Privacy Digest

FBI Practices Need Strict Oversight, ACLU Says - Via American Civil Liberties Union:

Washington, DC – As FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before Congress today, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the House Judiciary Committee to ask him the “hard questions.”

“Director Mueller has plenty to answer for,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The FBI’s track record of late has been dismal. Members of the committee should take this opportunity to push for real answers to questions about National Security Letters, delays in the naturalization process and the FBI’s role in torture and anti-terrorism policies set by the administration.”  read more »

ACLU Applauds Senate Scrutiny of Overbroad NSL Authority - Via American Civil Liberties Union:

Washington, DC – As an overbroad and often-abused power is examined today by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union urged members of the committee to thoroughly question its witnesses before marking up legislation aimed at fixing the problem. The "National Security Letter Reform Act" introduced by committee member Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI), would narrow the scope of National Security Letters (NSLs) and curb abuse by federal law enforcement. NSLs are used to obtain access to personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit reporting agencies. Recipients of the NSLs are generally forbidden, or "gagged," from disclosing that they have received the letters.

"As we’ve seen, the broader the NSL statute is, the more likely it is to be abused," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Senator Feingold’s bill will narrow the reach of NSLs, preserve judicial oversight and put the burden on the government to prove that secrecy is needed before imposing draconian gag orders.  read more »

Feds to Collect Millions of DNA Profiles Yearly, Stay Out if You Can - Via Threat Level:

The feds will soon be collecting about one million DNA samples a year under a new program that lets federal agents collect cheek swabs from citizens merely arrested for any federal crime or from any non-citizen detained by federal agents -- including visitors to the country who have visas.

The intent is build a massive database of DNA samples (.pdf) that police can use to catch rapists and murderers, but even the innocent should fear being in the database, due to the vagaries of how cold case DNA searches can easily pinpoint an innocent person.

Thanks to an amendment in the Violence Against Women Act of 2005 that was sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), the feds now have the authority to immediately take DNA from any arrestee or 'detained' non-citizen and immediately upload it to the FBI's CODIS database.  That database is currently fed by federal law enforcement agencies and all 50 states, a few of which collect and upload DNA samples from people arrested, but not convicted of a crime.   read more »

McKesson Dinged in Online Pharma Flap, 'Fueled' Addiction - Via Threat Level:

Wondering where those illegal online pharmacies get their dope?

According to the Justice Department, the answer is McKesson Corp., North America's largest pharmaceutical distributor based in San Francisco.

In a deal with six U.S. attorneys, McKesson agreed to pay $13 million to settle allegations it failed to report to the Drug Enforcement Agency "suspicious sales" of controlled substances to pharmacies, the Justice Department said Friday. Those pharmacies, the Justice Department said, filled orders from illegal, online pharmacies that doled out hardcore prescription medications without a doctor's recommendation.  read more »

Protecting Yourself From Suspicionless Searches While Traveling - Via EFF: Deep Links:

The Ninth Circuit's recent ruling (pdf) in United States v. Arnold allows border patrol agents to search your laptop or other digital device without limitation when you are entering the country. EFF and many civil liberties, travelers’ rights, immigration advocacy and professional organizations are concerned that unfettered laptop searches endanger trade secrets, attorney-client communications, and other private information. These groups have signed a letter asking Congress to hold hearings to find out what protocol, if any, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) follows in searching digital devices and copying, storing and using travelers’ data. The letter also asks Congress to pass legislation protecting travelers’ laptops and smart phones from unlimited government scrutiny.

If privacy at the border is important to you, contact Congress now and ask them to take action!

In the meantime, how can international travelers protect themselves at the U.S. border, short of leaving their laptops and iPhones at home?  read more »

Court-Approved Wiretapping Rose 14% in '07 - Via Threat Level:

Last year might have been a rough year for U.S. home prices, but growth in government wiretaps remained healthy, with the eavesdropping sector posting a 14% increase in court orders compared to 2006. In 2007, judges approved 4,578 state and federal wiretaps, as compared to 4,015 in 2006, according to two new reports on criminal and intelligence wiretaps.

Editor: Interesting graphic removed. Go to original site for that [...]

State police applied for 27% more wiretaps in 2007 than in 2006, with 94% of them targeting cell phones, according to figures released by the U.S. Courts' administrator. In 2007, state judges approved 1,751 criminal wiretap applications, without turning any of them down, according to  the report (.pdf). That's a near-three fold increase in state wiretaps since 1997. Federal criminal wiretaps remained fairly constant -- hovering around 500 -- though exact numbers aren't known since the Justice Department has begun withholding information from the administrators of the U.S. court regarding sensitive investigations.  read more »

Wikipedia Overrules DOJ - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:

kylehase writes "The release of Wikiscanner last year brought much attention to white washing of controversial pages on the community generated encyclopedia. Apparently Wikipedia is very serious in fighting such behavior as they've temporarily blocked the US Department of Justice from editing pages for suspicious edits."

(Read Original Article - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online.)

Microsoft Gives Backdoor to Law Enforcement -- Well, Not Really - Via Threat Level:

Admit it. You always thought Microsoft had put a backdoor into its operating system to allow law enforcement agents to worm their way into your computer.

Now the proof is here. At least that's how some readers are interpreting a story out yesterday about a forensic tool that Microsoft is providing crime-stoppers to help them extract evidence from computers seized at crime scenes.

The Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, or COFEE, is a USB memory stick that was "quietly distributed" to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June, according to Seattle Times tech reporter Benjamin Romano. Romano says the portable device can "decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer."  read more »

ACLU Urges Senate Committee to Pass Strong State Secrets Bill - Via American Civil Liberties Union:

Washington, DC – As the Senate Judiciary Committee meets today to mark up key legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the body to pass a bill that would allow Americans to hold their government accountable. The bill, introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), would limit the scope of the state secrets privilege. The Bush administration, which has threatened to veto Senator Kennedy’s bill, has used the privilege to halt several important lawsuits against the government, including an ACLU case involving the extraordinary rendition of an innocent German citizen, Khaled El-Masri.

"The administration’s frequent and broad use of the state secrets privilege goes to the very root of its abuse of power," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "The privilege has been misused and abused for long enough. Senator Kennedy’s legislation will allow for a court to review the government’s national security claims and will rightly reinstate the role of the judiciary."  read more »

NSA-Spied-On Lawyers Get Day in Court and New Yorker Profile - Via Threat Level:

First the Feds investigate a Saudi charity in Oregon, wiretap the director and two of the group's lawyers, try to designate it a terrorist group and accidentally give the group proof of the wiretapping. Then years later when Al Haramain's American lawyers sue, claiming they were wiretapped without warrants, the feds seek to bury the case with a nearly all powerful litigation tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege, raising profound questions about whether the president is accountable to the law.

In short, if lawyers with documents proving that government secretly wiretapped their conversations with a client can't get their day in court, is it even accurate to think that any law applies to the president during terror-time?  read more »

Annals of Surveillance: State Secrets - Via Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker:

One Friday afternoon in August, 2004, a Washington, D.C., attorney named Lynne Bernabei received a package from the Department of the Treasury. The government was investigating one of her clients, the American branch of a Saudi charity called the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, which had been active in fifty countries. Al Haramain had come under scrutiny, as had many other Islamic charities, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and Treasury Department investigators believed that Al Haramain’s American branch, which was based in Oregon, had connections to Al Qaeda. In response to a request from Bernabei for evidence against her client, the government had turned over two sets of documents, primarily media reports that referred to other branches of Al Haramain. None of the materials demonstrated a direct connection between the Oregon branch and Al Qaeda.  read more »

Senate Proposal To Clarify 'State Secrets' Doctrine - Via Slashdot:

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and other lawmakers are pushing legislation to limit the power of the state secrets doctrine in blocking lawsuits. The doctrine has been used as a 'get out of jail free' card in cases like the EFF's warrantless wiretapping lawsuit. This new legislation would make it harder for the administration to invoke the doctrine, and provide new allowances, such as using attorneys with security clearances to enable the lawsuits to go forward even when the issue is appropriately raised." --- Update: 04/28 16:58 GMT by KD : The New Yorker is running a detailed piece, State Secrets, by Patrick Radden Keefe, about how the use of the state secrets doctrine is playing out in one particular case.

(Read Original Article - Via Slashdot.)

Letters Give C.I.A. Tactics a Legal Rationale - Via New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law.

The legal interpretation, outlined in recent letters, sheds new light on the still-secret rules for interrogations by the Central Intelligence Agency. It shows that the administration is arguing that the boundaries for interrogations should be subject to some latitude, even under an executive order issued last summer that President Bush said meant that the C.I.A. would comply with international strictures against harsh treatment of detainees.

While the Geneva Conventions prohibit “outrages upon personal dignity,” a letter sent by the Justice Department to Congress on March 5 makes clear that the administration has not drawn a precise line in deciding which interrogation methods would violate that standard, and is reserving the right to make case-by-case judgments.  read more »

Court: Government Must Reveal Watch-List Status to Constantly Detained Americans - Via Threat Level:

Eight Americans of south Asian and Middle Eastern descent who were repeatedly detained at the border for questioning will be able to learn if they are actually on the government's terrorist watch list, a federal court in Illinois ruled last week, marking the first time that citizens have been able to learn whether they have been added to a sprawling and error-prone list used for screening at borders and traffic stops.

The government invoked the powerful state secrets privilege in the case, arguing that letting the plaintiffs know if they are or aren't on the list would harm national security since that could alert them to the fact they have been under government scrutiny.

But since the government admits it has stopped the six men and two women more than 35 times, federal Magistrate Judge Sidney Schenkier of the United States Northern Illinois District Court dismissed that argument. Instead he found that the government "failed to establish that, under all the circumstances of this case, disclosure of that information would create a reasonable danger of jeopardizing national security."  read more »

Stopping Abuse of the State Secrets Privilege - Via EFF: Deep Links:

Update: A victory! On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the State Secrets Protection Act. Thanks to everyone who contacted their Senator. Stay tuned to Deeplinks for more info as the bill moves through the Senate.

This week presents an opportunity to put a stop to one of the main tactics in the Bush administration's bag of sketchy legal tricks.

The State Secrets Privilege allows the White House to hide evidence of wrongdoing, and even to try to dismiss important lawsuits, with a unilateral claim that "State Secrets" are endangered. This doctrine was adopted by the Supreme Court in the McCarthy era, and was originally meant to be used only in exceptional circumstances. However, since 2001, the Bush Administration has repeatedly abused the Privilege in attempts to cover up potentially embarrassing or illegal activities.

For instance, when the ACLU sued the NSA in 2006, asserting that domestic spying activities were unconstitutional, the Justice Department misused the privilege to keep the court from deciding the case on its merits. And, right now, the Bush administration is trying to do the same thing to the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T and other lawbreaking phone companies.  read more »