Via the ACLU: Is the Government Tracking Your Social Media Activity?
Is the Government Tracking Your Social Media Activity?
Published April 24, 2023 at 11:34AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/Pse0R9O) via ACLU
The Biden administration has been quietly deploying and expanding programs that surveil what people say on social media, using tools that allow agents and analysts to invisibly monitor the vast amount of protected speech that occurs online. For years, these kinds of tools have been increasingly used for a range of controversial law enforcement and intelligence purposes. But some of the most troubling programs continuously monitor the social media posts of non-citizens to decide who gets to live, study, or stay in the United States.
If you’re an immigrant or visa-holder in the United States and believe you’ve been affected by this social media monitoring, the ACLU wants to hear your story.
Social media accounts are extensions of ourselves. A single social media account can reveal a map of our family and friends; a catalogue of our personal preferences and political views; and, of course, a comprehensive diary of our thoughts and speech. Given the trove of information available online, social media surveillance threatens our rights to speak freely and live without fear of constant government scrutiny.
Through our ongoing FOIA lawsuit, the ACLU has obtained documents showing that a wide range of government agencies are monitoring and retaining the speech of U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike — whether or not those individuals are suspected of any criminal wrongdoing. Agencies continue to pour millions of dollars into technology that enables this sustained tracking of social media activity.
In recent years, the government has ramped up its efforts to monitor the social media activities of non-citizens. At least two Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programs involve the monitoring of non-citizens who have come to the U.S. for school, work, or other reasons. Under the Visa Lifecycle Vetting Program, DHS monitors the online activities of individuals in the U.S. on student or business visas — from the moment they apply for a visa throughout their stay in the United States. Under another program known as Continuous Immigration Vetting, DHS may monitor social media and a number of other sources for “derogatory information” about non-citizens, starting when a person applies for an immigration benefit until they become a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Who Social Media Surveillance Hurts
The government’s social media surveillance can have immense consequences. For example, in August 2019, CBP officers denied entry to Ismail Ajjawi, a 17-year-old Palestinian student from Lebanon traveling to start his freshman year at Harvard. Ismail, like other non-citizens hoping to enter the United States, was likely subject to the State Department’s policy requiring nearly all visa applicants to disclose their social media handles. After an hours-long interrogation about Ismail’s political views, religious affiliations, and friends’ social media posts, Ismail’s visa was canceled and he was promptly deported.
While Ismail was eventually allowed to pursue his studies in the U.S., the government continues to engage in the suspicionless social media monitoring of non-citizens, including many Black and Brown immigrants and visitors who want to become citizens or pursue degrees here. Once DHS collects this information, it may use it to guide immigration decisions, including those involving deportation, visa revocations, and naturalization.
Suspicionless monitoring of social media infringes the rights of people who are living in the U.S. and are protected by the First Amendment. Individuals who suspect they are being surveilled may fear expressing themselves freely out of concerns over government scrutiny or retaliation. This is a loss for the people whose speech is chilled and for all those who benefit from vibrant online conversations and exchanges of ideas.
Government surveillance also often disproportionally targets racial and religious minority communities and those who dissent against government policies. The ACLU has called on both DHS and the Justice Department to reform their policies that allow biased profiling and investigations. And of course, surveillance undermines our basic notions of privacy. Even individuals who post publicly online do not expect the government to digitally archive their online activity without any suspicion, or to scrutinize their friends, contacts, and associations on social media platforms.
Social Media Surveillance is Ineffective and Inefficient
Social media surveillance is also ineffective and lacks empirical support. Analyzing social media is notoriously difficult, given the sheer volume of information and the many ways in which individuals’ online messages can be misinterpreted — especially when those posts span many different languages and cultures. One office within DHS recently rejected a proposal to expand the agency’s collection of social media information after concluding that the monitoring had little utility. The Biden administration has also reportedly considered halting social media vetting for some categories of refugees given concerns about “the efficiency of the process.”
Given the harms of this surveillance, and its demonstrated lack of effectiveness, DHS should end its existing social media programs. Until then, we need to know more about how the government monitors our social media and the impact of this surveillance on communities and individuals.
If you think you are or have been affected by this surveillance, we want to hear from you. Please fill out this form or email us directly at sms_intake@aclu.org. The ACLU will keep strictly confidential any information you provide and will not share it outside the ACLU without your permission.
Published April 24, 2023 at 11:34AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/Pse0R9O) via ACLU
Via the ACLU: Idaho Attorney General's Abortion Opinion Shows Overturning Roe Was Only the Beginning
Idaho Attorney General's Abortion Opinion Shows Overturning Roe Was Only the Beginning
Published April 25, 2023 at 10:25AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/cDuqozV) via ACLU
When the Supreme Court overturned a half-century of precedent last June and eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion first recognized in Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion politicians claimed that the court was doing nothing more than sending the issue back to the states, allowing each to decide for itself how to regulate abortion. Late last month, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador made crystal clear just how false that claim was.
In response to an inquiry from an anti-abortion state politician — asking on behalf of a constituent who wants to ban abortion nationwide — Attorney General Labrador issued a letter, declaring that Idaho’s total abortion ban “prohibits an Idaho medical provider from … referring a woman across state lines to access abortion services.”
Idaho cannot ban truthful speech about the availability of legal abortion services in other states without violating the First Amendment.
According to the Idaho attorney general, a health care provider who gives any support or aid to a person seeking an abortion outside of Idaho — even in places where abortion remains legal — has broken Idaho law. In other words, under the attorney general’s misguided opinion, providing a woman with a referral for abortion care out of state, or even simply giving her information about the availability of abortion in a state where it’s legal, would violate the ban and could cost health care providers their licenses and livelihoods, and even put them at risk of facing criminal penalties.
This dramatic and far-reaching interpretation of Idaho law violates the free speech rights of health care providers in Idaho who desire to give their patients complete information, in accordance with their professional and ethical duties, and their consciences. Idaho cannot ban truthful speech about the availability of legal abortion services in other states without violating the First Amendment.
The interpretation is also premised on the attorney general’s dangerous and unprecedented view that Idaho law applies to abortions provided outside of Idaho’s borders — in states like Washington, Oregon, or California, where abortion remains legal. Not only is this interpretation wrong on the face of Idaho law, it also violates the Due Process Clause, which prevents the arbitrary and unpredictable denial of liberty, as well as the so-called Dormant Commerce Clause, which forbids states from regulating commerce (including health care) that occurs wholly in another state. This kind of interstate meddling reveals the bad faith behind the claim that, after Roe was overturned, abortion access would be governed state by state.
We’re showing up in Idaho and across the country to make sure that every person has the right to make the best decisions for their health and future, regardless of where they live.
Permitting the attorney general’s interpretation of Idaho law to stand would have far reaching implications for a wide range of conduct, from abortion, contraception, and gender-affirming care; to any activity about which states have divergent policies. Indeed, it is already severely impacting the care that health care providers in Idaho can provide to their patients. Today, as a result of the attorney general’s opinion, doctors have been forced to deny critical information to people in need of care. And, in situations where an abortion is necessary to preserve the health of the pregnant patient, the attorney general’s interpretation can be downright dangerous by denying patients information about their options and potentially delaying them from accessing the care they desperately need.
That’s why two physicians in Idaho represented by the ACLU, along with our allies at Planned Parenthood and the law firm WilmerHale, have challenged Attorney General Labrador’s unconstitutional interpretation of Idaho’s abortion ban in federal court. Earlier this week, the court held a hearing where we urged the judge to temporarily prevent the attorney general, the state boards of nursing and medicine, and Idaho’s local prosecutors from taking any steps to enforce Idaho’s ban against individuals for providing referrals for or information about out-of-state abortion care, or for actually providing that care in states where it’s legal. We hope the court will swiftly act to protect the constitutional rights of Idaho providers and the health of Idaho patients by issuing a preliminary injunction that would block the attorney general and other enforcers from applying Idaho’s ban in the manner contemplated in his opinion.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned less than a year ago, there has been an unrelenting barrage of attacks on abortion — even in states that have already completely outlawed this vital reproductive health care. We’ve always known that the war on reproductive freedom would not end with Dobbs, and Idaho’s latest attempt to punish those helping pregnant individuals access abortion care in the states where abortion remains legal is just the latest chapter in this ongoing fight. Anti-abortion extremists are sure to continue to push similar efforts to impose abortion bans far beyond hostile states’ borders in their campaign to eliminate abortion access nationwide. The only question is whether the courts will let them. We’re showing up in Idaho and across the country to make sure that that every person has the right to make the best decisions for their health and future, regardless of where they live.
We need you with us to keep fighting
Donate todayPublished April 25, 2023 at 10:25AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/cDuqozV) via ACLU
Via the ACLU: 911: Reimagining a System that Defaults to Dispatching Police
911: Reimagining a System that Defaults to Dispatching Police
Published May 2, 2023 at 10:18AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/Skg2j1x) via ACLU
Every person deserves equal, effective treatment and safety, especially when in crisis. In such a vulnerable circumstance, people need professionals trained to provide support and care.
But too often, when a person is experiencing a mental health crisis, 911 dispatchers send armed police officers as a default response. We don’t send armed police when someone is experiencing a heart attack, but we do when a person is experiencing suicidal ideation. That doesn’t make sense.
Professor Jessica Gillooly, a former call-taker and expert on 911 dispatch, explains the problem to us this way: “Too often, 911 call-takers send police to calls because of a lack of timely, robust alternatives. The goal should be creating a 911 system that provides call-takers the tools and training to send the right response at the right time.”
The good news is that many jurisdictions have begun to consider incorporating trained civilian crisis responders into their emergency response systems. This approach offers significant improvements for public safety: Routing calls away from the police can reduce police use of force, escalation of situations that could have been stabilized by trained mental health providers, violence against people with disabilities, and unnecessary arrests that entangle people in the criminal justice system.
But that is only half of it.
911 dispatchers make crucial, frontline decisions every day about how to respond to emergencies. They are important partners in ensuring that all community members receive safety and equal treatment. Successful diversion programs require that 911 call-takers are empowered, through adequate technology and training, to make appropriate decisions about when to send crisis response teams instead of the police.
Here are some best practices to revamp emergency response systems:
1. Integrate behavioral health professionals into emergency response systems.
Crisis response teams should have adequate staffing and resources so that they are able to respond in a timely manner to all behavioral health crisis calls. This prevents situations in which 911 call-takers default to police officers because crisis response teams are unavailable.
Trained behavioral health professionals should also staff 911 dispatch centers to stabilize callers while they wait for a team to arrive. One option is for clinicians to be staffed at the dispatch center. Another is to integrate emergency response systems with the new 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
The American Rescue Plan provides states funding for crisis call centers, crisis response teams, and crisis stabilization centers.
2. Revamp how 911 call-takers are trained.
The training for 911 operators must recognize the costs and safety concerns of unnecessarily sending police officers to situations that they are not trained to handle, including risks of escalation, use of force, infringement on the civil liberties of community members, and resulting entanglement in the criminal justice system.
The training for 911 operators should include examples of questions probing the level of risk posed by the situation the caller describes. For example, if the caller reports an attempted break-in at a residence, as occurred in the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., 911 call-takers should be empowered to ask the caller the basis for assuming that the subject of the call does not live there. The dispatch software should include a way to capture callers’ uncertainty about the level of risk.
For medical emergencies, call-takers often have checklists and question scripts to help standardize patient risk assessments. A similar list of factors to consider would help 911 call-takers decide which first responder to dispatch. Some jurisdictions are already piloting this approach.
3. Develop criteria about when 911 systems must divert certain types of calls to mental health responders.
911 systems must create clear criteria for which situations qualify for behavioral health responses, so that the response doesn’t vary depending on which call-taker answers the phone. Two common examples of incident types that are likely to be appropriate for a crisis response team instead of police officers include a subset of calls about an “emotionally disturbed person” or a “welfare check.”
The 911 system should develop protocols to respond to a caller who specifically asks for a behavioral health response or guide the caller to consider whether their emergency warrants such a response. For example, 911 call-takers in Austin answer calls with the question: “Are you calling for police, fire, EMS, or mental health services?”
Finally, feedback and data collection (while respecting privacy) are important to evaluate performance and areas to improve.
The 911 system is a crucial component of an effective behavioral health crisis response system, which requires someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go. A person experiencing a mental health crisis should be able to call for help with de-escalation, receive on-site assistance from trained mental health professionals, and go to a 24-hour crisis stabilization facility — just as those experiencing physical health crises can. Reforming the 911 system is the first step for a functioning crisis response system. We need to send the right response at the right time.
We need you with us to keep fighting
Donate todayPublished May 2, 2023 at 10:18AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/Skg2j1x) via ACLU
Via the ACLU: State Supreme Courts Offer the Best Chance to Advance Rights
State Supreme Courts Offer the Best Chance to Advance Rights
Published May 2, 2023 at 10:13AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/hVM72zT) via ACLU
Recent decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court are, to use a complex legal term, not great. In many areas, from abortion to voting rights to tribal sovereignty, the current court has curtailed civil rights and individual freedom, even at the expense of longstanding precedent. In other areas, such as policing and qualified immunity, the court has shown that it can move very slowly, or not at all, when it is apparently unbothered by harsh and legally indefensible precedent.
This erosion of our most cherished rights is disturbing, but we are not without hope. The ACLU has long worked in both federal and state courts — and the latter are now more important than ever. To make the most of the opportunities that state constitutional law and state courts present, the ACLU is launching a new State Supreme Court Initiative. This is our first legal program that focuses on a type of court rather than a particular subject matter. We are its first two attorneys, and we’re excited to get started.
While this deeper investment in state-level legal advocacy may be new, the ACLU is no stranger to taking to the states to protect and extend our rights. Each state has its own constitution and its own laws, and state supreme courts can — and often do — interpret those provisions to provide broader protections for civil rights and civil liberties than the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized or preserved under federal law. Last summer, the need to further turn our attention to the states was thrown into sharp relief following the Supreme Court’s egregious decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Alongside our allies, we showed up in numerous state courts to protect abortion access. In recognizing the need for greater reliance on state courts to protect civil rights and individual liberties, we released “Our New Federalism,” an overview of the ACLU’s extensive experience litigating in state courts nationwide and our reliance on state law to protect people’s rights across many issue areas.
As we build on this work, the State Supreme Court Initiative will do at least three things.
Litigate to Protect Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
First, the initiative intends to identify, litigate, and win cases involving civil rights and civil liberties in state high courts across the country. The ACLU is well situated to go into the states because, in fact, we’re already there. We have affiliates in every state, and they do groundbreaking work that combines expertise in their unique state constitutions with keen insights into local concerns and conditions. The initiative will offer new resources and cross-state expertise to build on these ongoing efforts across the states, all with the goal of establishing greater protections for civil rights and liberties under state law, no matter how much the U.S. Supreme Court might hollow out federal protections.
Foster Collaboration and Information-Sharing
Second, the initiative will foster collaboration and information-sharing among advocates, experts, and communities who are fighting in, or studying, state supreme courts. While the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative may be new, state supreme court advocacy is not: Likewise, many others have been conducting state court advocacy, and groups like the Brennan Center and the State Law Research Initiative are building bodies of research about that vital work. The ACLU hopes to contribute by, among other things, connecting advocates and experts from different states so that their successes and ideas can more easily spread from one state to the next
Expand Transparency and Access to Justice
Third, the initiative aims to address, through litigation and other advocacy, barriers that limit people’s access to justice in state courts. We anticipate, for example, that the initiative will work with advocates around the country to push for greater transparency in state supreme court proceedings, so that people can learn about in advance, and where appropriate participate in, state supreme court cases that could fundamentally affect their freedoms.
All of this work will recognize that . People deserve protection from improper assaults on their liberty. From laws that undermine their right to vote. Or their bodily autonomy. Or their freedom. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court isn’t providing that protection, with disastrous consequences. People are less safe, and less free, because of the court’s decisions.
The work of our initiative cannot change the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court still wields enormous, and often harmful, power over the country. But as former Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Jr., put it, “state courts no less than federal are and ought to be the guardians of our liberties.” The ACLU agrees.
For more information or to let us know about a pending case, contact statesupremecourt@aclu.org.
Stay informed about our work
Sign upPublished May 2, 2023 at 10:13AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/hVM72zT) via ACLU
Google Promised to Defund Climate Lies, but the Ads Keep Coming
By BY NICO GRANT AND STEVEN LEE MYERS from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/JmYORK3
Technology
Frazzledrip (sometimes called frazzled.rip)
is a rumored dark web snuff film showing Hillary Clinton and longtime aide Huma Abedin sexually assaulting and murdering a young girl, drinking her blood and taking turns wearing the skin from her face as a mask. The video was allegedly discovered on former Congressman Anthony Weiner's laptop (Weiner is Abedin's ex-husband) in a folder labeled "life insurance," and police officers who've reportedly seen it were so horrified that they were driven to suicide. Conspiracy theorists have pointed to the video, which does not actually exist, to support long-standing conspiracy theories that politicians, celebrities and other "elites" sexually abuse children and consume their remains.
Facial Recognition Powers ‘Automated Apartheid’ in Israel, Report Says
By BY ADAM SATARIANO AND PAUL MOZUR from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/k3MlAhX
Technology
Via the ACLU: When Complaining About a Public Official Can Land You in Jail
When Complaining About a Public Official Can Land You in Jail
Published May 1, 2023 at 08:57AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/0KrogPt) via ACLU
This piece was published in partnership with The Nation.
What if you lived in a country where you could be jailed for criticizing a public official? What if that country were the United States?
In May 2018, Bob Frese, a resident of Exeter, N.H., posted on his local newspaper’s Facebook page the allegation that the town’s police chief had “covered up for [a] dirty cop.” The next thing he knew, a warrant was out for his arrest. A detective at the Exeter police department concluded that Frese had violated New Hampshire’s criminal defamation statute, which makes it a crime to purposely communicate “to any person, orally or in writing, any information which [the speaker] knows to be false and knows will tend to expose any other living person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule.” The detective filed a criminal complaint against Frese and arrested him. After the arrest generated public controversy, the New Hampshire Department of Justice advised that the prosecution was groundless because there was no indication that Frese knowingly defamed the police chief; in fact, Frese genuinely believed what he said. The police department dropped the prosecution.
What if you lived in a country where you could be jailed for criticizing a public official? What if that country were the United States?
This was the second time Frese faced prosecution for his speech. Six years earlier, he was arrested for criticizing a life coach—again under the state’s criminal defamation statute. Without an attorney, he pleaded guilty and was fined nearly $1,500.
Frese, whom we represent, has now asked the Supreme Court to rule that the First Amendment bars criminal punishment for criticizing a public official. It is one thing, we argue, to subject someone to civil money damages for defamation; it is another matter entirely to empower government officials to jail their critics on charges that the criticism was unfounded. The Supreme Court will decide in the coming months whether to take up the case.
Criminal defamation laws are relics of a bygone age. The doctrine of seditious libel—which criminalized defamation of the government and its officials—originated in England’s infamous Court of the Star Chamber at the beginning of the 17th century. When John Adams was president, the incumbent Federalist party passed the Sedition Act of 1798, making it a federal crime to libel government officials. The Adams administration brought dozens of prosecutions against publishers and editors aligned with Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic- Republican party. Jefferson thundered against the prosecutions as tyrannical, and allowed the Sedition Act to expire shortly after he won the election of 1800. But Jefferson himself encouraged at least one governor from his party, Thomas McKean of Pennsylvania, to bring state criminal libel prosecutions against Jefferson’s critics in the Federalist press. A century later, President Teddy Roosevelt tried (and failed) to criminally prosecute Joseph Pulitzer and others who had accused Roosevelt of corrupt business dealings related to the purchase of the Panama Canal.
Criminal defamation laws present this danger in its starkest form.
By the mid-20th century, criminal defamation laws were widely regarded as anachronistic. In 1962, the American Law Institute declined to include criminal defamation in the Model Penal Code, a guide for state legislatures, stating that “penal sanction cannot be justified merely by the fact that defamation is evil or damaging to a person in ways that entitle him to maintain a civil suit.” But criminal defamation laws remain on the books in a dozen states—and these laws continue to be enforced. In Minnesota, there were 121 criminal defamation prosecutions and 26 convictions between 2006 and 2014. In Wisconsin, there were 61 criminal defamation prosecutions between 1991 and 2007. In Virginia, there were at least 300 criminal defamation convictions between 1993 and 2008. Although many criminal defamation prosecutions concern disputes between private individuals, a sizable number involve criticism of local public officials.
As Frese’s case demonstrates, criminal defamation laws are easily abused by those in power to punish, harass, intimidate, and ultimately silence their opponents. That was the lesson James Madison, the principal author of the First Amendment, drew from the Sedition Act controversy. Madison acknowledged that the British common law of press freedom permitted criminal prosecutions for libel of public officials. But he maintained that the First Amendment was different because the United States was different. In our democracy, Madison argued, “[t]he people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty,” and the people must be free to criticize those who govern them. Without that freedom, an incumbent government will be sorely tempted to entrench itself in power by controlling public opinion—just as the Federalists tried to stave off electoral defeat by shutting down their opponents’ newspapers through criminal libel prosecutions. Madison allowed that public officials ought to have recourse to civil remedies for their injured reputations if falsely defamed, but he denied the government’s authority to criminally prosecute its critics.
It is one thing, we argue, to subject someone to civil money damages for defamation; it is another matter entirely to empower government officials to jail their critics on charges that the criticism was unfounded.
Madison’s attack on the Sedition Act laid the foundation for the Supreme Court’s landmark press freedom decision, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which held that the First Amendment protects speech criticizing public officials against even civil defamation liability, unless the defendant acted with “actual malice”—i.e., knowing or recklessly disregarding that the statement was false.
The Supreme Court extended those protections to criminal defamation prosecutions less than a year later in Garrison v. Louisiana. But because the criminal prosecution in Garrison was obviously deficient—in that the Louisiana statute did not require proof of “actual malice”—the court did not need to decide whether the First Amendment categorically bars criminal defamation prosecutions, as Madison argued it should. Although nearly six decades have passed since Garrison was decided, the court has not revisited the issue since.
More recently, the Supreme Court has recognized that even purposeful lies receive at least some First Amendment protection. In 2012, the court struck down a law that made it a crime to lie about having received military honors, rejecting the government’s argument that knowingly false speech is not entitled to First Amendment protection. Although the court fractured over particulars, all of the justices agreed that when it comes to speech on matters of public concern, the First Amendment restricts the government’s power to prosecute lies—not because the lies themselves are intrinsically valuable, but out of concern that the government will abuse its prosecutorial powers for political ends. As Justice Kennedy put it, “Our constitutional tradition stands against the idea that we need Oceania’s Ministry of Truth.”
Criminal defamation laws present this danger in its starkest form. As Frese’s case illustrates, such laws invite public officials to punish those who criticize how they do their jobs—a freedom central to representative self- government. The time is ripe for the Supreme Court to declare that the First Amendment categorically bars criminal prosecution for defamation of public officials.
Stay informed about our work
Sign upPublished May 1, 2023 at 08:57AM
via ACLU (https://ift.tt/0KrogPt) via ACLU
What Exactly Are the Dangers Posed by A.I.?
By BY CADE METZ from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/tu4VqJi
Technology
‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead
By BY CADE METZ from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/AzCRQLD
Technology
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)