Georgetown Security Law Brief

Suit challenges new Guantánamo mail rule

02/10/12: The Miami Herald reports that a lawyer for a Guantánamo prisoner charged in the September 11 attack has filed suit against the prison commander, arguing a new rule subjecting legal mail to a security review is unconstitutional and amounts to illegal “intelligence monitoring” of a US citizen. James Connell said Thursday that his suit filed in federal court in Washington DC is broader than a previous legal challenge to the rule brought by the lawyer for a separate defendant in the September 11 case. Connell is a civilian attorney who was appointed by the Pentagon to represent Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar Al-Baluchi.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/09/2633649/suit-challenges-new-guantanamo.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/09/2633649/suit-challenges-new-guantanamo.html#storylink=cpy

Congress passes FAA bill allowing drones in US

02/08/12: The Chicago Tribune reports that after five years of legislative struggling, 23 stopgap measures and a two-week shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, Congress finally has passed a bill aimed at prodding the nation's aviation system into a new high-tech era in which satellites are central to air traffic control and piloted planes share the skies with unmanned drones. The bill, which passed the Senate 75-20 Monday, speeds the nation's switch from radar to an air traffic control system based on GPS technology. It also requires the FAA to open US skies to drone flights within four years. 

FBI cuts back on GPS surveillance after Supreme Court ruling

02/07/12: USA Today reports that the FBI has begun cutting back GPS surveillance in an array of criminal and intelligence investigations following the Supreme Court ruling in US v. Jones, which restricted its use. The bureau began implementing the change the day after the January 23 ruling in which the court found that attaching such a device to a car amounted to a search covered by the Fourth Amendment, requiring police to seek warrants in many cases. An official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter, said the GPS directive was issued until further legal guidance is provided on the use of the technology.

Critics say South Korea security law is used to silence dissent

02/05/12: The Los Angeles Times reports that by his own admission, Park Jung-geun has long been an Internet wiseguy, a young photographer and blogger with a cyber chip on his shoulder whose favorite target for satire is the North Korean government. But the South Korean government wasn't laughing. Investigators recently searched Park's photo studio, copying computer hard disks and confiscating books and photographs. After five interrogation sessions, Park was arrested last month on suspicion of "praising and supporting an enemy of the state" in violation of South Korea's strict National Security Law.

FBI admits hacker group’s eavesdropping

02/03/12: The New York Times reports that the international hackers group known as Anonymous turned the tables on the FBI by listening in on a conference call last month between the bureau, Scotland Yard and other foreign police agencies about their joint investigation of the group and its allies. An FBI official said Anonymous had not in fact hacked into the conference call or any other bureau facilities. Instead, the official said, the group had obtained an e-mail giving the time, telephone number and access code for the call. The e-mail had been sent on January 13 to more than three dozen people at the bureau, Scotland Yard, and agencies in France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Privacy concerns grow in India

02/03/12: The Washington Post reports that the Indian government’s recent announcement that it taps nearly 300 new phones every day has sparked a debate about privacy in a country that traditionally views such concerns as an ugly offshoot of Western individualism. Indians tend to stress identities of family and community over any others. But a growing desire for privacy and what many say is a government assault on it are creating tension in this nation of 1.2 billion people. The reasons for the shift include changing family structures and lifestyles among the urban middle class, as well as a mass media explosion and the Internet.

New York Police Department document recommends intelligence collection at mosques

02/02/12: The Washington Times reports that a secret police document shows that the New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of thousands of Muslims and their mosques based solely on their religion. The Associated Press obtained a copy of a May 2006 NYPD intelligence report on Iran. It says police should expand clandestine operations at Shiite mosques and then lists mosques around the Northeast. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the NYPD never considers religion in its policing.

German intelligence agency criticized for spying on lawmakers

02/02/12: The Los Angeles Times reports that that Germany’s intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is in a bad spot. First, the office came under fire after the revelation that a group of neo-Nazis had allegedly committed at least 10 killings, despite decades of intelligence monitoring. Then, the newsweekly Der Spiegel reported last month that 27 members of Parliament, all with a left-wing party, have been under observation by the intelligence service.

FDA surveillance lawsuit raises complex issues

01/30/12: The Washington Post reports that the lawsuit that six Food and Drug Administration employees filed last week alleging improper monitoring of their personal e-mail is the latest in a series of efforts to test the scope of the government’s authority to track the digital activity of its employees. Privacy experts say the courts can expect a surge of similar cases as the lines between home and work increasingly blur in the federal workplace and beyond. Many say court guidance is needed to help federal agencies and employees navigate a complex area of the law.

TSA rail, subway spot-checks raise privacy issues

01/29/12: CNN reports that at a time when TSA airport searches are unpopular among many air travelers, civil liberties groups say the joint participation of special TSA Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response teams (VIPRS) with local police in "warrantless" searches have been "flying under the radar" in violation of constitutional protections. Transit police say it helps them better guard against attacks like those that have hit Madrid, London and Moscow since 2004. VIPRS are tasked with performing random, unpredictable baggage and security checks at passenger train, subway and bus stations as well as trucking weigh stations across the nation.

Opinion: Privacy, technology and law

01/29/12: The New York Times features an opinion piece by Barry Friedman. Everyday, Friedman contends, those of us who live in the digital world give little bits of ourselves away. On Facebook and LinkedIn. To servers that store our e-mail, Google searches, online banking and shopping records. Does the fact that so many of us live our lives online mean we have given the government wide-open access to all that information? Friedman argues that the Supreme Court’s decision last week in United States v. Jones presents the disturbing possibility that the answer is yes.

Private snoops find GPS legal trail to follow

01/29/12: The New York Times reports that tens of thousands of Americans are tracking cars with little oversight, for purposes as seemingly benign as tracking an elderly parent with dementia or a risky teenage driver, or as legally and ethically charged as spying on a spouse or an employee — or for outright criminal stalking. Last Monday’s Supreme Court decision held that law enforcement placement of a GPS tracker on a vehicle constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. But sales of GPS trackers to employers and individuals, for a multitude of largely unregulated uses, are growing fast, raising new questions about privacy and a legal system that has not kept pace with technology.

US cybersecurity efforts trigger privacy concerns

01/27/12: The Washington Times reports that the federal government’s plan to expand computer security protections into critical parts of private industry is raising concerns that the move will threaten Americans’ civil liberties. In a report for release Friday, The Constitution Project warns that as the Obama administration partners more with the energy, financial, communications and health care industries to monitor and protect networks, sensitive personal information of people who work for or communicate with those companies could be improperly or inadvertently disclosed.

Big Brother will be watching US intelligence world

01/26/12: The Denver Post reports that the top US intelligence official declared Thursday that it will take roughly five years to put in place new measures to stop another WikiLeaks-style exposure of classified information.  Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper said officials are working to "tag" information to be able to track back to which intelligence staffers shared it—something prosecutors could have used to help prove allegations that Bradley Manning copied thousands of war-related records that were leaked to the website Wikileaks.

Domestic use of drones is well underway

01/25/12: Secrecy News reports that the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) within the United States is certain to increase in the years to come, as a new Army policy has recently made clear.  But in fact the use of unmanned aircraft or drones within US airspace has already advanced to a degree that is not widely recognized. As of 2010, the Federal Aviation Administration had already issued hundreds of “certificates of authorization” (COAs) for the domestic use of drones.

Department of Homeland Security seeking technology for persistent broad surveillance

01/24/12: Wired reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is interested in a camera package that can peek in on almost four square miles of American territory for long, long stretches of time. DHS is soliciting “industry feedback” on what a formal call for such a “Wide Area Surveillance System” might look like. The inquiry it’s the latest indication of how powerful military surveillance technology, developed to find foreign insurgents and terrorists, is migrating to the home front.

Federal contractor monitored social network sites

01/14/12: The New York Times reports that the Department of Homeland Security paid a contractor in 2009 to monitor social networking sites — like Facebook, blogs and reader comments on a news article — to see how the residents of Standish, Michigan, were reacting to a proposal to move detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a local prison there, according to newly disclosed documents. While it has long been known that the department monitors the Internet for information about emerging threats to public safety, the documents show that its Social Networking/Media Capability program, at least in an early stage, was also focused on “public reaction to major governmental proposals with homeland security implications.”

9/11 relatives who suspect hacking await answers

01/03/12: The New York Times reports that shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, relatives of some of the victims began suspecting that someone was eavesdropping on their telephones. Some heard mysterious clicking sounds on their home and mobile phones. The fiancée of one man who died at the World Trade Center remembers listening to snippets of someone else’s conversation on her line. A husband of another victim recalls hearing somebody remotely accessing his home answering machine, which still held the final, reassuring message left by his wife shortly before the crash of Flight 93.

Court approves immunity for telecoms in wiretap case

12/30/11: Bloomberg News reports that the US government’s decision to shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits alleging an anti-terrorism surveillance program violated consumers’ privacy rights was upheld by a federal appeals court. The US Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, granting immunity from lawsuits to AT&T Inc. and other companies doesn’t violate constitutional due process rights of citizens who sued carriers whom they alleged assisted the government in illegal wiretapping.

Pakistani death squads go after informants to US drone program

12/29/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that Militant groups lack the ability to bring down the drones, which have killed senior Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders as well as many foot soldiers. Instead, a collection of them have banded together to form Khorasan Mujahedin in the North Waziristan tribal region to hunt for those who sell information about the location of militants and their safe houses. Pakistani officials and tribal elders maintain that most of those who are abducted this way are innocent, but after being beaten, burned with irons or scalded with boiling water, almost all eventually "confess." And few ever come back.

FBI contacted phone monitoring firm about software

12/16/11: The Houston Chronicle reports that a senior executive at a technology company that makes monitoring software secretly installed on 141 million cellphones said Thursday that the FBI approached the company about using its technology but was rebuffed. The disclosure came one day after FBI Director Robert Mueller assured Congress that agents "neither sought nor obtained any information" from the company, Carrier IQ. The company's statement will likely inflame suspicion about the monitoring tool and its usefulness to the US government.

Colombia asks Panama to extradite former intelligence chief linked to espionage scandal

12/15/11: The Chicago Tribune reports that Panama's Foreign Ministry says Colombia has asked it to extradite former Colombian intelligence chief Maria del Pilar Hurtado to face conspiracy, wiretapping and abuse of authority charges. Hurtado headed Colombia's DAS domestic intelligence agency in 2007 and 2008. The agency was dissolved in October after it was caught spying on presidential foes, including judges, reporters and human rights activists, under former president Alvaro Uribe. Uribe governed from 2002 to 2010 and has denied knowledge of the abuses.

Passenger advocate sought for US airports

12/11/11: The Boston Globe reports that two New York lawmakers are seeking a so-called passenger advocate at airports to immediately act on complaints from passengers about security screenings. US Senator Charles Schumer and state Senator Michael Gianaris are calling on the Transportation Security Administration to create the position at all airports. The proposal was prompted by recent claims that an elderly woman was strip searched by security officials at Kennedy Airport. The TSA denies the claim.The TSA says it doesn't conduct strip searches. It is planning its own toll-free hotline to assist passengers during screening.

Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front

12/11/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that North Dakota police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said. The drones belong to US Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

Surveillance tools not just for spy bureaus anymore

12/06/11: The Washington Times reports that specialized equipment and secret techniques that just a few years ago were the exclusive preserve of electronic government spy bureaus such as the NSA are now available to the highest bidders from companies in dozens of countries. The private companies offer equipment and services that can eavesdrop on cellphone calls, monitor Internet activity, tap into fiber-optic cable. Privacy advocates say there is nothing to stop foreign intelligence services from using the equipment to spy on their own people - or Americans.

Idea of civilians using drone aircraft may soon fly with FAA

11/27/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that drone aircraft, best known for their role in hunting and destroying terrorist hide-outs in Afghanistan, may soon be coming to the skies near you. Police agencies want drones for air support to spot runaway criminals. Utility companies believe they can help monitor oil, gas and water pipelines. Farmers think drones could aid in spraying their crops with pesticides. The FAA has issued 266 active testing permits for civilian drones but hasn't permitted them in national airspace on a wide scale due to concern over privacy violations and the possibility of midair collisions.

The post-9/11 tradeoff between security and civil liberties

11/20/11: The Chicago Daily Herald reports that in the early months after the 9/11 terror attacks, America’s visceral reaction was to gird for a relentless, whatever-it-takes quest to punish those responsible and prevent any recurrences. To a striking extent, those goals have been achieved. Yet over the years, Americans have also learned about trade-offs, about decisions and practices that placed national security on a higher plane than civil liberties and, in the view of some, above the rule of law. It’s by no means the first time in US history that security concerns spawned tactics that, when brought to light, troubled Americans.

Document trove exposes surveillance methods

11/19/11: The Wall Street Journal reports that documents it has obtained open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents, spanning 36 companies, include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people's computers and cellphones, and "massive intercept" gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.

US probing use of surveillance technology in Syria

11/18/11: The Washington Post reports that the Commerce Department is investigating whether technology produced by a California company helped Syrian police monitor dissidents amid a bloody crackdown there. Commerce officials are attempting to determine whether Blue Coat Systems of Sunnyvale, California, had prior knowledge that its equipment and software was being used by the Syrian government, according to several US officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation.

In NYPD spying, a Yippie legal battle echoes again

11/17/11: The Wall Street Journal reports that Barbara Handschu had tried to remove her name from the agreement that is her legacy. More than a quarter century ago, after New York's police were caught spying on Americans who were exercising their right to free speech, she and others filed suit to stop it. The outcome was an agreement to place limits on surveillance — the Handschu rules.

Muslim group's suit for FBI manual hits setback

11/16/11: Politico reports that a Muslim group's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding the text of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's main investigative manual has suffered a setback as a result of a judge's ruling last week. Muslim Advocates is seeking access to the FBI's Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, a 689-page tome that sets the rules FBI agents are required to follow when pursuing investigations and dictates when internal approvals are required for using specific tactics, such as surveillance.

Obama won't release another surveillance opinion

11/12/11: Politico reports that the Justice Department is refusing to release a key legal opinion governing the use of "exigent letters," a mechanism the FBI uses to request information including telephone company records. In court filings Thursday night, the Obama administration said it would not release the January 2010 Office of Legal Counsel memo because portions of it are classified and because disclosing any part of the memo would damage the deliberative process and infringe on the attorney-client relationship.

CIA eyes up to 5 million tweets a day

11/04/11: POLITICO reports that the CIA is systematically monitoring Twitter, following up to 5 million foreign tweets a day, according to a new report. The CIA’s Open Source Center reviews and analyzes information widely available to the general public, including Twitter and Facebook, and keeps eyes on everything from blogs to tweets to more traditional media, the AP says in a featured article on the unit. Analysts monitor information in an array of languages and cross-reference it to existing intelligence, and are often called on to provide information on the mood of a region after a foreign policy event.

FBI official says Russian spies were succeeding

11/01/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that documents released Monday, including photos, videos and papers, offered new details about the FBI's decade-long investigation into a ring of Russian sleeper agents who were trying to burrow their way into American society to learn secrets from people in power. The investigation was code-named Operation Ghost Stories because six of the 10 agents had assumed identities of dead people."Several were getting close to high-ranking officials," said C. Frank Figliuzzi, FBI assistant director for counterintelligence. One had even gone to work for a confidant of a US Cabinet member. 

Opinion: Reform the un-American Patriot Act

10/27/11: CNN features an opinion piece by Farhana Khera, the president and executive director of Muslim Advocates, a national legal advocacy and educational organization.  Khera discusses how ten years after the passage of the USA Patriot Act, the law has eroded America's freedoms and wasted precious resources. Khera proposes that the law should be amended to require law enforcement to focus on actual threats, and further seeks Congress to perform a full public accounting of the use of the Patriot Act and all federal surveillance powers. 

New FBI rules relax restrictions on intelligence gathering

10/27/11: The Atlantic reports that the FBI reportedly implemented new rules that relax restrictions on, and oversight of, the FBI's intelligence collection activities. Although they are not available to the public, reports indicate the changes permit FBI agents to search an individual's trash with the goal of finding material that might pressure him into becoming a government informant, grant agents the authority to search commercial or law enforcement databases without first opening an investigation, and reduce the type of investigations subjected to heightened oversight because of their relationship to protected First Amendment activities.

FBI going to court more often to get personal Internet-usage data

10/26/11: The Washington Post reports that the FBI is increasingly going to court to get personal e-mail and Internet usage information as service providers balk at disclosing customer data without a judge’s orders. Investigators once routinely used administrative subpoenas, called national security letters, seeking information about who sent and received e-mail and what Web sites individuals visited. But more recently, many service providers receiving national security letters have limited the information they give to customers’ names, addresses, length of service and phone billing records.

US requests for Google user data spikes 29 percent in six months

10/25/11: Wired reports that the number of US government requests for data on Google users for use in criminal investigations rose 29 percent in the last six months, according to data released by the search giant Monday. US government agencies sent Google 5,590 criminal investigation requests for data on Google users and services from January 1 to June 30, 2011, an average of 31 a day. That’s compared to 4,601 requests from July 1 to Dececember 31, 2010, the company reported Tuesday in an update to its unique transparency tool.

Prosecutors release photo of meeting between Syria’s Assad, American accused as foreign agent

10/18/11: The Washington Post reports that federal prosecutors have released a photograph that they say proves Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid met this summer with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — just a few months before the US citizen was arrested on charges of gathering information about anti-Assad protesters and providing it to Syrian intelligence. The photo’s release came days after the Syrian Embassy in Washington said it was “ludicrous” for prosecutors to claim that Soueid met privately with Assad.

German state police criticized for electronic snooping

10/16/11: The Washington Post reports that German police have admitted to using powerful computer programs, known as trojans, that allow police investigators to monitor activity and, if the computer has a camera, peer right into the face of the user. Revelations this week that several state police forces used the secret tools caused consternation at the highest levels of government in Germany, where a Nazi past and not-too-distant memories of the all-pervasive East German secret police have led to privacy laws that are among the strictest in the world.

NYPD infiltration of colleges raises privacy fears

10/12/11: The Miami Herald reports that investigators have been infiltrating Muslim student groups at Brooklyn College and other schools in the city, monitoring their Internet activity and placing undercover agents in their ranks, police documents obtained by The Associated Press show. Legal experts say the operation may have broken a 19-year-old pact with the colleges and violated US privacy laws, jeopardizing millions of dollars in federal research money and student aid.

FBI to launch nationwide facial recognition service

10/12/11: NEXTGOV reports that the FBI by mid-January will activate a nationwide facial recognition service in select states that will allow local police to identify unknown subjects in photos. The federal government is embarking on a multiyear, $1 billion dollar overhaul of the FBI's existing fingerprint database to more quickly and accurately identify suspects, partly through applying other biometric markers, such as iris scans and voice recordings.

Hayden urges Congress to let NSA monitor public networks for threats

10/05/11: Wired reports that former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden revived a controversial theme on Tuesday when he urged Congress to allow his former agency to monitor public networks in order to defend against malicious activity coming from nation states and others.  “We’ve got capability on the sidelines wanting policy guidance,” he told the House Intelligence Committee, referring to the NSA. “And when we can enrich that guidance and get them in the field, the better — the safer — we are.”

Full body scanner "naked" pictures eliminated with new TSA software

09/27/11: Defense Media Network reports that when the Transportation Security Administration began using full-body scanners in airports, the now-iconic “naked” images spurred a public debate over privacy and security. As a result, TSA has started implementing new software in its Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machines, removing all anatomical detail and automatically targeting concealed objects on a generic outline. “We believe it addresses the privacy issues that have been raised,” TSA Administrator John Pistole said.

In China, business travelers take extreme precautions to avoid cyber-espionage

09/27/11: The Washington Post reports that China’s massive market beckons to American businesses — the nation is the United States’ second-largest trading partner — but many are increasingly concerned about working amid electronic surveillance that is sophisticated and pervasive. In China, the use of cyber-espionage is often corporate, part of a broader government strategy to help develop the country’s economy.

Scholarship: Evaluating the use of public surveillance cameras for crime control and prevention

09/26/11: The Urban Institute has released a report documenting the use of public surveillance by law enforcement agencies in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Chicago and how they impacted crime. A growing number of cities are using surveillance cameras to reduce crime, but little research exists to determine whether they’re worth the cost. With jurisdictions across the country tightening their belts, public safety resources are scarce—and policymakers need to know which potential investments are likely to bear fruit.

Senator says OnStar invades privacy of ex-customers; OnStar says privacy honored

09/25/11: The Chicago Tribune reports that US Senator Charles Schumer of New York is calling on OnStar to stop what he bills a blatant invasion of privacy: the company’s maintenance of a two-way connection with a customer even after service is discontinued. Schumer is asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. But OnStar says former customers can stop the two-way transmission, and no driving data of customers has been shared or sold.

Event: live webcast of Case Western lecture - the university and national security after 9/11

09/23/11: Case Western Reserve University School of Law is hosting the Arthur W. Fiske Memorial Lecture, “The University and National Security After 9/11” today from 9:15 am to 4 pm CST.  The event is free and open to the public, and a webcast will be live and also available after the event for viewing on demand. The event will discuss the impact of post-9/11 national security concerns on universities and those who teach and learn within them. HT to Robert Chesney.

Public said to be misled on use of the Patriot Act

09/22/11: The New York Times reports that two United States senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee have accused the Justice Department of making misleading statements about the legal justification of secret domestic surveillance activities that the government is apparently carrying out under the Patriot Act. The lawmakers — Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado — sent a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. calling for him to “correct the public record” and to ensure that future department statements about the authority the government believes is conveyed by the surveillance law would not be misleading.

Court allows challenge of US surveillance law

09/21/11: The Washington Post reports that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reached a 6-6 decision Wednesday, upholding the standing of a group of American lawyers, human rights activists and journalists to challenge the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as amended by Congress in 2008. The revision expanded the government’s surveillance authority, permitting intelligence agencies to collect information on US soil without a warrant identifying a particular individual.