By Bennett Stein, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:36pm
On May 8, the ACLU released a slew of government documents obtained from the FBI, U.S. Attorneys' offices around the country, and the Justice Department's Criminal Division concerning the government's access to the contents of private electronic communications. The mediahasseizedupon one of those documents, an undated memo titled, "Guidance for the Minimization of Text Messages over Dual-Function Cellular Telephones." This memo may show that the Criminal Division is doing nothing at all to avoid reading our text messages; it may show great procedures in place to safeguard the privacy our text messages; or, likely, it may have nothing to do with either of those predictions. The public does not know because the Justice Department put a large black box over every word following the header of the 15-page memo.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:31pm
Update: The administration has asked Sen. Schumer to reintroduce the Free Flow of Information Act, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) just announced that he will do so in the House, and Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) introduced a similar bill today. The administration should certainly be commended for taking proactive steps to prevent this from happening again. That said, the administration can’t get in the way this time. The demand in 2009 for a broad exception for national security leaks cases delayed the bill, and tempered enthusiasm among Democrats for the bill in the face of strong opposition by certain Republicans. The 2013 bill must protect against what happened here with the AP, and it’s not clear that the 2009 White House compromise would have done so.
By Matthew Harwood, Media Relations Associate, ACLU at 5:41pm
When former White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan went before the Senate in early February for his confirmation hearing to lead the CIA, he made a startling admission. After reading the 300-page summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's (SSCI) mammoth 6,000-page report on the CIA's post-9/11 detention and interrogation program, Brennan's belief in the life-saving value of the torture program was shaken.
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:20pm
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday marked up CISPA, the controversial cybersecurity bill that allows companies to share their customers' sensitive internet information with each other and the government. The bill's sponsors and corporations are not only declaring victory, but aggressively arguing that all privacy and civil liberties problems have been solved.
This couldn't be further from the truth.
We have flagged four general categories of problems in CISPA that have to be fixed before it is passed, and the markup only substantially fixed one of them:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently ruled that the Central Intelligence Agency may no longer refuse to acknowledge something that everyone knows to be true: the agency has "an interest" in the use of drones to carry out targeted killings. The CIA is unaccustomed to courts rejecting its secrecy claims, but in asking the courts to pretend that the agency might have no connection whatsoever to the targeted killing program, the agency dramatically overreached. Unsurprisingly, the appeals court was unwilling to give its "imprimatur to a fiction of deniability that no reasonable person would regard as plausible."
By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 10:44am
Every year, the FBI issues tens of thousands of “national security letters”—or NSLs—demanding that internet service providers, telephone companies, credit card companies, and others hand over information about their customers if it is “relevant” to a counterterrorism or counter-intelligence investigation. That information could include the web sites we visit, the email addresses of our contacts, or even information linking us to our anonymous political speech online. This practice has been shrouded in secrecy, though, because the FBI gags recipients of NSLs—preventing companies from telling their customers that the government has asked for records about them.
