Tag: fourth amendment

What Does The “USA Freedom Act” Really Say?

Photo credit: The Daily Dot
Photo credit: The Daily Dot

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), one of the original authors of the USA PATRIOT Act, jointly introduced an NSA reform bill on October 29. Rep. Sensenbrenner has clearly not lost any of his love of elaborate nationalistic acronyms in the intervening years, and named his bill the ‘Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection, and On-line Monitoring Act”, or “USA FREEDOM ACT”. For once, the content of a bill proposed in Congress may actually bear some relation to its title, in that it appears to be a sincere effort to rein in several of the worst abuses at the NSA.

However, what has not been clear in the reporting on the Act is the specifics of what the Act actually does. A quick look at the original text shows why. As one activist lamented, “Unfortunately, the text is exceptionally hard to read … It would be much easier to read if the full text was collated with the current statutes.” Indeed it would. Luckily, Digital Fourth is on hand to provide a more detailed guide to its (very densely written) contents than is presently available.

For those who want a high-level summary of the bill, the ACLU has provided one here. What follows is a low-level, section-by-section summary of how the bill changes current law. We welcome updates and corrections as we go forward.

Continue reading What Does The “USA Freedom Act” Really Say?

StopWatchingUs DC rally rocks out: 3,000+ people call for NSA reforms

This Saturday, DC saw something it had never seen before.

A city that treats the superficial hatreds of party politics as its lifeblood, saw thousands of people from across the political spectrum gather to denounce NSA mass spying. We heard, and roared approval for, the words of feminist Naomi Wolf, Dennis Kucinich (Democrat), Justin Amash (Republican), and Gary Johnson (Libertarian). Kymone Freeman spoke movingly about the impact of surveillance on minority communities and the civil rights movement. Whistleblowers Thomas Drake and Russell Tice were there, and Edward Snowden sent a message to be read by leading whistleblower-protecting attorney Jesselynn Radack. Tea Party people up from Richmond, VA, proudly put on Code Pink stickers labeled “Make Out Not War”. The press reported wonderingly that it was not put together “by any of the “usual” well-connected DC organizers.” I should know: I’m proud to say that, in a small way, I was one of them, and this was the first time most of us had done anything like this.

That wasn’t all. Here in Boston, activist Joan Livingston put together a solidarity rally at Park Street Station:

and ACLU organizer Raquel Ronzone arranged for the rally to livestream at the Digital Media Conference in Cambridge.

If you want updates on the StopWatchingUs campaign going forward, text “PRIVACY” to 877877. Stay tuned for the next stage of the campaign, which will be to pass the “USA FREEDOM Act.” Personally, just to hammer home the point, I’d have preferred the “USA FREEDOM Fourth Amendment Restoration – Objective: Undermining Tyranny Act of 2013”, because I too can do acronyms, but such frivolity is apparently frowned upon in the legislature that gave us the Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 in the first place.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, I nearly forgot. I’m the tall guy to the left of Rep. Amash!

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MA-5: Addivinola and Clark tussle over surveillance, differ only on wiretapping bill *UPDATED*

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UPDATE: To reflect substantive changes in information received from the Addivinola campaign, the title of this article and portions of the analysis have been changed to more accurately reflect Councillor Addivinola’s positions.

The primaries are over, and two very different candidates are facing off in the December 10 general election: State Senator Katherine Clark (D) and Frank Addivinola (R). Both candidates have responded to the Digital Fourth questionnaire on surveillance issues, so we can compare their positions directly and in their own words.

We gave the same questionnaire to all seven Democratic primary candidates, but the strongest opponents of government surveillance (Long, Sciortino and Spilka) did not make it through the primary. Here are the results for the remaining two candidates.

Continue reading MA-5: Addivinola and Clark tussle over surveillance, differ only on wiretapping bill *UPDATED*

New England mobilizes against the surveillance state: Updates from ME, NH and RI

In the states and the cities of New England, unparalleled, cross-partisan, cross-racial coalitions are forming, bringing together libertarians, Tea Party people, technologists, peace and environmental activists, Occupy folks, veterans’ groups, people of color, religious groups and progressive Democrats. The nation may never have seen people of such disparate views united under one banner.

Three examples from just this last month:

Continue reading New England mobilizes against the surveillance state: Updates from ME, NH and RI

Thousands to Rally in DC Against Mass Surveillance on Patriot Act Anniversary 10/26

We’re now at over 4,000 signups for the Stopwatching.us anti-NSA rally down in DC this Saturday!

We’re looking for people who are driving down to DC from New England and have space in their car for fellow protesters: please email me if that’s you!

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We’ll deliver a petition with over half a million signatures to Congress, We’ll demand real NSA reforms and an end to mass surveillance programs that do an end-run around the Fourth Amendment. It’s time for the lies to end.

To sign the petition: https://optin.stopwatching.us/
To join the rally: https://rally.stopwatching.us

Details below the fold:

Continue reading Thousands to Rally in DC Against Mass Surveillance on Patriot Act Anniversary 10/26

The MA-5 Democratic Candidates on Surveillance: Who Does Best? *UPDATED*

Here in the heavily Democratic Fifth District of Massachusetts, we know that the winner of October 15th’s Democratic primary will reliably win the general and go to Congress. The seat was last open almost 40 years ago. Bearing that in mind, we at Digital Fourth thought it pretty important to assess the Democratic candidates’ positions on the hot issue of surveillance, while the district’s registered Democrats still have a chance to affect the outcome.

We sent a standard questionnaire to all seven candidates running in the primary. We asked about whether the candidate supported requiring warrants for searches of digital data (ECPA reform); whether they would defund the “fusion centers” that capture data and generate reports on peaceful activists; whether they support the Mass. Attorney-General and Senator Clark’s proposal to expand electronic wiretapping; whether they would vote for the Amash-Conyers Amendment reining in the NSA; and finally, whether they would support Rep. Rush Holt (D-PA)’s “Surveillance State Repeal Act”, which would repeal the PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act and provide protection for government whistleblowers.

All except Sen. Karen Spilka and Mr. Paul John Maisano were kind enough to respond in detail, and we have done our best to reconstruct the positions of these two candidates from past votes and public statements.

UPDATE: Sen. Spilka has provided answers to the questionnaire that place her in equal first place on surveillance, along with Rep. Carl Sciortino and Mr. Martin Long.

So, for your reading pleasure, here’s the Surveillance Voter’s Guide to The Democratic Field in MA-5!

Continue reading The MA-5 Democratic Candidates on Surveillance: Who Does Best? *UPDATED*

Test Your Power: Rally Against Mass Spying, Sat 10/26 in DC

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Mass surveillance getting you down? Feel like the federal government doesn’t trust you, and wants access to everything you do, say, or even think? Then come on out with us in the nation’s biggest ever rally against mass spying, on Oct. 26 in Washington, DC!

We’re calling for Congress to:

Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;

Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;

Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.

Without our pressure, the very best we can hope for is for the government to become marginally more transparent about how they are spying on our every moment. The Obama administration has not supported any changes to the NSA’s actual programs, and has done its best to block meaningful discussion of reform.

Maybe you’re content simply with knowing what abuses are being committed against you. We’re going to DC to send the message that the abuses themselves must end. The only kind of surveillance that the Fourth Amendment allows is also the only kind that really works: surveillance of individuals, based on probable cause of their involvement in an actual crime. Anything beyond that is a grave threat to our freedom to live our own lives as we wish.

Sign up to attend or volunteer here. And if you can’t make it to DC that day, here’s a link for other ways you can help.

UPDATE: Our new article on the rally gives much more detail.

SJC Reviewing Warrant Requirement for Historic Cell Phone Location Data

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Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court is soliciting amicus briefs from interested parties in two cases highly relevant to electronic privacy.

First up is Commonwealth vs. Shabazz Augustine, where they seek to establish:

“whether there is a warrant requirement for cell phone records collected and held by the phone company, namely historic cell site location information, sought by police to establish a person’s location at various times.”

The case is attracting heavyweight legal attention from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who have already filed an amicus brief, assisted by local information activist, Harvard legal scholar and all-around side-of-the-angels guy Kit Walsh. It will most likely be argued on October 10.

The question underlying the case is whether we all have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our movements as recorded by a third party. In the context of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, this depends on whether the person moving can be said to have abandoned all proprietary interest in the record of their movements that is held by their cell phone company. Supreme Court precedents from the 1980s indicate that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in this kind of telephonic “metadata”, but those rulings look increasingly out of date in a technological context where cellphone metadata can reveal a great deal more about you than the metadata associated with a 1980s landline could. EFF’s amicus brief reports that the lower court ruled that cellphone subscribers cannot be said to have “voluntarily conveyed” their interest in data on their movements to a third party simply because that party holds the data, and asks the SJC to let that part of the lower court ruling stand.

As is the case with the Supreme Court, it is worrying that the Supreme Judicial Court has accepted the case for review. The best outcome for defenders of digital privacy would have been for it to allow the lower court ruling to stand, and their acceptance indicates a significant risk of its being overturned. We urge the Supreme Judicial Court to heed the arguments of EFF’s amicus brief, and to err, if they err, on the side of liberty.

David House lawsuit sheds light on border laptop searches

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Cambridge resident David House got a nasty shock back in December 2010, when on his way back from vacation in Mexico he landed in Chicago, and found himself in a Homeland Security interrogation room. What was House’s crime? Being involved with the Bradley Manning Support Network. He was generally sympathetic to Wikileaks’ efforts to publicize the war crimes revealed by the Bradley Manning leaks. Or, as the “lookout” alert put it, he was “wanted for questioning re leak of classified material.”

 

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Continue reading David House lawsuit sheds light on border laptop searches

Cambridge debates switching on its surveillance cameras after Marathon attacks

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The city of Cambridge, MA is considering whether to switch on its network of surveillance cameras. Councillor Craig Kelley, who chairs the Public Safety Subcommittee [UPDATE: and whom, I should make clear, is skeptical about the merits of surveillance camera systems, scheduled seven public hearings on the newly proposed Security Camera Policy, but like most subcommittee hearings, they were relatively poorly attended]. The City Council voted unanimously on July 2 to ask the Mayor and the City Manager to arrange a better-publicized meeting to discuss the Policy.

ORDERED:
That Her Honor the Mayor and the City Manager be and hereby is requested to arrange a community meeting with other stakeholders to discuss the proposed Security Camera Policy submitted by the Police Department for implementation.

The minutes of the July meeting are here.

This is the history.

Continue reading Cambridge debates switching on its surveillance cameras after Marathon attacks