A big worry about U.S. law enforcement’s expanding use of drones is the lack of rules protecting from privacy violations. But drone manufacturers are also considering offering police the option of arming these remote controlled aircraft with non-lethal (for now) weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas. This eye-opening new video from The Daily takes a closer look:
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The Obama administration’s strained defense of its targeted killing program is continuing to make people think long and hard about the government’s asserted authority to mark an American for death without any judicial oversight whatsoever.
Today the first hour of NPR’s On Point was devoted to this issue, along with the general expansion of authority claimed by the executive branch since 9/11. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero debated Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith, who worked in George W. Bush’s Justice Department. You can listen here.
On Monday the Obama administration made its latest attempt to defend the government’s targeted killing program. Attorney General Eric Holder provided the most detailed public discussion yet of the program, but disappointingly took the “trust us” approach, essentially arguing that the American public should trust the executive branch when it says that the targeted killing program (including the killing of U.S. citizens) complies with the constitution and international law, and that no judicial review of the administration’s legal standards, process, or evidence is required.
Video submissions from the public are now being taken for director Doug Liman’s new film, Reckoning With Torture: Memos and Testimonies From the “War On Terror.”The movie will combine these clips with filmed stage performances featuring well-known actors, writers, and former military officers.
The project is collaboration between Liman — whose past work includes The Bourne Identity and Fair Game — and the ACLU and PEN American Center. It aims to make people aware of what really happened in the detention centers and why, and to build support for accountability.
Today the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union called on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to investigate religious and racial profiling by the New York Police Department.
In a series of articles, the Associated Press reports the NYPD spied on mosques and Muslim college students far outside New York City, without evidence or allegations of criminal activity. The NYPD surveilled mosques and businesses in Muslim and ethnic communities in Newark and on Long Island, and monitored college students in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, according to documents released by the AP.
The ACLU recently released a report prompted by the increasing use of surveillance drones by U.S. law enforcement and other agencies. It finds that current privacy protections are lacking, and recommends that new federal rules for domestic drones are needed to safeguard personal privacy and civil liberties.
The Atlantic Wire was good enough to call the report “well-sourced and pretty accessible for even non-privacy experts as it explains everything from how the Federal Aviation Administration is (or isn't) updating regulations to take drones into account and a good old fashioned review of what the Fourth Amendment means.”
UPDATE/CORRECTION: ACLU Senior Policy Counsel Mike German has responded to criticism of this post and the ACLU analysis it was based on. The analysis and this post have been changed to remove the citation of an essay that was used as an example of biased training material, which upon review should not have been used to illustrate the broader problem of biased materials.
Today the ACLU was in court arguing that the Library of Congress violated Col. Morris Davis’s First Amendment rights when it fired him from his job at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) because of opinion pieces he wrote criticizing the Obama administration’s decision to try some Guantánamo detainees in federal courts and others in the military commissions system.
Col. Davis served as Guantánamo’s chief prosecutor until October 2007, when he resigned because he came to believe that the military commission system had become fundamentally flawed. He has openly and publicly criticized the commissions eversince.
Today the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that’s likely to affect the privacy rights of anyone who carries a cell phone. The case, U.S. v. Jones, is about whether law enforcement needs a warrant before planting a GPS tracking device on a person’s car. But more and more, the government is monitoring people’s movements by tracking their cell phones.
It doesn’t matter whether your phone is a smartphone or not, or whether you use it to make calls — as long as your phone is turned on, it registers its location with cell phone networks several times a minute — and all U.S. cell phone companies hold on to that data.
