Government Oversight

05/17/2012

PCLOB

The Limits of Oversight and the PCLOB

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:32am

(Update below)

Today, the nominees to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board (PCLOB) were voted from the Senate Judiciary Committee for full consideration in the Senate. It looks like the Senate is finally going to act to nominate five people to fill this vital oversight board. While this is an important step, it’s also something of a good government scandal and certainly a cautionary tale about the limits of oversight.

05/03/2012

Photographers' Rights

Police and Photography: Can’t Stop the Signal

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:05pm

There’s been an uptick in protest activity this month around the country–May Day saw a resurgence in the Occupy movement, and further protests are expected around the NATO summit in Chicago, set for May 20th. It’s a safe bet that the vast majority of protesters, police and bystanders are going to have mobile phones (market penetration of the devices in the United States in 2011 was literally more than 100%, meaning lots of folks have more than one, which is so American). It’s also a safe bet that most of those phones will have cameras. Some of those cameras will even be able to take broadcast-quality video.

03/16/2012

Patriot Act

Government Confirms That It Has Secret Interpretation of Patriot Act Spy Powers

By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 12:59pm

The government has just officially confirmed what we've long suspected: there are secret Justice Department opinions about the Patriot Act's Section 215, which allows the government to get secret orders from a special surveillance court (the FISA Court) requiring Internet service providers and other companies to turn over "any tangible things." Just exactly what the government thinks that phrase means remains to be seen, but there are indications that their take on it is very broad.

03/13/2012

U.S. Torture

CIA: We Do Not "Concede or Not Concede" that Waterboarding is Illegal

By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project & Mitra Ebadolahi, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 1:45pm

On Friday, the ACLU appeared before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to argue that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires the CIA to release documents describing its use of waterboarding. The simple question at the heart of the hearing was this: is waterboarding an "intelligence method" that can be protected from disclosure under FOIA? We argued that the answer — of course not — is easy because even the president himself has declared that waterboarding is illegal. Exposing official misconduct to public scrutiny is the chief purpose of FOIA. But it cannot serve that purpose if even officially confirmed illegality is protectable.

10/26/2011

Patriot Act

ACLU Sues Government to Find Out Secret Interpretation of Patriot Act

By Anna Estevao, National Security Project at 12:44pm

We believe the public has a right to know how the government is interpreting a law that is carried out in secret and applies to all Americans.

05/31/2011

Patriot Act

Unmasking "Secret Law": New Demand for Answers About the Government's Hidden Take on the Patriot Act

By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU at 11:28am

Today the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demanding that the Justice Department release information about the government's use and interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

03/15/2011

Patriot Act

Howlers on the Patriot Act

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project & Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:44pm

The Patriot Act has been surrounded by a cloud of fear-mongering since it was reintroduced almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks and rushed through Congress, without any finding that the sweeping new powers granted by the act had anything to do with the problems and failures that contributed to that attack.

At the heart of the issue has been confusion between giving the authorities surveillance powers, and giving them unchecked surveillance powers. Much of what the Patriot Act did was to remove independent judges from oversight over invasions of privacy conducted in the name of law enforcement and national security.

04/09/2010

PCLOB

Obama to Appoint Privacy Board Members

By Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 2:09pm

A few weeks ago, Jay wrote about the Obama administration's failure to appoint members to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). It looks like all those letters from members of Congress (PDF) and a civil liberties coalition (PDF) Jay mentioned might've been the nudge the president needed, because in today's Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima reported some good news: "The White House is vetting someone for one of the three Democratic seats on the board."

03/31/2010

PCLOB

Help Wanted: Oversight Over $60 Billion Security Establishment

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 10:59am

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

Never before in history has the United States had such a huge, and increasingly powerful security establishment. This behemoth has tens of thousands of employees and a budget of at least $60 billion, and though first established to protect our country from outside threats, it is increasingly turning its eye inward upon the people of America. It is vital that we have strong checks and balances in place to counterbalance this growing, secretive center of government power. Unfortunately, in many ways Congress has been weakening, rather than strengthening, those checks and balances in recent years.

American Civil Liberties Union