Just Check Your Fourth Amendment Rights at the Border

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit last month against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP's policy allows them to search travelers' laptops--with NO suspicion of wrongdoing required! The ACLU would like more information about that. So would I.

It seems the CBP claims they have the right to read information on travelers' laptops "absent individualized suspicion." That allows them access to all files saved on anyone's laptop: personal financial information, photographs, histories of Web sites visited--everything. They don't need any reason--or even any suspicion to believe that a traveler has broken the law!

What's more, they're also asserting their right to search "documents, books, pamphlets and other printed material, as well as computers, disks, hard drives and other electronic or digital storage devices." [Note to self: Yikes, even my iTouch?]

And, by the way, don't think your U.S. birth certificate will protect you. This policy includes everyone crossing the border, whether or not they're U.S. citizens.

We're used to customs offices in the U.S. and other countries inspecting goods being brought into the nation. But it is a radical new step for the government to claim that it can also inspect the information being brought across our borders.

From the ACLU blog:

"In a DHS press release, Secretary Janet Napolitano said:

‘Keeping Americans safe in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully screen materials entering the United States.'

Clearly, by "materials," CBP now means electronic data as well as physical materials."

The damage to our personal privacy is profound. However, the assistance to the country's security is minimal. Because, the ACLU notes: Who is inspecting of all the data that enters the U.S. via the internet?

Therefore, says the ACLU blog:

Clearly this policy really has nothing to do with "securing the borders" of the United States in the sense of CBP's right to search and seize for contraband goods. Rather, it is about giving border agents sweeping new powers to peer into the lives and invade the privacy of individuals crossing the border.

So, US citizens, until this gets straightened out, you can check your rights to privacy at the border on your way in. And don't expect a claim check. It could be that your coat at a banquet is worth more than your privacy is worth at the border.

my country 'tis of thee

america is not a peaceful country. our streets run with the blood of americans killed by fellow americans daily. we round up people who come to this country for a better life and detain them indefinitely with militarized ice units. our police resemble military platoons as they beat and taze fellow americans for protesting wrongs against humanity- indeed, break into private residences without warrants and seize property illegally.

whether we like it or not- we are at war with each other. the ideological divide cannot be bridged this time because it isn't about haves and have nots or red versus blue. it is about a deeply entrenched corporatocracy that views citizens as enemies. what saddens me- is that our fellow americans- our neighbors; our friends; our family members- are participating in this. they believe that this is their job- that they are following orders. they are ceasing to view fellow americans as fellow human beings.

i wish i could write a peaceful post- but i cannot. for that i am sorry.

Surveillance

Image byBanksy

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and
the persons or things to be seized.

– Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

EXPAND THE POST +/-

The word surveillance and its associated connections have appeared everywhere since the 9/11 bombings. The catalyst for my own exploration of this topic comes from a recent discussion I had with a person who expressed the point-of-view on surveillance that it's necessary and only minimally, if at all, affects the "average American".

She pointed to how video surveillance, for example, can increase our safety as citizens by deterring crime and pointed to the prosecution of terrorist responsible for the bus and subway bombings in London in 2005. I listened and said little. I have always had an aversion to surveillance. Almost like an intuition that it is wrong, dangerous and indicative of a society using technology as a means of political and social control. Intuition, however, helped me very little in responding to the person to whom I was listening defend surveillance as essentially a positive tool. With that in mind, I began by searching the internet for information about surveillance. I learned enough to be able to formulate a small argument against it. And since in my day-to-day dealings with people, I don't need or want to be any sort of scholar on this type of issue, I think for now it is enough of a base of knowledge to at least begin to take on the issue.

I first began by reading a few articles on video surveillance. One MSNBC article, which I will refer to again later in this piece, contained on a sidebar a video surveillance clip depicting a cold-blooded murder, due to which the suspect of said crime was promptly arrested and charged. Sounds good, right?

The article mentions a huge surge of and push for further video surveillance by police and city officials across the United States. Yet, no comprehensive national study has been done on the effectiveness of video surveillance as a deterrent to crime. Some folks are catching on, though:

Police officials in San Francisco, meanwhile, have delayed approving installation of new cameras pending a final study from researchers at the University of California, who said in a preliminary report this spring that the city’s 68 anti-crime cameras had failed to deter street crime. Where the cameras had any impact, the interim report said, they simply moved crime down the street or around the corner.

London's head of Metropolitan Police, had this comment quoted in the article:
Licata noted that he had supported the plan when it was introduced in May, but he said he changed his mind after Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, head of London’s Metropolitan Police, reported that the city’s network of near-ubiquitous public cameras had been “an utter fiasco.”

“Only 3 percent of crimes were solved by CCTV,” or closed-circuit television cameras, Neville said in an address to the Security Document World Conference last month. “There’s no fear of CCTV. “Why don’t people fear it?” he asked. “The cameras are not working.”

But is it just video surveillance and the "Big Brother is watching you" phenomenon the only thing we should be worried about?

No. Data and government surveillance are perhaps, in my opinion, the most dangerous. But as I learned from a position paper from the ACLU, it's the three in conjunction with one another, in a time of eroding regard for privacy and civil liberties, that makes the issue of surveillance such a formidable three-headed monster. The interplay of technology, law and politics has never in our history seen a situation so dangerous to our privacy and constitutional rights.

In the ACLU document Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society, many aspects of surveillance were brought to light for me. Too many and too complex to be properly addressed here. It's a very compelling paper and I urge everyone to take the time to read its fifteen or so pages. I will attempt here to highlight some of the basics of what I was able to garner as tools for thinking about and discussing this issue.

Data surveillance is defined by the ACLU article thus: ... the collection of information about an identifiable individual,often from multiple sources, that can be assembled into a portrait of that person’s activities.

Thanks to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed by Congress in 1999, financial institutions can sell personal financial information about us to private corporations. They're free to give out all financial information about you, including balances on accounts and financial activity associated with deposits and withdrawals. If it's any small comfort,the only thing your bank cannot sell is your account number.

Then there is the matter of medical and genetic information which can be shared about you to insurance companies and possibly even employers.

Cell phone location data is the type of surveillance that we've seen a lot about in the media recently, with the passage of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA). Here it is, straight from the horses mouth.

Other types of data surveillance of interest are:
* Black boxes
* Biometrics (fingerprints, etc.)
* RFID Chips (used at tool booths)
*Implantable GPS chips (used in delivery boxes; can also be imbedded in the skin)

All of these types of data surveillance can crop up on powerful search engines when any type of security check is one on any individual. If you use your imagination, I'm sure you can form a picture of how this type of date could be used against you. Are you properly terrified yet?

Then there is the most dangerous head of the three-headed Surveillance Monster: government surveillance. We know about this and yet I, for one, have somehwat ignored it. There are literally thousands of government data bases with information about Americans in them:

*The FBI, of course
* The Registry of Motor Vehicles
* The Department of Education
* The Treasury Department

As a government, as a system, as a society, we now have all of the above surveillance capacity (and some I've not mentioned) and new ones in the cooker. Couple this with the passing of the Patriot Act and the monster is complete, with restrictions on its activities eroding at an alarming pace. Secret searches, wiretapping, power to demand records on individuals with little or no justified cause. What a field day for the heat, to quote an old Stevens Stills song.

The fact that we have the various technologies to create such extensive and multi-faceted surveillance strategies makes them neither sound, nor reliable. Society is yet again forging ahead with the implementation of strategies that are not well thoughtthrough to begin with and subsequently not studies to determine their effectiveness and potential for social and political malaise.

Further, we the people, are showing just how little we value our personal freedoms and rights under the constitution. The fact that in the U.S., our government has gotten away with so much erosion of core American principles, with very little effort, demonstrates how easy it will eventually be to abuse surveillance on a larger and large scale; affecting more and more people in the civilized world.

The threat of world domination through various methods of sophisticated, complex and inter-related surveillance mechanisms seems to become less science fiction and more reality daily. Corporations and government alike are watching us when it is they that need watching.

july 4, 1776- july 4, 2007- post for peace

what we started as:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
what we have become:

i think that they single biggest threat to democracy and to values in america- is us. in fact, i would go so far as to say that we are the single biggest terrorist threat to the world right now. inflammatory? perhaps. but i think that we have to look at 'american values' a bit more closely and less warm and fuzzily. what is it that america stands for? theoretically, peace, democracy, freedom- but when you look at what we are exporting to the rest of the world- what we have been exporting for decades- you get quite a different picture. we have been content to insulate ourselves from reality because we have it so good here. that is precisely what is wrong with america. we have exported greed and consumerism to the rest of the world. we want what we want- when we want it- and we will stop at nothing to get it. we are the richest nation in the world, figuratively speaking, and yet we are among the poorest value wise. we are not above being bribed or bought- in any level of society. we want to make rich quick and live the good life without putting much effort in. we are not above bullying, threatening and invading sovereign nations, the world bank, the stock markets- to keep things status quo. we don't want to give up our mcmansions or suvs to save the planet- and god forbid we not drink bottled water or get a new cell phone every 6 months.

america is at a crossroads. we have allowed our declaration of independence to fall by the wayside and our ideals to be hijacked by domestic terrorists in our own government. we have allowed our precious constitution to deteriorate almost to the edge of complete disrepair. we have to decide whether we have the courage or the fortitude to do what is right for the world and for this country. we know where we come from and where we are right now. what we have control over is where we are headed. where do we go from here? what can we do to change things? we as a collective whole need to decide this. we need to make our voices heard but we also need to take personal responsibility for our own lives. are we bigoted against minority folks in this country? are we bigoted against immigration? are we attempting to impose our religious beliefs on others? are we willing to go as green as possible in our own lives- to help save the planet? are we willing to lobby for environmental protections on the corporate level? are we willing to be whistleblowers and do the right thing when we see a wrong committed? will we take an active role in our own lives and in the life of america? it is our choice where this country heads. it is our choice to set the course of the next 230+ years in america. what is our legacy? what will we leave to our children and their children? will it be american ideals? or nothing?

cross posted at life's journey

Workers Have the Right To Remain Silent: A Podcast Interview With the ACLU's Bruce Barry

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal as well the Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

So reads the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. However, the Constitution does not prevent employers from encroaching upon the free speech of their employees. Even so, most Americans assume their right to free speech is protected in all aspects of their life – including their jobs. The reality is quite different.

A factory worker named Lynn Gobbell was fired in 2004 when her employer, a George Bush supporter, objected to her John Kerry bumper sticker. Edward Blum, a stockbroker with Paine Webber in Houston during the 1990s was fired because he actively opposed affirmative action on his own time. A flight attendant with Delta Airlines lost her job when the airline disapproved of her personal blog. Those are but a few examples cited by Bruce Barry, the author of Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression In the American Workplace, published by Berrett-Kohler.

Barry utilizes case law and history to illustrate how freedom of speech has diminished for Americans at their jobs. A Professor of Management and Sociology at Vanderbilt University as well as president of American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, Barry contends the legal concept known as “at will” is perversely imbalanced in favor of employers. In his introduction Barry writes,

“Work is where most adults devote significant portions of their waking lives, and where many forge the personal ties with other adults through which they construct their civic selves. Yet work in America is a place where civil liberties, including but not limited to freedom of speech, are significantly constrained, even when the exercise of those liberties poses little or no threat to the genuine interests of the employer.”

As the 21st century progresses, a whole generation entering the workforce have public personalities from the Internet and blogs. Increasingly, ordinary citizens through online access are having their opinions published in editorials and websites that employers may find objectionable or potentially damaging to their business. Meanwhile, traditional free speech issues on the job remain such as union organizing and lifestyle discrimination.

Barry respects the desire of employers to maintain efficiency and preserve the profitability of their business. He also doesn’t believe employers are conspiring to undermine the First Amendment. Rather, Barry contends that American civil society could benefit from a conversation about the imbalance that currently exists in favor of employers. He further advocates that employers themselves would benefit from not reflexively terminating employees based upon speech.

Barry agreed to a podcast interview with me about his book and the issue of free speech in the workplace. Among the topics covered during our conversation were the different protections for public and private employees, his opposition to the "at will" doctrine and how free speech in the American workplace differs with our counterparts in other democracies. I also asked him about the specific risks to bloggers and what we can do to strengthen our rights.

Please refer to the media player below.



This interview can also be accessed via Itunes by searching for Intrepid Liberal Journal.