By Matthew Harwood, Media Relations Associate, ACLU at 10:00am
Yes, law enforcement drones are coming, but if Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, has his way they won’t leave the ground without a judge okaying it first.
Yesterday, Poe introduced the Preserving American Privacy Act to ensure government, particularly law enforcement, use of drones will not violate the Constitution. Before police can launch a drone to search a non-public area, they will have to get a warrant based upon probable cause--the constitutional standard. For public spaces the standard will be reasonable suspicion of criminal activity as well as a reasonable probability that the drone will capture evidence of that criminal activity. Once the order is executed, the police will have 10 days to serve a copy of the warrant to the suspects under surveillance, although the bill allows judges to delay notification if it will jeopardize an ongoing criminal or national security investigation. If government entities violate the public trust and fly drones outside the law, the attorney general can order the Secretary of Transportation to revoke their license.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:08pm
A video touting software created by Raytheon to mine data from social networks has been attracting an increasing amount of attention in the past few days, since it was uncovered by Ryan Gallagher at the Guardian.
By Mike German, ACLU, Washington Legislative Office at 12:51pm
Like a villain in a horror movie, the widely debunked concept of terrorist "radicalization" is once again raised from the grave by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in its 2013 report, "American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat." CRS is an influential legislative branch agency charged with providing objective policy analysis for members of Congress, which makes its continued reliance on the "radicalization" model promoted in a now-discredited 2007 New York Police Department report, "Radicalization in the West," particularly troublesome.
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:54pm
It's baa-aaack.
The House cybersecurity bill that allows the National Security Agency (NSA) and the military to collect your private internet records is scheduled for an encore appearance on Wednesday. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) will reintroduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which news reports say will be the same bill that passed the House of Representatives last year.
By Katie Haas, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:07am
Aiming to determine the impact of border searches on Americans’ civil liberties, the Department of Homeland Security has produced a report on its policy of combing through and sometimes confiscating travelers’ laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices—even when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. The report was completed sometime between October 2011 and September 2012, and last week DHS quietly posted only the executive summary on its website, without many people noticing.
By Zachary Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 12:07pm
Yesterday, the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) issued a comprehensive report laying out the scope of the CIA's extraordinary rendition, secret prison and torture program. The report, following up on the ACLU's 2012 Torture Report, traces the evolution of the program, through which the CIA kidnapped terrorism suspects from around the world, flew them secretly to "black sites" – where they were held incommunicado without charge or trial – and tortured them. The OSJI report reveals that 54 nations, more than a quarter of the world, directly participated in the torture program, including through housing CIA prisoners on their soil, where they were often tortured; helping kidnap terrorism suspects and ship them overseas without any legal process; and allowing CIA planes to use their airspace and airports for those kidnapping missions. (Check out the report to learn which countries participated, and what types of assistance they offered). And it compiles the largest, most detailed list yet of the men and women thrown into these horrific black holes, naming 136 victims, many of whose whereabouts remain unknown today.
By Matthew Harwood, Media Relations Associate, ACLU at 5:41pm
On Thursday, John Brennan, the White House deputy national security advisor for homeland security and counterterrorism, will come before the Senate to interview for one of the most powerful jobs in the world: director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Brennan's nomination is by no means a fait accompli.
Brennan, who served in the top echelons of the CIA during the key early years of the Bush administration, still has many questions he hasn't answered regarding the agency's role in torture, indefinite detention and kidnapping during his time there. And he has at least as many questions to answer about his role running the killing program in the Obama White House.
