAuliffe, current Virginia governor and long term best buddies with the Clintons. On Tuesday, he said what everyone already knows: Clinton will absolutely support the TPP after the election:

“I worry that if we don’t do TPP, at some point China’s going to break the rules -- but Hillary understands this,” he said in an interview after his speech on the main stage at the Democratic National Convention. “Once the election’s over, and we sit down on trade, people understand a couple things we want to fix on it but going forward we got to build a global economy.”

Pressed on whether Clinton would turn around and support the trade deal she opposed during the heat of the primary fight against Bernie Sanders, McAuliffe said: “Yes. Listen, she was in support of it. There were specific things in it she wants fixed.”

And, of course, her Vice Presidential pick Tim Kaine did an even faster flip flop. Last Thursday, before he was announced as the running mate, he spoke out in support of TPP.

"I am having discussions with a lot of groups around Virginia about the treaty itself. I see much in it to like,” Kaine said Thursday during a series of roundtable events in suburban northern Virginia. “I think it's an upgrade of labor standards, I think it's an upgrade of environmental standards. I think it's an upgrade of intellectual property protections."

The very next day he was named the VP pick, and suddenly he's against TPP:

Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's running mate, has gone on record saying he cannot support the Trans-Pacific Partnership in its current form— a stance calculated to make him more appealing to supporters of Bernie Sanders who revile the deal.

Kaine spokeswoman Amy Dudley said Saturday that the Virginia Democrat shared his negative views on the trade deal with Clinton this week, confirming a report by The Washington Post. “He agreed with her judgment that it fell short” when it came to protecting wages and national security, a Clinton aide reportedly told the newspaper.

Of course, now that McAuliffe blabbed the not-very-secret strategy of the Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates flat out lying... the Clinton campaign went into damage control mode and insisted "nuh-uh, she really is against TPP." They trotted out an "adviser," Gene Sperling to insist there's no flip flop planned:

“What she has said is she is against it now, she is against in the lame duck and she’s against it afterwards, and I do believe that when she starts her administration, she is going to want to be focused on unifying Democrats,” he said.

Then, Clinton campaign chair John Podesta also stepped up to insist that Clinton would not flip flop after the election: Keep those links handy, folks, because after the election they may be useful. I'm posting that Podesta tweet as a screenshot, in case it magically disappears from Twitter...

Of course, the truly amazing thing here? For the longest time, it's been the Republicans who were the driving force on agreements like the TPP, and there was only pressure on getting enough Democrats to support those agreements. Now we have a Republican Presidential candidate who seems to be vehemently against the TPP (though for thoroughly clueless reasons) and a Democratic Presidential candidate who is secretly supporting it. This election season is topsy turvy.

Filed Under: donald trump, flip flop, gene sperling, hillary clinton, john podesta, politics, terry mcauliffe, tim kaine, tpp, trade

Virginia Governor Signs Warrant Requirement For Police Drone Use; Balks At Seven-Day Limit On ALPR Data Retention

from the aww...-and-he-was-doing-so-good-on-the-civil-liberties-front dept

Good news/bad news from the state of Virginia. Governor Terry McAuliffe had two bills land on his desk, both passed with overwhelming support, that would have assured additional privacy protections for the state's citizens. Unfortunately, he only signed one of them.

The one with his signature on it institutes a warrant requirement for law enforcement drone usage. McAuliffe originally sent this one back with a suggested "fixes" that would have rendered the proposed warrant requirement completely meaningless.

Rather than require a warrant for all law enforcement use of drones, the governor's amendments only require warrants for “active criminal investigations,” leaving the door open for persistent, untargeted drone surveillance. Rather than ban the use of evidence collected without a warrant by drones, the governor's amendments created a procedural loophole where otherwise forbidden evidence could be introduced under a different set of legal standards.

To their credits, the legislators who had passed the bill without massive loopholes refused to fold in the governor's suggested amendments. The second time it hit his desk, McAuliffe signed it. This passage can be added to the state's privacy "wins" column, which also includes a warrant requirement for Stingray use.

The bad news is that McAuliffe rejected a bill that would have placed a seven-day retention limit on data gathered by automatic license plate readers. McAuliffe argued -- correctly -- that this limit was significantly lower than any policy currently in place in Virginia. (And, most likely, anywhere in the nation.) Unfortunately, he used ALPR/law enforcement talking points to do so.

Many localities in Virginia retain this data for 60 days to two years. Seven days is a substantial reduction. Additionally, law enforcement agencies demonstrate that crimes are often not reported until several weeks later. Under this bill, essential data would not be available at the time of those reports. This is particularly concerning when considering implications for the National Capitol Region, where cross-state collaboration and information-sharing are essential to responding to potential criminal or terrorist activity occurring near Virginia’s borders.

Oh, "terrorism," you rascally, constantly useful justification! Where will you pop up next? (Probably not in areas actually loaded with terrorists, I would guess.)

Unlike drones and Stingrays, ALPRs weren't originally crafted for use by military personnel in war zones. But here we see the invocation of terrorism as a justification for passively scanning thousands-to-millions of license plates every day. Sure, any vehicle traveling in public areas can be observed, but multi-point collections of plate/location data gives anyone with access a very clear picture of someone's daily life. While we would expect people currently under investigation to be closely watched by police (and/or "tailed" by proxy by ALPR data), we don't expect everyone to be subject to the same level of scrutiny simply because the technology has liberated law enforcement officers from performing in-person surveillance.

The destruction of non-hit data within a short time frame shouldn't be a concern, no matter how much crime/terrorism is afoot in the Virginia area. The amount of plate/location data that can be hauled in by ALPRs is astounding. And the "cross-state collaborations" and "information-sharing" the governor points to only adds to the massive haul. If a potential suspect's information falls into the seven-day memory hole, there's a good chance it will return to the database within a matter of days.

As for the stated concern about the lag between criminal activity and its reporting? Well, what did officers do before they had historical ALPR data to rely on? Surely those investigative methods still exist. ALPRs may have made the job easier, but they didn't destroy previously-existent investigative techniques upon deployment.

On top of this, there's the fact that if McAuliffe doesn't pass this law with the limitation intact, state ALPR usage will continue to violate ANOTHER law.

[M]cAuliffe fails to mention [that] law enforcement agencies are already breaking Virginia’s Data Act by storing ALPR data, as the Virginia Attorney General determined in a 2013 legal opinion [PDF].

If he decides to pass the bill with the limit in place, his state may also enjoy a more favorable outcome to the ALPR-related lawsuit filed against it.

Five days after McAuliffe signed the bills, the [ACLU of Virginia] filed a lawsuit [PDF] against the Fairfax County Police Department, which, despite the Attorney General’s guidance, has been storing ALPR data for up to a year and sharing that data with other law enforcement agencies in the region.

And then there's the fact that ALPRs have been abused by state police and no one in Virginia law enforcement seems to know whether the systems are actually helping apprehend more criminals.

McAuliffe has already sided with his constituents' privacy on two previous bills. There's a lot of ground for compromise between the seven days the bill asks for and the "up to a year" time limit law enforcement agencies already enjoy. That this bill also landed on his desk with overwhelming legislative support is a pretty good indication that Virginians would like the retention needle pushed closer to one week. Hopefully, he'll make the right call and continue to allow his state to lead the nation in privacy protections.

Filed Under: alpr, drones, license plate readers, privacy, surveillance, terry mcauliffe, virginia