Category Archives: government secrecy

Event RESCHEDULED -> March 13, 2008: Security vs. Privacy: A Discussion of FISA and Related Issues

February 19, 2008 – 6:36 pm

Time, and Location: 5:00 to 6:00 pm, Hulston Hall, Room 6, University of Missouri Campus

At the behest of the Bush Administration, Congress is debating a number of updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This long-standing law, passed in response to widespread abuses of executive power during the Nixon era, protects American citizens from being spied upon by the government. FISA strikes a balance between ensuring Americans’ rights to security in their communications and keeping our country safe from foreign threats.

One of the key characteristics of FISA is that it allows the government to engage in surveillance of suspected foreign threats, such as terrorists BEFORE seeking a court order.

The FISA court, the judicial body created to review government requests for permission to wiretap suspected threats, routinely granted such requests. The President would have us believe that this permissive system is not enough and that sweeping NEW powers should be granted to the Executive Branch to engage in spying upon American citizens.

This should be troubling to all Americans. Indications are that the government has already engaged in such activities, in violation of existing law. The Administration’s request would provide retroactive cover for these illegal acts. Furthermore, the President is demanding that Congress grant immunity to the telecommunications companies who handed over untold amounts of information about domestic communications at the government’s request. The Administration would have you believe that such immunity is warranted because these companies were simply doing their “patriotic duty.” Nevertheless, these same businesses cut off FBI wiretaps of suspected terrorist targets when the government failed to pay its bills on time.

What is most troubling of all is that the Senate has already passed a bill that gives the Administration everything it wants. Any chance to stop this assault on our civil liberties now lies in the House.In order that concerned citizens may better understand the proposed changes to FISA, the MU chapter of the American Constitution Society will host a panel discussion on the topic this Thursday, February 21 March 13, 2008 from 5:00 to 6:00 pm in Hulston Hall, Room 6.

The panel will consist of Christina Wells, Professor of Law at MU, whose studies have focused on free speech and government access; Charles Davis, Professor of Journalism at MU and the executive director for the National Freedom of Information Coalition; local attorney and civil rights advocate Dan Viets; and John Coffman, who lobbies for the American Civil Liberties Union in Jefferson City.

[Ed. Note : This event has been rescheduled for March 13th due to severe weather. Professor Davis has also been added to the panel]

By Bryan Utter | Also posted in War on Terror, civil rights, free speech, separation of powers, the President, war powers | Comments (0)

Mayfield v. US: Revised FISA’s Easy Warrants

September 27, 2007 – 3:20 am

easy buttonYesterday, Oregon U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled two Patriot Act revisions of FISA unconstitutional. WaPo story here. Judge Aiken’s order and opinion here. This post is (hopefully) the first of three about the decision.

The case involves Oregon family law practicioner Brandon Mayfield, who was erroneously accused of involvement in the Madrid Train bombings of 2004. The FBI “matched” fingerprints found on a bag of detonating devices in Spain to Mayfield’s. Despite subsequent communication from Spanish authorities that Spain’s law enforcement officials suspected certain Morrocan nationals as the culprits, and despite Mayfield’s uninterupted presence within the United States for the previous ten years, the FBI sought and received from the FISA court warrants to secretly search Mayfield’s home and office (”sneak-and-peek”), and to listen-in on conversations both in Mayfield’s home and office. FBI surveillance further included watching the Mayfield family as they traveled to and from their place of worship, to and from the Mayfield children’s school, and to and from family activities.

By the way, Mayfield and his family are practicing Muslims. From the opinion (pps 9-11):

Plaintiff’s allege that DOJ and FBI employees “concocted false and misleading affidavits” in order to justify even more intrusive searches and ultimately to justify Mayfield’s arrest as a “material witness.” [...] Although the affidavits stated that “preliminary findings” of the SNP [Spanish National Police] “were not consistent” with the FBI fingerprint analysis, no mention was made of Spain’s [...] report to the FBI that stated the SNP did not agree with the FBI’s fingerprint match …

The affidavit included “speculative and prejudicial narratives” focusing on Mayfield’s religion and association with co-practicioners. Plaintiffs cite as an example, [FBI agent] Werders’s inclusion in his affidavit the fact that Mayfield attended a mosque and advertised his legal services in “Jerusalem Enterprises,” or what are known as the “Muslim Yellow Pages,” as evidence connecting Mayfield to the bombings as a material witness. Plaintiffs respond that the “Muslim Yellow Pages” also includes advertising by major companies such as Avis, Best Western, and United Airlines.

[...]

Based on these affidavits, broad search warrants were sought and issued. Mayfield’s family home and law office were searched. Computer and paper files from his home, including his children’s homework, were seized. Mayfield was ultimately arrested and initially held in the lockdown unit[.] His family was not told where he was being held. He and his family were told, however, that he was being held as a primary suspect on offenses punishable by death, and that the FBI made a 100% match of his fingerprint with the Madrid train bombing fingerprint.

The ease with which the FBI could obtain FISA warrants were due to two provisions inserted into FISA by the Patriot Act. First, where previously wiretapping and “sneak and peek” warrants required a “primary purpose” of obtaining foreign intelligence information, the Patriot Act revisions to FISA lowered the bar to a “significant purpose.” Second, where the target of the surveillance is a U.S. citizen, the FISC judge “must also find that the Executive Branch’s certification that a significant purpose of the search or surveillance is to obtain foreign intelligence information is not ‘clearly erroneous.’” Intstead of the “probable cause” standard of a crime committed or in commision, the government’s burden is dramatically lightened to simply “not clearly erroneous.”

Judge Aiken notes in the opinion (p. 19) that “the practical result of this amendment [...] is that in criminal investigations, the government can now avoid the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause requirement when conducting surveillance or searches of a criminal suspect’s home or office merely by asserting a desire to also gather foreign intelligence information[.]“

As easy as the press of a button.

By Matthew Frederick | Also posted in War on Terror, civil rights | Comments (0)

The Psychological Methods of the Torture Program

August 15, 2007 – 12:39 pm


The Christian Science Monitor has an excellent article on American citizen Jose Padilla’s psychological breakdown at the hands of the US government. How did the US government learn their techniques? From Soviet-era “internal security” organizations such as the KGB and the Stasi.

How a Cold War program inspired terror war interrogationsMany of the harsh interrogation techniques now used in the war on terror bear a striking resemblance to tactics of the former Soviet KGB.

There is a reason. After the 9/11 attacks, US forces put a premium on getting actionable intelligence from suspected terrorists. But most of them refused to talk. Some interrogators complained that traditional techniques that complied fully with the Geneva Conventions weren’t working.

So the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency reached back to a military training program with roots in the cold war. The program was originally designed to prepare downed American pilots and special-operations soldiers for capture during a war with the Soviet Union. The Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school mimicked the anticipated Soviet interrogation techniques. According to former SERE instructors, the grueling program subjects trainees to aggressive questioning, isolation, sleep deprivation, stress positions, and simulated drowning (water-boarding). Soon, the coercive techniques were being used on detainees in Afghanistan; Iraq; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.

Salon reports that meanwhile, at the annual American Psychological Association convention in San Francisco, the “last group of medical professionals willing to support the interrogation of ‘high value’ detainees” is poised to formally condemn the Torture Program. It’s not clear how much of an effect an APA resolution would have on steering psychologists away from aiding torture programs.

Theoretically, a psychologist could lose his state-issued license for violating an APA resolution, regardless of APA membership, which might plant a seed of doubt in a psychologist’s mind when he steps into a CIA interrogation booth. Military psychologists, for example, are required to maintain a state license.But the CIA might not be so strict. When asked a series of questions on whether the CIA requires psychologists working with that agency to maintain a state license, CIA spokesman George Little responded, “On these questions, I decline to comment.”

Still, psychologists predict that their colleagues — even those employed by the CIA — will be less inclined in the future to participate in harsh interrogations that have been explicitly condemned by the APA. “These are our rules and our professional ethics,” said Brad Olson, president of the Divisions for Social Justice within the APA. “What this whole group of professionals believes does matter. What psychologists say they are willing to do and not willing to do does matter.”

More here and here at Balkinization.

By Matthew Frederick | Also posted in War on Terror, torture | Comments (0)