Biometric Big Brother

by Fuzzyone

Documents recently released as part of  Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights  show that the the FBI is engaged in a massive effort to collect biometric data on essentially everyone.  This is part of The FBI's "Next Generation Identification" Program (NGI):

NGI is a massive database program that collects and stores personal identifying information such as fingerprints, palm prints, iris scans, scars, marks, tattoos, facial characteristics, and voice recognition. Data can be collected not only from arrested individuals, but also from latent prints (fingerprints left behind at a crime scene or anywhere else) or through handheld “FBI Mobile” biometric scanning devices. Worse than the FBI accessing all your personal data, when NGI becomes fully operational in 2014, other federal agencies will gain access to the bio-data without your knowledge or consent.

There is more of that here and its pretty scary.  There is really no limit to the amount of data that can be collected or how it can be shared.

What I find really disturbing is that there has been, as far as I could tell, no media attention to this information.  Perhaps in the post-Patriot-Act world this sort of thing is just no longer news. (I learned of it via the invaluable Talk Left.)  It should be news and we should all be concerned by the extent to which this kind of date is being collected with no regard for privacy or for the potential consequences.

Getting Away With Torture: The Ill Treatment Of Detainees

By Stephen Rohde, cross-posted from Truthout.

Should the U.S. government officials most responsible for setting interrogation and detention policies following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks be investigated, and if warranted prosecuted, under United States and international law?

In a new comprehensive 107-page report entitled "Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees," Human Rights Watch (HRW) concludes that "there is sufficient basis for the U.S. government to order a broad criminal investigation into alleged crimes committed in connection with the torture and ill-treatment of detainees, the CIA secret detention program, and the rendition of detainees to torture" focusing on alleged criminal conduct by "former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet."

HRW also recommends investigating former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales (counsel to the president and later attorney general), Jay Bybee (head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)), John Rizzo (acting CIA general counsel), David Addington (counsel to the vice president), William J. Haynes II (Department of Defense general counsel), and John Yoo (deputy assistant attorney general in the OLC).

HRW found that "there is enough strong evidence from the information made public over the past five years to not only suggest these officials authorized and oversaw widespread and serious violations of US and international law, but that they failed to act to stop mistreatment, or punish those responsible after they became aware of serious abuses."

Moreover, although Bush administration officials have claimed that detention and interrogation operations were only authorized after extensive discussion and legal review by Department of Justice attorneys, HRW concludes that "substantial evidence that civilian leaders requested that politically appointed government lawyers create legal justifications to support abusive interrogation techniques, in the face of opposition from career legal officers."

Although HRW expressed no opinion about the ultimate guilt or innocence of any officials under U.S. law, the report provides a narrative summarizing Bush administration policies and practices on detention and interrogation, and details the case for individual criminal responsibility of several key administration officials.

Just Put Your Lips Together And . . . Get Indicted

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.  -- President Barack Obama

Jane Mayer, in a devastating article in The New Yorker, recently highlighted the Obama Administration's unprecedented attack on whistleblowers.  She described the case against Thomas Drake, a computer specialist who leaked information to a reporter, motivated by the patriotic desire to expose government waste in the National Security Agency.  Although Drake is not a spy, he was indicted for violating the Espionage Act and was looking at a possible  35-year sentence.

As Mayer put it, "the Obama Administration has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness."  Drake's case is one of five in which the government is using "the Espionage Act to press criminal charges" in alleged instances of national-security leaks, "more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous Administrations combined."  As reported in the Times, these five include one case each against defendants from the National Security Agency , the C.I.A, the F.B.I., the military and the State Department.

The case against Drake recently fell apart, and last week he pleaded guilty to a minor charge and is unlikely to serve any time.  But the other four cases remain, including the case of Steven Kim, an arms expert who is charged, as another recent Times article reports, "not by aiding some foreign adversary, but by revealing classified information to a Fox News reporter."

Last month, the Justice Department subpoenaed New York Times reporter James Risen, to force his disclosure of a source who gave him information.  Jane Mayer explains that the case "involves a book that Risen wrote, “State of War,” in which he described a failed effort by the C.I.A. to sabotage Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. Jeffrey Sterling, a former C.I.A. officer, is facing trial on ten felony charges relating to the leak of the information."

Shamai Leibowitz is a former linguist for the FBI who was sentenced for 20 months in prison for leaking classified documents to a blogger.  After being sentenced, Leibowitz said that "this was a one-time mistake that happened to me when I worked at the FBI and saw things that I considered a violation of the law.”   His 20 month sentence, according to Politico, was the largest sentence ever handed out to a government employee accused of passing national security secrets to a member of the media.
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And then, of course, there is Brandon Manning, who has been detained for over a year for allegedly leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks.  In his case, substantial allegations of inhumane treatment have been raised not only by the human rights community and progressive-minded journalists, but by P.J. Crowley, the State Department's chief spokesperson, who was then forced to resign.

It is a deeply disturbing irony that an Administration that came into power vowing to maintain transparency has, as a conservative political scientist quoted in Mayer's New Yorker article stated, "presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history—even more so than Nixon.”   What is going on here is what Yale law professor Jack Balkin contends is part of the dramatic shift since 9/11 towards the "normalization and legitimization of a national-surveilance state."  And so former Bush officials who authorized torture and illegal wiretapping go home to write their memoirs while government officials who attempt to expose waste and wrongdoing are prosecuted as spies and traitors.

Doubling Down On The War On Terror

Guantanamo remains open.  Military tribunals are used to try suspected terrorists.  Controversial provisions of the Patriot Act are renewed.  Government officials who leak information to the press are treated as spies and prosecuted with unprecedented aggression. The FBI eases restrictions on their agents' ability to use intrusive surveillance measures on individuals.  The FBI raids  peace activists.  This is not Bush's America.  This is Obama's America.

Originally posted at TomDispatch, Karen J. Greenberg, author of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First One Hundred Days, explains that these are not aberrations and suggests five steps that could help to put the excesses of the never-ending War on Terror behind us.

Business As Usual On Steroids

By Karen J. Greenberg, originally posted on TomDispatch, June 19, 2011.

In the seven weeks since the killing of Osama bin Laden, pundits and experts of many stripes have concluded that his death represents a marker of genuine significance in the story of America’s encounter with terrorism.  Peter Bergen, a bin Laden expert, was typically blunt the day after the death when he wrote, "Killing bin Laden is the end of the war on terror. We can just sort of announce that right now."

Yet you wouldn’t know it in Washington where, if anything, the Obama administration and Congress have interpreted the killing of al-Qaeda’s leader as a virtual license to double down on every “front” in the war on terror.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was no less blunt than Bergen, but with quite a different endpoint in mind.  “Even as we mark this milestone,” she said on the day Bergen’s comments were published, “we should not forget that the battle to stop al-Qaeda and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of bin Laden.  Indeed, we must take this opportunity to renew our resolve and redouble our efforts.”

Renewing The Patriot Act: Who Will Protect Us From Our Government

By John W. Whitehead, originally published on the Rutherford Institute's website on May 16, 2011

[John Whitehead is the founder and president of the Rutherford Institute.  The Rutherford Institute is notorious for backing Paula Jones' lawsuit against Bill Clinton and has roots in the Christian right.  It has been criticized for the selective nature of the civil liberties cases it litigates and for its underlying agenda.  That said, Whitehead is worth listening to when he passionately defends civil rights and civil liberties.  As the Patriot Act is expected to be extended this week, Whitehead's piece below is a good example.]

It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government. --Thomas Paine

Those who founded this country knew quite well that every citizen must remain vigilant or freedom would be lost. This is the true nature of a patriot--one who sounds the clarion call when the Constitution is under attack. If, on the other hand, the people become sheep-like, it will lead to a government of wolves. This is what we are faced with today as Congress marches in lockstep with the White House to renew the USA Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments--the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments--and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well. The Patriot Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience were considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.

The Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic being that if government agents knew more about each American, they could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens--no doubt an earnest impulse shared by small-town police and federal agents alike. According to Washington Post reporter Robert O'Harrow, Jr., this was a fantasy that had been brewing in the law enforcement world for a long time. And 9/11 provided the government with the perfect excuse for conducting far-reaching surveillance and collecting mountains of information on even the most law-abiding citizen.

Suddenly, for the first time in American history, federal agents and police officers were authorized to conduct black bag "sneak-and-peak" searches of homes and offices and confiscate your personal property without first notifying you of their intent or their presence. The law also granted the FBI the right to come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you; allowed the government access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you; and allowed the government to secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you've checked out in any public library and Internet sites you've visited (at least 545 libraries received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot Act).

Bored To Death In Afghanistan (And Washington)

Mating Déjà Vu with a Mobius Strip in the Graveyard of Empire

By Tom Engelhardt, originally published at TomDispatch, May 19, 2011.

One day in October 2001, a pilot for Northwest Airlines refused to let Arshad Chowdhury, a 25-year-old American Muslim (“with a dark complexion”) who had once worked as an investment banker in the World Trade Center, board his plane at San Francisco National Airport.  According to Northwest’s gate agents, Chowdhury writes in the Washington Post, “he thought my name sounded suspicious” even though “airport security and the FBI verified that I posed no threat.”  He sued.

Now, skip nearly a decade.  It’s May 6, 2011, and two New York-based African-American imams, a father and son, attempting to take an American Airlines flight from New York to Charlotte to attend a conference on "prejudice against Muslims," were prevented from flying.  The same thing happened to two imams in Memphis “dressed in traditional long shirts and [with] beard,” heading for the same conference, when a pilot for Atlantic Southeast refused to fly with them aboard, even though they had been screened three times.

So how is the war in Afghanistan going almost 10 years later?  Or do you think that’s a non sequitur?

I don’t, and let me suggest two reasons why: first, boredom; second, the missing learning curve.
At home and abroad, whether judging by airline pilots or Washington’s war policy, Americans seem remarkably incapable of doing anything other than repeating the same self-defeating acts, as if they had never happened before.  Hence Afghanistan.  Almost 10 years after the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan and proclaimed victory, like imam-paralyzed airline pilots, we find ourselves in a state that might otherwise be achieved only if you mated déjà vu with a Mobius strip.

If you aren’t already bored to death, you should be.  Because, believe me, you’ve read it all before.  Take the last month of news from America’s second Afghan War.  If nobody told you otherwise, you could easily believe that almost every breaking Afghan story in the last four weeks came from some previous year of the war.

Second Amendment Remedies

Jared Loughner reportedly used a Glock 19 9 mm semi-automatic pistol that he bought legally at the Sportman's Warehouse in Tuscon.  The gun retails for $499.  It has a high capacity magazine that can hold up to 30 or more rounds. The federal assault weapons ban that would have prohibited the purchase of the gun and the high capacity magazine expired in 2004, after heavy lobbying by the NRA thwarted its reinstatement.

The Federal Assaults Weapon Ban was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994.  It prohibited the sale of certain semi-automatic weapons as well as "large capacity ammunition feeding devices," i.e., high-capacity magazines which hold more than 10 rounds.  According to Daniel Vice, senior attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, if Loughner had been using a traditional magazine, "it would have drastically reduced the number of shots he got off before he had to pause, unload and reload -- and he could have been stopped."  Under the law, it was also illegal to manufacture these weapons and magazines except for export or for sale to law enforcement 

The assault weapons ban included a ten-year sunset provision.  The law expired in 2004, after an amendment to extend it for another ten years, introduced by Senator Feinstein, was voted down 90-8.  In 2007, a bill to reinstate and expand the ban on assault weapon was introduced in the House by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY).  McCarthy, whose husband was killed and son injured during a shooting rampage in 1993, is a fierce advocate for gun control.  Her bill had 60 co-sponsors but never passed.  Another bill was introduced by Republican Congressman Mark Kirk in 2008.  It remains in subcommittee.

Only ten states have their own laws regulating assault weapons, and Arizona, predictably, has some of the most lax guns laws in the country.  It is one of only three states that allow its residents to carry loaded, concealed guns without a special background check.  In September, Arizona passed a law that allows people with concealed-weapons permits to bring their guns into bars. 

In the wake of the tragic shooting, there has been remarkably little discussion in the mainstream media about gun control and there does not appear to be the will in Congress to enact stricter gun laws.  The only potential legislation appears to be a proposal to ban high capacity magazines, which Rep. McCarthy and Rep. Lautenberg (D-NJ) plan to introduce this week.  Even this relatively modest bill will encounter strong opposition thanks to the lobbying efforts of the NRA.

The National Rifle Association remains the most powerful lobby in Washington, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.  It spent more than $2 million on lobbying through September 2010, and has 23 lobbyists on staff.  As reported in USA Today, the NRA's political action committee is one of the most powerful in the country, ranking eighth in terms of receipts and expenditures.

So, there you have it.  A mentally ill young man was unable to enlist in the military, after failing a drug test, and was suspended from college pending a mental health evaluation.  He had five run-ins with the Pima Community College campus police, was arrested in 2007 for possessing drug paraphernalia and had two other minor infractions.  But, he could go into a sporting goods store, pass an FBI background check "without incident," and within minutes walk out with a new semi-automatic weapon and a magazine capable of shooting off more than 30 rounds without having to reload.

Regulations barring assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and laws requiring meaningful background checks and waiting periods to purchase guns will not impair the rights of legitimate gun owners.  This is not about the Second Amendment.  It is about whether Congress will continue to allow itself to be controlled by a powerful lobby at the risk of the country's health and safety.

[Related posts: Tragic and Inevitable]