Friday, December 30, 2005
U.S. Muslims protest FBI radiation scans
According to the Science Daily, “The FBI is denying it engaged in racial profiling against Muslims after admitting to testing for nuclear radiation at more than 100 Muslim sites in Washington.”
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Behavior Detection Implemented at Maine Airports
According to The Boston Globe, “Airports in Portland and Bangor are among the four in New England that are employing security officers who use behavior detection techniques to identify people who are acting suspicious.”
Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts
The New York Times reports, “Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.”
NSA Inadvertently Uses Banned Data-Tracking "Cookies" at Web Site
According to FindLaw, “The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them.”
Lawyers Urge Supreme Court to Decide Scope of President's Power
FindLaw reports, “Lawyers for Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held as an ‘enemy combatant’ for nearly four years, want the Supreme Court to resolve how much power a president has while the United States is at war.”
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
‘Ohio Patriot Act’ May Soon Become Law
“A contentious bill awaiting Ohio Governor Bob Taft’s signature would give state law-enforcement officials sweeping powers to question, detain and arrest people.” According to The New Standard, “It would allow authorities to demand identification in a broad range of circumstances, and it asks local law enforcement agencies to begin enforcing federal immigration law.”
Secret Court Modified Wiretap Requests
“Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval.” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports, “A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined.”
Judge Won't Limit Border Inspections of Muslim Conference-Goers
“A judge Thursday refused to prohibit U.S. border officers from conducting potentially lengthy security checks on Muslim-Americans on their way home from a religious conference in Canada.” reports FindLaw.
Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts
The New York Times reports, “Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.”
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Police Infiltrate Protests, Videotapes Show
The New York Times reports, “Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.”
Courts Unlikely to Hear Wiretap Cases, Legal Scholars Say
“Are warrantless wiretaps of domestic targets suspected of terrorist activity legal if the surveillance is approved by the president?” According to the USA Today that question is unlikely to be answered in a court of law, according to lawyers, legal scholars and security specialists.
Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program
According to The Washington Post, “The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources.”
Senate Agrees to a Six-Month Extension of the Patriot Act
“With time running short on Capitol Hill, the Senate breathed new life late Wednesday night into the moribund USA Patriot Act, agreeing to extend it by six months,” reports The New York Times. According to the report, “President Bush said he appreciated the move, but it was unclear if the House would approve it.”
News of Surveillance Is Awkward for Agency
“Testifying before a Senate committee last April, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then head of the National Security Agency, emphasized how scrupulously the agency was protecting Americans from its electronic snooping.” According to The New York Times, “It was one of General Hayden's favorite themes in public speeches and interviews: the agency's mammoth eavesdropping network was directed at foreigners, not Americans.”
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Legality Of Wiretaps Questioned
“Lawmakers from both parties yesterday questioned the legality of the Bush administration's secret wiretapping done without court approval of US citizens and foreign nationals, even as the White House continued to defend the intercepts as critical to stopping potential terrorist attacks,” reports Lexis.
Spying Program Snared U.S. Calls
The New York Times reports, “A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.”
Judge Quits Over Bush's Spy Program
“A federal judge resigned from a special court to protest President Bush's secret authorization of a warrantless domestic spying program.” According to The Washington Post, “The action by U.S. District Judge James Robertson stemmed from deep concern that the surveillance program that Bush authorized was legally questionable and may have tainted the work of the court that Robertson resigned from.”
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show
The New York Times reports, “Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.”
Unauthorized Snooping
According to The Washington Post, “The Bush administration sought yesterday to explain its program of warrantless National Security Agency surveillance.” “President Bush, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Gen. Michael V. Hayden all strove to justify the program, under which the NSA has conducted electronic surveillance of hundreds of people domestically since Sept. 11 without warrants from the secret court that is supposed to oversee such snooping.”
Group Appeals NYC Subway Search Decision
According to the Associated Press, “A civil rights group on Monday appealed a judge's decision allowing random police searches of riders' bags in subways to deter terrorism.”
Bush Vows to Continue Domestic Surveillance
“President Bush, brushing aside bipartisan criticism in Congress, said Monday he approved spying on suspected terrorists without court orders because it was ‘a necessary part of my job to protect’ Americans from attack.” According to The Boston Globe, “The president said he would continue the program ‘for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens.’”
Monday, December 19, 2005
Reid Seeks Probe of Bush Domestic Spying
According to the Associated Press, “Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called Sunday for congressional hearings and investigations into President Bush's authorization of domestic spying as part of the war on terror.”
Rice Defends Domestic Eavesdropping
According to The New York Times, “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday defended President Bush's decision to secretly authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without seeking warrants, saying the program was carefully controlled and necessary to close gaps in the nation's counterterrorism efforts.”
Once-Lone Foe of Patriot Act Has Company
“When Congress passed the antiterrorism bill known as the USA Patriot Act in the fall of 2001, greatly expanding the government's investigative powers, a single senator, Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, voted against it.” The New York Times reports, however, “Today, more than 40 Democrats and four Republicans stand with Mr. Feingold as he helps lead a filibuster blocking the act's renewal.”
Bush: Senate Vote on Patriot Act 'Irresponsible'
CNN reports that President Bush called the Senate’s decision on Friday to reject efforts to renew expiring provisions of the Patriot Act “irresponsible,” saying it “endangers the lives” of citizens.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Senate Scraps 3-Month Extension of Patriot Act
“A coalition of Senate Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans is threatening to filibuster a congressional agreement to renew 16 key portions of the USA Patriot Act before they expire December 31,” reports CNN. “A showdown vote was scheduled Friday, with the White House and its congressional allies rejecting suggestions for a short-term extension of the current law as is.”
Bush Said to Have Secretly Lifted Some Spying Limits After 9/11
According to The Chicago Tribune, “Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.”
Pentagon to Review Claims that Agency Stores Info on Activists
The First Amendment Center reports, “The Pentagon says it views with the greatest concern possible misuse of a classified database of information about suspicious people and activity in the United States.” The statement from the Pentagon is in response to a news report that said the database listed activities of anti-war groups and referred to at least 20 U.S. citizens or others inside the U.S.
How Spy Chips Are Quietly Reshaping Privacy
Consumer Affairs reports, “You may not realize it, but that pack of disposable razors you just bought can enable you to be tracked wherever you go.”
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Renewal of Antiterror Law May Face Hurdles in the Senate
“The House easily approved renewing a modified USA Patriot Act today, but with the bill facing a Senate filibuster, its Republican leader began talks with the White House on instead extending the current law unchanged for a year,” reports The New York Times. According to the report, “A group of Republican and Democratic senators is lobbying for more time to add additional safeguards on the law.”
Marshals To Patrol Land, Sea Transport
“According to internal federal documents,” The Washington Post reports, “Teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers will fan out to bus and train stations, ferries, and mass transit facilities across the country this week in a new test program to conduct surveillance and ‘counter potential criminal terrorist activity in all modes of transportation.’"
An 11th-Hour Drive to Amend Patriot Act
The Christian Science Monitor reports, “An unusual coalition of lawmakers and activists opposed to parts of the USA Patriot Act is mounting a last push to persuade Congress to take more time before voting to extend some of the law's most controversial provisions.”
Groups Urge 11th Hour Rally Against Patriot Act Renewal
“With Congress expected to renew several of the more controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act as early as this week, civil libertarians and privacy rights advocates are highlighting what they see as serious flaws in the new legislation.” According to The New Standard, “Their only hope is that public sentiment and political action will sway enough lawmakers to force changes to the law.”
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Patriot Act Critics Propose Temporary Extension
CNET News.com reports, “Senate Democrats proposed on Monday a three-month extension of the Patriot Act as an alternative to the Bush administration's support for a broader expansion of the law's surveillance authorities.” The proposal comes amidst threats to filibuster the proposed law.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy
“Most Americans carry cellphones, but many may not know that government agencies can track their movements through the signals emanating from the handset.” According to The New York Times, “In recent years, law enforcement officials have turned to cellular technology as a tool for easily and secretly monitoring the movements of suspects as they occur. But this kind of surveillance - which investigators have been able to conduct with easily obtained court orders - has now come under tougher legal scrutiny.”
Friday, December 09, 2005
US Terror Watchlist 80,000 Names Long
According to AFP, a watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources. The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington, had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later, and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
House and Senate Reach Deal on Patriot Act
According to The New York Times, “House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement Thursday to extend the USA Patriot Act, the government's premier anti-terrorism law, before its major provisions expire at the end of the month.”
German Sues CIA, Corporations for Rendition, Torture
The New Standard reports that Khaled El-Masri, a foreign national, has filed a lawsuit against the CIA and three US-based corporations for violating human rights laws by abducting and interrogating him in a secret overseas prison. The suit charges that the defendants violated El-Masri’s rights by abducting him and detaining him for five months in what El-Masri says was a tiny, squalid prison cell in Afghanistan.
Patriot Act May Be Renewed Without Reforms
According to ZDNet, ”Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who has been a point person during this year's debate over the fate of the complex and controversial law, said Wednesday that he and his counterparts in the House of Representatives have agreed to a deal that could pave the way for reauthorization of the Patriot Act by next week.”
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Fla. Professor Is Acquitted in Case Seen as Patriot Act Test
The Washington Post reports that the U.S. government was dealt a setback in its efforts to use secretly gathered intelligence in criminal cases against terrorism suspects yesterday when a federal jury acquitted former Florida professor Sami al-Arian of conspiring to aid a Palestinian group in killing Israelis through suicide bombings.
Suit Decries New Secrecy In Government
Lexis reports that according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday, the Bush administration is breaking a tradition of openness that began in 1816 without explanation by withholding the names and work locations of about 900,000 of its civilian workers.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Judge: Police Searches of Bags in Subway is Constitutional
FindLaw reports, “Random police searches of riders' bags to deter terrorism in America's largest subway system do not violate the U.S. Constitution and are a minimal intrusion of privacy, a federal judge ruled Friday.”
'84 Alito Memo Backed Police Who Shot Unarmed Suspect
“Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s views on abortion caused a stir this week, but another memo that surfaced from his years as a Reagan administration lawyer was notable for its strong support of the police.” The Los Angeles Times reports, “Alito wrote that he saw no constitutional problem with a police officer shooting and killing an unarmed teenager who was fleeing after a $10 home burglary.”
9/11 Panel Issues Poor Grades for Handling of Terror
The New York Times reports, “The members of the Sept. 11 commission gave dismal grades to the Bush administration and Congress on Monday in measuring the government's recent efforts to prevent terrorist attacks on American soil, concluding that the government deserved many more F's and D's than A's.”
Friday, December 02, 2005
Renewal of Patriot Act Runs Into Trouble
The People’s Weekly World has this report: “The USA Patriot Act, major parts of which have to be reauthorized by Congress before the end of the year, has run into unexpected trouble, with both Democrats and some Republicans balking on conceding powers desired by the White House.”
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Scissors in Your Carry-On? Welcome Aboard
According to The New York Times, “The Transportation Security Administration is making some of the most significant changes in the screening of airline passengers since procedures were revamped after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.” They report, “The changes include a new type of random search, a revision of the pat-down process and the end of a ban on small scissors and certain other sharp tools in carry-on luggage.”
