Update: Since this piece was posted, the 老澳门开奖结果 has filed FOIA requests seeking more information on data-mining by the NCTC. Read more 禄
What if a government spy agency had power to copy and data mine information about ordinary Americans from any government database? This could include records from law enforcement investigations, health information, employment history, travel and student records. Literally anything the government collects would be fair game, and the original agency in charge of protecting the privacy of those records would have little say over whether this happened, or what the spy agency did with the information afterward. What if that spy agency could add commercial information, anything it 鈥� or any other federal agency 鈥� could buy from the that are monitoring our every move?
What if it wasn鈥檛 just collection but also sharing? Anything that was reasonably believed to be necessary to 鈥減rotect the safety or security of persons, property or organizations鈥� or 鈥減rotect against or prevent a crime or threat to national security鈥� could be shared. Imagine the dissemination was essentially unlimited, not just to federal, state, local or foreign governments but also to individuals or entities that are not part of the government.
It has already happened.
This full frontal assault on our privacy wasn鈥檛 passed through an Act of Congress or international treaty but through deceptively titled 鈥済uidelines鈥� to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). On March 22, 2012 the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Director of NCTC to the 2008 rules for handling information on US persons. These were radical changes (to see how different please check out redline comparison we did between the 2008 and 2012 guidelines).
The biggest change regards the NCTC鈥檚 handling of 鈥渘on-terrorism鈥� related information on US persons. Previously, the intelligence community was barred from collecting information about ordinary Americans unless the person was a terror suspect or part of an actual investigation. When the NCTC gobbled up huge data sets it had to search for and identify any innocent US person information inadvertently collected, and . This crucial check meant that NCTC was dissuaded from collecting large databases filled with information on innocent Americans, because the data had to then be carefully screened. The 2012 guidelines eliminate this check, allowing NCTC to collect and 鈥渃ontinually assess鈥� information on innocent Americans for up to five years.
Once information is acquired, the new guidelines authorize broad new search powers. As long NCTC says its search is aimed at identifying terrorism information, it may conduct queries that involve non-terrorism data points and pattern-based searches and analysis (data mining). The breadth and wrongheadedness of these changes are particularly noteworthy. Not only do they mean that anytime you interact with any government agency you essentially enter a lineup as a potential terrorist, they also rely on a technique, datamining, which has been thoroughly discredited as a useful tool for identifying terrorists. As far back as 2008 the that data mining for terrorism was scientifically 鈥渘ot feasible鈥� as a methodology, and likely to have significant negative impacts on privacy and civil liberties.
Perhaps most disturbing, once information is gathered (not necessarily connected to terrorism), in many cases it can be shared with 鈥渁 federal, state, local, tribal, or foreign or international entity, or to an individual or entity not part of a government鈥� 鈥� literally anyone. That sharing can happen in relation to national security and safety, drug investigations, if it鈥檚 evidence of a crime or to evaluate sources or contacts. This boundless sharing is broad enough to encompass disclosures to an employer or landlord about someone who NCTC may think is potentially a criminal, or at the request of local law enforcement for vetting an informant.
All of this is happening with very little oversight. Controls over the NCTC are mostly internal to the DNI鈥檚 office, and important oversight bodies such as Congress and the President鈥檚 Intelligence Oversight Board aren鈥檛 notified even of 鈥渟ignificant鈥� failures to comply with the Guidelines. Fundamental legal protections are being sidestepped. For example, under the new guidelines, Privacy Act notices (legal requirements to describe how databases are used) must be completed by the agency that collected the information. This is in spite of the fact that those agencies have no idea what NCTC is actually doing with the information once it collects it.
All of this amounts to a reboot of the Total Information Awareness Program that Americans rejected so vigorously right after 9/11. While some outlets like the and New York Times and bloggers such as have written excellent pieces about these changes, due to their complexity and obscurity they haven鈥檛 gotten nearly the attention they deserve.
Tomorrow I鈥檓 about the general weakening of American privacy laws and how they鈥檝e been specifically exploited by NCTC. We hope it will be the beginning of a process to shield innocent Americans from becoming the subject of investigations by the intelligence community.
We鈥檒l be pushing for oversight hearings and additional information to evaluating the legal of the entire program.
Here is a simple guide to the main changes created by the 2012 NCTC guidelines.
Learn more about government surveillance: Sign up for breaking news alerts, , and .
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
老澳门开奖结果 and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban老澳门开奖结果 and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON 鈥� Today, the 老澳门开奖结果, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok鈥檚 challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will 鈥渟hutter one of America鈥檚 most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.鈥� 鈥淭he Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,鈥漵aid Patrick Toomey, deputy director of 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 National Security Project. 鈥淭he Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.鈥� The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law鈥檚 profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court鈥檚 decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users鈥� First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government鈥檚 ban on TikTok as a vindication of users鈥� First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign 鈥減ropaganda.鈥� But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its 鈥渕otivating ideology鈥� or 鈥減erspective,鈥� and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. 鈥淭he government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,鈥� said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. 鈥淭he Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit鈥檚 erroneous ruling.鈥� Finally, the brief underscores that the government can鈥檛 impose this type of sweeping ban unless it鈥檚 necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government鈥檚 invocation of 鈥渘ational security鈥� as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. 鈥淩estricting citizens鈥� access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,鈥� said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. 鈥淚t would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.鈥� You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
老澳门开奖结果 Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia老澳门开奖结果 Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON 鈥� The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, 老澳门开奖结果 and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 National Security Project: 鈥淲hile this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We鈥檙e profoundly frustrated that the administration didn鈥檛 take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.鈥� -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. 鈥� Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. 鈥� Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government鈥檚 case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man鈥檚 Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man鈥檚 Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. 鈥� This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 case, his claims challenging the government鈥檚 detention of him would fail. 鈥淩eviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we鈥檙e heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,鈥� said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 Center for Democracy. 鈥淭he government鈥檚 arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.鈥� In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court鈥檚 ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. 鈥淢r. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,鈥� said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants鈥� Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. 鈥淗e cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.鈥� Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the 老澳门开奖结果, the University of Chicago Law School鈥檚 Immigrants鈥� Rights Clinic, the 老澳门开奖结果 of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.