U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Missouri v McNeely

GUATEMALA CITY — On Friday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held the first hearing of its kind on the legality of U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean and the harm they are causing communities across Latin America. The ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, International Criss Group and UN human rights experts to the commission on how the United States’ lethal-strike policy violates both domestic and international law. U.S. representatives were in attendance, and decried the attempt to hold them accountable. “We are doing everything in our power to hold the Trump administration responsible for its egregious violations of both U.S. and international law, and that includes asking the widely respected Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate these heinous killings,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program. “The administration can act as outraged and indignant as they want, but Friday’s hearing was a vital first step for establishing international accountability for the lawless policy that claimed the lives of at least 156 people and created another dangerous example of state-sanctioned violence with impunity. The fact that the Trump administration is lashing out at the ACLU and at the Commission is just another preposterous attempt to evade accountability and deflect attention from the government’s crimes.” At the convening, the human rights experts highlighted that under both U.S. and international law, it is flagrantly illegal to use the military to kill civilians suspected only of crimes. The United States is not in an armed conflict with anyone in Latin America. That means the people on these boats are civilians. Civilians, including those suspected of smuggling drugs, are not lawful targets. The Commission also heard arguments on the U.S. government’s duty under international treaties to investigate these extrajudicial killings and hold officials accountable for the murders of at least 156 people. Ben Saul, the U.N. special rapporteur for protecting fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, accused the U.S. of “responding with lawless violence that flagrantly violates human rights, in its phony war on so-called narco-terrorism.” The special rapporteur also made clear that “drug trafficking is a crime, not war,” and that the portrayal of suspected drug traffickers as being responsible for “speculative drug overdoses” did not constitute a “permissible law enforcement action in personal self-defense or the defense of others.” In addition, the groups outlined the illegal nature of these strikes and how they violate the UN charter and human rights obligations that bind the United States The groups’ called on the commission to declare the U.S. boat strike policy in violation of international law, to conduct an investigation into the policy, and to convene a special meeting with OAS member states affected by the U.S. policy, and make recommendations on how to refrain from aiding or abetting or otherwise being complicit in the U.S. government’s violations of international law. “These extrajudicial killings were poorly veiled cover to justify the illegal overthrow of the Venezuelan government, as admitted by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles,” said Angelo Guisado, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “The administration’s desire to play imperial superpower in the region cannot be a reason to completely displace the foundations of international law.” Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Sara Jacobs (D-CA) also sent a letter to the commission urging them to “scrutinize this administration’s policy and help advance accountability in the international arena.” Last week’s hearing was one of many legal avenues the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights are taking to hold the Trump administration accountable for these strikes. They also represent two of the victims’ families in their efforts to seek redress and separately are suing for the release of the Trump administration’s legal memo justifying these strikes. Video of the hearing is available here

WASHINGTON. D.C. – Members of Congress should vote against any additional funding for President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional war on Iran, more than 200 groups said today in a letter sent to Congress. Waging a war of choice that costs an estimated $1 billion a day not only fails to address the economic squeeze and health care crisis facing Americans, but diverts federal funding from an array of urgent domestic priorities. The letter was led by Public Citizen, Win Without War, MoveOn, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “By launching a war against Iran, Trump has violated the Constitution, defied international law, flouted the will of the American people, and has put millions of lives across the region at risk. A vote for President Trump’s Pentagon supplemental funding package would be a vote to commit the U.S. even further to this crisis, which has already killed seven U.S. servicemembers and nearly 2,000 people from across the region, and which endangers the lives of many more,” the letter reads. The Pentagon’s budget now totals more than $1 trillion, after an extra $150 billion the agency received in the GOP’s reconciliation bill. A supplemental worth $50 billion would be enough to restore food assistance for four million Americans, establish universal pre-K education, and pay for the annual construction of more than 100,000 units of housing. The groups maintain that this illegal war with Iran cannot be an excuse to fund more weapons instead of priorities here at home. Other prominent signatories to the letter include Oxfam America, the Service Employees International Union, National Nurses United, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the National Organization for Women, the Union of Concerned Scientists, J Street, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Indivisible, Common Cause, Jewish Voice for Peace, Rising Majority, and Working Families Power. “President Trump’s illegal war has already shown the costs war imposes — American servicemembers killed and injured, thousands of civilians killed in fighting, skyrocketing oil prices, a conflict spiraling over a dozen countries in unexpected ways, and more. That’s exactly why it’s so crucial that the decision to go to war not rest on one person's impulses. Congress must not fund the continuation of this unconstitutional war,” said Christopher Anders, director of ACLU’s Technology and Democracy Division. “More money for the Pentagon will serve to extend and escalate an illegal, unpopular, and devastating war – as well as pave the way for still more Pentagon funding requests,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “The money wasted on this war should instead be invested in meeting the economic squeeze felt by everyday Americans. The $11.3 billion spent on the first six days of the war would, for example, be enough to restore food benefits to the four million people losing them due to the tax and budget reconciliation bill.” “Every penny wasted on bombing children and families in Iran would be better spent on health care and affordable housing in America. Secretary Hegseth and President Trump are ready to spend trillions on another forever war that nobody asked for, but they won't lift a finger to lower costs here at home,” said Sara Haghdoosti, chief of program for MoveOn Civic Action. “A vote for supplemental spending is a vote to continue the war in Iran, and Congress must listen to the vast majority of Americans and stop the reckless spending and bloodshed.” “People across the U.S. already hate Trump’s illegal war in Iran, and they’re not going to like it any better if Congress wastes $50 billion more of their money on it,” said Shayna Lewis, deputy director of Win Without War. “It’s outrageous that Trump is even asking for more money to spend on bombs when his spiraling war is killing civilians abroad and driving up prices for everyone at home, all with no end in sight. Congress should tell Trump clearly: not one more penny for this foolish, destructive war.”

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, the U.S. House of Representatives failed to pass the bipartisan Massie-Khanna War Powers Resolution, which would have required that all U.S. forces be withdrawn from Iran, until and unless Congress separately declares war. “This failed war powers vote is nothing short of cowardly, but Congress can’t dodge the Constitution forever,” said Christopher Anders, director of ACLU’s democracy and technology division. “By refusing to rein in President Trump’s unauthorized war with Iran, Congress has allowed President Trump to make a mockery of the Constitution and is trying to duck responsibility for putting servicemembers and civilians in great danger. But, this disgraceful vote does not change Congress’ legal duty, and it certainly does not silence the millions of Americans who oppose another illegal war. We will hold President Trump accountable for this abuse of power.” The ACLU is now urging Congress to use its funding authority to block all supplemental funding requests for war funding from the Department of Defense while President Trump is engaging in this unconstitutional war. Without Congress authorizing additional funds, the military will simply run out of money to spend on the war.

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Virginia, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law filed an amicus brief today in Chatrie v. U.S., the first geofence search case to reach the Supreme Court and the first major case addressing how the court’s 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States applies to other kinds of location-tracking technologies. In the brief, the groups assert that police should not be able to conduct searches using geofence warrants, a novel and invasive surveillance technique that enables law enforcement to search for and locate unknown numbers of people in a large geographical area without reason to believe they were engaged in criminal conduct. Geofence warrants direct Google or other companies to hand over users’ location data from every cell phone or other device the company estimates was in a certain area during a certain time frame. These warrants are increasingly common, but they raise serious questions under the Fourth Amendment because they are dragnets, typically issued without police demonstrating reason to believe all the people who own those devices were involved in any crime. For example, a high-level analysis conducted by ACLU of Northern California of the types of places captured by law enforcement in geofence warrants across San Francisco revealed a troubling violation of our right to be secure in our homes and to be free from unreasonable search without probable cause. “A search that ensnares any number of innocent people just because they are nearby when a crime occurs is an unconstitutional fishing expedition that violates the Constitution. There are too many examples of these overbroad searches invading peoples’ privacy, including in homes, doctors’ offices, and churches. Courts should not allow them,” said Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. This appeal comes after a federal judge in Virginia held that the geofence warrant in Mr. Chatrie’s case was overbroad and that investigators lacked probable cause for much of the data they obtained. The warrant tracked all Google location history users who were estimated to be within a 150-meter radius of a bank robbery in Virginia — an area as big as several football fields that encompassed residential buildings, businesses, and a church. The warrant also allowed police to obtain additional location information about individuals that were ensnared in the initial dragnet. The district court held that the government’s search warrant unconstitutionally left it to the officers and Google, and not to a judge, to decide what location and identifying information the company ultimately revealed, a clear departure from the neutral magistrate’s prescribed role under the Fourth Amendment. However, the court refused to suppress the illegally-obtained evidence on the grounds that the “good-faith exception” to the exclusionary rule — which allows evidence to be admitted when police reasonably rely on a facially valid warrant — applied. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was divided but ultimately allowed prosecutors to use the evidence it had gathered through the geofence search. Now, at the Supreme Court, the ACLU’s amicus brief argues that geofence warrants are never a permissible investigatory method under the Fourth Amendment. Geofence searches are unconstitutional general warrants that courts should categorically reject. “Allowing police to access your private search history just because you happen to be three football fields away from where they say a crime was committed is both absurd and dangerous. And most importantly, it’s unconstitutional: Virginians do not lose their right to privacy because they happen to be within an arbitrary radius set by police,” said Matthew Callahan, senior supervising attorney with the ACLU of Virginia. The amicus brief in Chatrie v. United States is part of the ACLU’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Supreme Court Docket.