Glenn: The Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices

as someone who was subjected to this constitution-shredding outrage on 1 june 2006 (a date i will never forget), i'm now ever wary whenever i return to the u.s. and have to run the immigration and customs enforcement gauntlet...

glenn...

One of the more extreme government abuses of the post-9/11 era targets U.S. citizens re-entering their own country, and it has received far too little attention. With no oversight or legal framework whatsoever, the Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals who are suspected of no crimes, detains them and questions them at the airport, often for hours, when they return to the U.S. after an international trip, and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices (laptops, cameras, cellphones) and other papers (notebooks, journals, credit card receipts), forever storing their contents in government files. No search warrant is needed for any of this. No oversight exists. And there are no apparent constraints on what the U.S. Government can do with regard to whom it decides to target or why.

In an age of international travel — where large numbers of citizens, especially those involved in sensitive journalism and activism, frequently travel outside the country — this power renders the protections of the Fourth Amendment entirely illusory. By virtue of that amendment, if the government wants to search and seize the papers and effects of someone on U.S. soil, it must (with some exceptions) first convince a court that there is probable cause to believe that the objects to be searched relate to criminal activity and a search warrant must be obtained. But now, none of those obstacles — ones at the very heart of the design of the Constitution — hinders the U.S. government: now, they can just wait until you leave the country, and then, at will, search, seize and copy all of your electronic files on your return. That includes your emails, the websites you’ve visited, the online conversations you’ve had, the identities of those with whom you’ve communicated, your cell phone contacts, your credit card receipts, film you’ve taken, drafts of documents you’re writing, and anything else that you store electronically: which, these days, when it comes to privacy, means basically everything of worth.

[...]

It’s hard to overstate how oppressive it is for the U.S. Government to be able to target journalists, film-makers and activists and, without a shred of suspicion of wrongdoing, learn the most private and intimate details about them and their work: with whom they’re communicating, what is being said, what they’re reading. That’s a radical power for a government to assert in general. When it starts being applied not randomly, but to people engaged in activism and journalism adverse to the government, it becomes worse than radical: it’s the power of intimidation and deterrence against those who would challenge government conduct in any way. The ongoing, and escalating, treatment of Laura Poitras is a testament to how severe that abuse is.

If you’re not somebody who films the devastation wrought by the U.S. on the countries it attacks, or provides insight into Iraqi occupation opponents and bin Laden loyalists in Yemen, or documents expanding NSA activities on U.S. soil, then perhaps you’re unlikely to be subjected to such abuses and therefore perhaps unlikely to care much. As is true for all states that expand and abuse their own powers, that’s what the U.S. Government counts on: that it is sending the message that none of this will affect you as long as you avoid posing any meaningful challenges to what they do. In other words: you can avoid being targeted if you passively acquiesce to what they do and refrain from interfering in it. That’s precisely what makes it so pernicious, and why it’s so imperative to find a way to rein it in.

my laptop, camera, dvd's, cd's, flash drives, external drives and memory cards were seized in san francisco after i deplaned a flight from frankfurt... they were kept for three weeks and i can only assume that everything was copied... to say i was distraught is an understatement...

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Back in the surveillance state

just finished making it through immigration and customs in san fran without incident... that's twice now that i've entered the u.s. via san fran since 1 jun 2007, the date when i had all my electronic equipment confiscated without cause and not returned for three weeks... the first time was last december when i experienced major twinges in my stomach just prior to landing... this time, i hardly gave it a thought... time heals, eh...?

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So much for "change we can believe in"...

i was one of the first victims of this odious policy... on 1 june 2006, my laptop, digital camera, memory card, dvd's, flash drive and cd's were seized by the ice in san francisco on my arrival from frankfurt... they held them for three weeks before sending them back... reason...? forensics... HA...!

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers' laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.

But representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.

"It's a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn't deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people's laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever."

i retained the receipt i was given by the ice so that i could pull it out on the off-chance it ever happened again... i kept it in my laptop case which, during a visit with the family of friends in salta, argentina, was peed in by the family cat... needless to say, i had to get a new laptop case but i still have the receipt, complete with vile cat pee smell, in a sealed baggie in the new laptop case... every time i pass through u.s. customs, it's at the ready... i eagerly await the wrinkled nose of the customs officer when he opens that little bag...!

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Back in the U.S. - hassle free...!

i managed to grab nearly 7 hours of kinda-sorta decent sleep on the flight - at least as kinda-sorta decent as it gets when sleeping upright in an economy class airline seat - and, had i not forgotten my jacket that i had left tucked into the seat that i had to go back for, which then put me at the very end of the line at passport control, the trip has been smooth and uneventful so far... i'm waiting to board the second and last flight here in houston, basking in the good feeling of once again having passed through immigration and customs enforcement unscathed... after the experience two years ago june, i'm sure i'll never run the ice gauntlet again without trepidation cuz there'll always be a next time...

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On the road again

in about 45 minutes i will be leaving my cozy little pied–à–terre here in buenos aires and taking a car service to the airport - again... my life seems to revolve around airports and i guess after so many years, i should be used to it... i'm looking forward to seeing my son and his family, especially the rambunctious grandsons, but i can't honestly say i'm at all excited about going back to the u.s... ah, well... i guess i can hold out for the month that i'll be there...

assuming i don't get hassled at u.s. customs, i'll be checking in tomorrow morning from the houston airport... chau for now...

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Fifteen years of an exemplary life in the U.S. only to get thrown into a detention center and left to die

this is so wrong...

He was 17 when he came to New York from Hong Kong in 1992 with his parents and younger sister, eyeing the skyline like any newcomer. Fifteen years later, Hiu Lui Ng was a New Yorker: a computer engineer with a job in the Empire State Building, a house in Queens, a wife who is a United States citizen and two American-born sons.

But when Mr. Ng, who had overstayed a visa years earlier, went to immigration headquarters in Manhattan last summer for his final interview for a green card, he was swept into immigration detention and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.

In April, Mr. Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And last Wednesday, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.

On Tuesday, with an autopsy by the Rhode Island medical examiner under way, his lawyers demanded a criminal investigation in a letter to federal and state prosecutors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the detention system.

detention watch network has put together this handy map...

Detention Map

Welcome to the world of immigration detention, where over 27,500 immigrants are detained on any given day across the country in a hodgepodge of federal detention facilities, county jails, and private for-profit prisons.

Are there immigrants detained near you?
Click on a state to zoom in; touch a dot and get more info.

The map includes contact information for:

• Facilities known to detain immigrants in removal proceedings (yellow dots on map)
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement district offices (black dots)
• Legal service organizations who provide representation or referrals to immigrants detained (blue dots)

just look at the number of yellow dots... just imagine how many detainees are collectively represented on this map... appalling...

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The deep shame of our treatment of illegal immigrants

notice: fair use violation, but too important not to post in full...

from today's nyt...

July 13, 2008

Editorial

The Shame of Postville, Iowa

Anyone who has doubts that this country is abusing and terrorizing undocumented immigrant workers should read an essay by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and Spanish-language court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of a huge immigration workplace raid at a meatpacking plant in Iowa.

The essay chillingly describes what Dr. Camayd-Freixas saw and heard as he translated for some of the nearly 400 undocumented workers who were seized by federal agents at the Agriprocessors kosher plant in Postville in May.

Under the old way of doing things, the workers, nearly all Guatemalans, would have been simply and swiftly deported. But in a twist of Dickensian cruelty, more than 260 were charged as serious criminals for using false Social Security numbers or residency papers, and most were sentenced to five months in prison.

What is worse, Dr. Camayd-Freixas wrote, is that the system was clearly rigged for the wholesale imposition of mass guilt. He said the court-appointed lawyers had little time in the raids’ hectic aftermath to meet with the workers, many of whom ended up waiving their rights and seemed not to understand the complicated charges against them.

Dr. Camayd-Freixas’s essay describes “the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see” — because cameras were forbidden.

“Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.”

He wrote that they had waived their rights in hopes of being quickly deported, “since they had families to support back home.” He said that they did not understand the charges they faced, adding, “and, frankly, neither could I.”

No one is denying that the workers were on the wrong side of the law. But there is a profound difference between stealing people’s identities to rob them of money and property, and using false papers to merely get a job. It is a distinction that the Bush administration, goaded by immigration extremists, has willfully ignored. Deporting unauthorized workers is one thing; sending desperate breadwinners to prison, and their families deeper into poverty, is another.

Court interpreters are normally impartial participants and keep their opinions to themselves. But Dr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, said he was so offended by the cruelty of the prosecutions that he felt compelled to break his silence. “A line was crossed at Postville,” he wrote.

our so-called fairly-elected government has done nothing BUT cross lines for years and the shame of it all just keeps accumulating...

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Round 'em up, lock 'em up - now we're not sending illegal immigrants back home, we're sending them directly to prison

Yippee-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
It’s your misfortune and none of my own
Yippee-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
You know that Wyoming the federal prison
will be your new home

well, 's-CUSE ME...! forget about those halliburton detention centers (see previous post)... now it's straight to federal prison for all you poor bastards just trying to earn a living wage...

In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.

The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.

empathy...? compassion...? fuhgeddaboudit...

Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for northern Iowa, who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an “astonishing success.”

Claude Arnold, a special agent in charge of investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it showed that federal officials were “committed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws in the workplace to maintain the integrity of the immigration system.”

The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. Twenty-seven immigrants received probation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in unusual and speedy plea agreements.

The illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents. Moments later, they moved to another courtroom for sentencing.

The pleas were part of a deal worked out with prosecutors to avoid even more serious charges. Most immigrants agreed to immediate deportation after they serve five months in prison.

The hearings took place on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, in mobile trailers and in a dance hall modified with black curtains, beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing several nights until 10. On Wednesday alone, 94 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, the most sentences in a single day in this northern Iowa district, according to Robert L. Phelps, the clerk of court.

Mr. Arnold, the immigration agent, said the criticism of the proceedings was “the usual spate of false allegations and baseless rumors.”

The large number of criminal cases was remarkable because immigration violations generally fall under civil statutes. Until now, relatively few immigrants caught in raids have been charged with federal crimes like identity theft or document fraud.

“To my knowledge, the magnitude of these indictments is completely unprecedented,” said Juliet Stumpf, an immigration law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., who was formerly a senior civil rights lawyer at the Justice Department. “It’s the reliance on criminal process here as part of an immigration enforcement action that takes this out of the ordinary, a startling intensification of the criminalization of immigration law.”

the government line: "an astonishing success"... the government response to the weaselly, unpatriotic, bleeding hearts who have the gall to be concerned about how real, honest-to-god human beings are being treated: "the usual spate of false allegations and baseless rumors"...

and what about the EMPLOYERS who hired these poor stiffs and have been making money hand over fist on their backs...?

< crickets >

what a great time to be alive in the u.s. of a...

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Round 'em up, ship 'em out

Yippee-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
It’s your misfortune and none of my own
Yippee-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
You know that Wyoming the immigrant detention center
will be your new home

more exciting news from the ice office of detention and removal operations...

Federal immigration agents have arrested 905 people in California in the past three weeks after a statewide search for those who had violated orders to leave the country. The operation was the latest in a series of national sweeps by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The arrests were the result of collaboration among teams in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco that began on May 5.

“The focal point of this operation were people who had exhausted all of their due process in the courts,” said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. “They have a final order of removal issued by a U.S. immigration judge, and they’ve failed to depart.”

In the process of seeking each person on the list, Ms. Mack said, agents often encountered friends, family members and others who had violated immigration laws.

“Agents may come to a house looking for a target, and someone answers the door, or there are other people in the house who have also violated immigration laws,” she said.

Brian DeMore, acting director of the federal Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Los Angeles, said agents took into custody any person they encountered during an arrest who had violated immigration laws. Agents set out with a target list of just over 1,500 “fugitive aliens,” Mr. DeMore said, referring to people who have ignored orders to leave the country.

yee-ha...! gotta keep them halliburton-built people warehouses operatin' at full capacity...!

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4th Amendment...? We don't need no ste-e-e-een-kin' 4th Amendment...

it's coming up on the second anniversary of the time i had my laptop, camera, memory stick, flash drives, dvd's and cd's seized in san francisco as i was returning to the u.s. from overseas and not returned to me for three weeks... i will be entering the u.s. again early the morning of june 7 at jfk... i must have stumbled across this article as a reminder...

It is definitely fascism when it happens to you by Wayne Madsen May 14, 2008, 00:20 WMR -- In Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's world of an "Israelized" America, the terms SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) and BDO (Behavior Detection Officer) are the new acronyms of Stasi-like control of the American citizenry by a government that treats anyone as a suspicious person in the same manner that Israel mistreats its own Arab citizens and Palestinians. Sunday, this editor and his colleague faced the Chertoffian menace at Washington's Reagan National Airport while heading to the gate to board a flight to Houston. It is now clear from a review of the events that unfolded that I was pre-selected for an intensive search and battery of questions even before arriving in line for the security screening. A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screener was overheard saying, "the guy with the beard." Since I was the only person in line who also had a beard, it was evident that a red flag had earlier been raised. What followed, was worse than anything I had previously encountered while leaving Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, itself a revolting display of ingratitude to citizens of the country that bankrolls Israel, or the Israeli-run screening process at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport. First, I was instructed to enter a glass isolation chamber and point out my belongings that were exiting the X-ray machine. Anyone with claustrophobia would really enjoy being placed in such a chamber and have to speak to the screener through small holes in the glass. I was then led to an area where all my carry-on bags were emptied. I was also forced to empty my pockets of everything. A bevy of screeners then proceeded to go through my wallet examining everything: cash, credit cards, VA medical benefits card, National Press Club card, voter's registration card, and driver's license. Then came an examination of my press credentials and related IDs: Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) card, Society of Professional Journalists card, National Archives research card, Library of Congress card, three press credentials, and membership card in Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO). In a blatant violation of the First and Fourth Amendments, my reporter's notebooks, containing names of contacts in Houston and around the world were paged through by the screeners. Another screener asked if I minded being probed in "certain private areas." He then asked if I'd like the examination to be conducted in private. I replied, "No, let everyone see this." He then proceeded to examine my groin area. Then came the battery of questions. 1. Are you feeling okay? 2. Where are you going today? 3. How long will you be there? 4. Why are you going there? 5. What story are you covering/ 6. Who do you write for? 7. When did you move to Washington? 8. Where did you live before that? 9. What did you do for a living before? 10. Who was the most famous person you ever met? 11. What was the most famous event you ever covered? 12. What type of things do you write about? 13. What type of politics do you cover? 14. What is your place of birth? My colleague, who had successfully passed through screening and was waiting for me, was then asked to step into the holding area so she "could see and hear what was going on." It was a ruse. She was also subjected to a full carry-on bag examination, frisking, and a series of personal questions: 1, Are you with him? 2. Where are you going? 3. What is the purpose of your visit? 4. What story are you investigating? 5. How long were you in the US Air Force? 6. Where were you stationed overseas? 7. Why were you not overseas in the military? 8. When are you returning? 9. Who do you work for? 10. What is an independent journalist? 11. How long have you been working with him? 12. Do you find your job fulfilling? 13. What is your place of birth? After this Gestapo-like of questioning, I was told that a TSA screener was writing details in a notebook for the "paperwork." My colleague was told TSA was going to file an "incident report." The nature of WMR's coverage is that our sources are our lifeblood and anything done to compromise them is a direct attack on the freedom of the press and our rights as journalists. The notion of press freedom does not exist in Chertoff's worldview of police state tactics and total surveillance but his worldview is a distinctly un-American one, something that is more properly relegated to the history books of his ancestral Czarist Russia. When our investigations take us beyond the Washington Beltway, it is not within Chertoff's purview to find out details about the purpose of the trip, even though it may shed an unwelcome light on his network of Mossad operatives and Russian-Israeli gangsters and scam artists who are now running rampant in these United States of America. The antics at Washington Reagan National are not unique. Foreign journalists have been subjected to similar invasive screening either at US embassies when applying for the required journalist visas to visit the United States or at immigration screening at US entry points. The corporate media will not report on these cases as they are part of the problem in allowing Chertoff and his American Gestapo to continue to turn the United States into one big West Bank-style checkpoint. One other note. This editor visited the USSR and draconian nations such as Paul Kagame's Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni's Uganda, Hun Sen's Cambodia, the former military junta's Thailand, surveillance society Singapore, and Muslim monarchy Brunei Darussalam. Nothing compares to what occurred at Washington National Airport. It is yet another sign of the fact that the United States has entered a phase of fascist control. There's only one question that remains: Is the slide reversible? Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report. Copyright © 2008 WayneMadsenReport.com

i've kept the receipt for my things that i was issued in san francisco on that unnerving occasion handy in my briefcase... if the same situation should arise, my plan is to produce it with a flourish and ask if they really want to put me through this again...

an additional twist to my plan evolved when i was visiting the family of friends in northern argentina in november 2006... one of the family's cats got into my briefcase and peed all over the briefcase and the receipt... i had to dispose of the briefcase and get a new one, but i kept the receipt and i still carry it with me in a zip-lock bag to avoid it smelling up my new briefcase... if i do end up producing that receipt at customs, you can better believe that i will be removing it from the bag and waving it right under the nose of whatever ice official has decided to abridge my rights...

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More on immigrant detainees - massive raid in Iowa

the ugliness and completely unnecessary tragedy continues...

may 9...

People in Waterloo are trying to figure out what sort of operation federal officials are conducting in town. This week, the Department of Homeland Security took-over and sealed-off the grounds of the National Cattle Congress on the west side of Waterloo.

Thursday night, our crew went to investigate, but security guards told them to stay across the street from the property. Our camera caught pictures of elaborate ventilation systems going into the buildings. There were dozens of cars coming in and out with license plates from surrounding states, and even as far away as Georgia and Texas.

A guard at the gate told us they are preparing for training exercises, but a Homeland Security spokesman would not confirm that. Many people in Waterloo believe the site is being transformed into a detention center. People in the Latino community fear it will be used in a mass immigration raid.

it looks like the suspicions were accurate...

may 12...

Buses have begun arriving at the Cattle Congress grounds in Waterloo after hundreds were detained in an immigration raid on a Postville meatpacking plant today. Officials are not allowing media or others near the entrance. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have declined to say how many buses are being used in the raid on the Agriprocessors Inc. plant. At least 300 people were arrested during the operation, the largest of its kind in Iowa, said Claude Arnold, a special agent with ICE. The raid targeted people who illegally used other people's Social Security numbers and were in the U.S. illegally. According to an affidavit, “Based on information thus far developed in the investigation, it appears, based on 2007 fourth quarter payroll reports, that approximately 76 percent of the 968 employees of Agriprocessors were using false or fraudulent social security numbers in connection with their employment.”

as reported in the previous post, how many more yong sun harvill's will this produce...?

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How the U.S. treats immigrant detainees - an appalling story

read all of this tragic tale by dana priest and amy goldstein in today's wapo... then try and put yourself in yong sun harvill's shoes...



after you've read the article go check this out...

Based on confidential medical records and other sources, The Washington Post identified 83 deaths of immigration detainees between March 2003, when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was created, and March 2008. The Post found that 30 of the deaths were questionable.

just for a minute, let's get really real... yong sun harvill could just as easily be your friend, your next-door neighbor, a family member, or even YOU... i read a story like this and i feel so deeply ashamed for my country... i'm sitting here in kabul, afghanistan, where a story like this would be tragic enough, fercryinoutloud, but not in the united states... it's nothing but fascism, pure and simple...

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"Papers, please" - getting people used to the idea of suprise law enforcement raids and "disappeared" people

news flash... it ain't just about immigration... first of all, note the first paragraph... that's right... it's now expanded to include identify theft and document fraud... you don't have the proper papers...? what a shame... it's off to the detention center for you... what's that you say...? your children are in daycare and there'll be no one to pick them up or care for them...? what a shame... it's off to the detention center for you...

Officials say more than 290 people have been arrested at Pilgrim's Pride poultry plants in five states on suspicion of identity theft, document fraud or immigration violations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced the figures Wednesday, the day of the raids. Authorities say the raids were part of a long-term investigation. Pittsburg, Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride says it cooperated fully and faces no charges.

More than 100 people were arrested for immigration violations in both Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Moorefield, West Virginia.

In Mount Pleasant, Texas, 45 people were arrested for alleged false use of Social Security numbers.

In Live Oak, Florida, more than 25 people face administrative charges of immigration violations, and will also face identity theft or document fraud charges, officials say.

In Batesville, Arkansas, more than 20 were arrested on federal warrants for alleged document fraud or identity theft.

imagine the scenario... you're an employee of pilgrim's pride... the ice agents come swooping in, lock the place down, and start checking people off against a list... everyone has to produce identification... the person you've worked right next to for the past year, the one who invited your children to her son's birthday party, gets pulled out of line and taken away... you're distressed but also relieved that nothing happened to you...

just wait... your turn is coming...

the horror of the "disappeareds," a tactic pioneered and tested by the u.s. in latin america (see "los desaparecidos" and operation condor), is coming back home... i've posted on this many times before (see here), but it's important to realize that we are being slowly but surely led to an acceptance of such treachery in our very own country... make no mistake... it IS happening...!

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The revelations about our criminal government just continue to pile up

ya know, it's not that we need any more proof that our government has been engaged in illegal behavior for quite some time, but i guess i'm glad to see it finally coming out into the open...

The Justice Department concluded in October 2001 that military operations combating terrorism inside the United States are not limited by Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, in one of several secret memos containing new and controversial assertions of presidential power.

The memo, sent on Oct. 23, 2001, to the Defense Department and the White House by the Office of Legal Counsel, focused on the rules governing any deployment of U.S. forces inside the country "in the event of further large-scale terrorist activities" by al-Qaeda, a Justice Department official said yesterday.

Administration officials declined to detail what domestic military operations were being contemplated at the time, and the legal status of the secret memo is now unclear. Although the memo has not been formally withdrawn, the Justice Department yesterday repudiated the idea that there are no constitutional limits to military searches and seizures in a time of war, saying it depends on "the particular context and circumstances of the search," according to a statement.

interestingly enough, i'm going to be interviewed by an individual working for the center for public integrity who's investigating warrantless searches and seizures at u.s. customs entry points... he read my blog post from some time back about how my laptop, camera, memory cards, and flash drives were taken from me at u.s. customs in san francisco as i was returning from macedonia... i think i might try to get him as a guest on the And, yes, I DO take it personally radio show on blogtalk radio... if i do, i'll put up a post announcing it...

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The Patriot Act nightmare continues for an innocent man

i posted about this in early january...

read this from the miami herald, a story i was pointed to by emptywheel... not only will it perfectly illustrate the degree to which our country is now behaving like a rogue police state, it will also chill you to the bone... sure, you may say, the government MUST have SOME reason for doing this, right...? RIGHT...?

Lyglenson Lemorin, acquitted of terrorism charges last week in federal court in Miami, is still a guilty man in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Lemorin, 32, a lawful U.S. resident, remains behind bars -- far from his Miami family -- in the tiny town of Lumpkin, Ga., a deportation center 150 miles south of Atlanta.

[...]

Immigration experts said that under the USA Patriot Act, adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a lawful U.S. resident such as Lemorin may still be locked up and possibly deported on terrorism-related charges -- even if they cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in federal court.

the nightmare continues, although NOW they're not using the patriot act as a legal basis...

Legally, there is nothing to bar the government from pursuing immigration sanctions against Lemorin, experts said, though such action is rare after an acquittal. The immigration charges are a civil matter, and a judge will apply a less strict standard of evidence to the charges that were brought at the criminal trial.

[...]

David A. Martin, a University of Virginia law professor who served as general counsel at the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the late 1990s, said that "the government is perfectly within its legal rights to go ahead in two different forums even after they've lost in one." He added, "Whether it's a sound use of prosecutorial authority is a much tougher question."

however, what i said in january still applies...

the strategy is clear... build a base of precedent on the backs of those who have no way to defend themselves, and, even if the justice system demurs, fall back on unconstitutional laws [and obscure regulations] to insure that the emerging police state isn't obstructed... when there's enough precedent established, you and i are next in line...

it's all about instilling fear...

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"Tens of millions of workers in America go to work every day [where] they could be swept up in a massive raid conducted by armed government agents"

are you an american citizen...? do you believe you have constitutional rights...? do you believe those rights should be extended to everyone, no matter what their status, who is on american soil...? so do i, but we are a friggin' long way from that these days...

At the gathering at the Hay-Adams hotel in the District, witnesses and members of the 10-person panel accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials of using arrest warrants for a limited number of illegal immigrants who work at a given company as a pretext to detain the entire workforce, including many U.S. citizens, while agents determine whether there are additional illegal immigrants among them.

"Tens of millions of workers in America go to work every day without . . . an awareness that at their workplaces, without any warning, they could be swept up in a massive raid conducted by heavily armed government agents," said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and chairman of the National Commission on ICE Misconduct and Violations of 4th Amendment Rights. "Workers are not aware that they could be detained at gunpoint. That they could be handcuffed. . . . That they could be denied any contact with family members or legal counsel."

The commission heard testimony from two workers who are U.S. citizens who said they were detained for several hours during an ICE raid of six Swift meatpacking plants in December 2006. The union has filed a class action on their behalf.

Afterward, Pat Reilly, an ICE spokeswoman who attended the hearing as an observer, said the agency's procedures for questioning workers during raids at businesses are fair and humane and have been routinely upheld by courts.

"I would imagine that some people may be detained beyond what they feel is reasonable. But it's subjective," she said. "What we're trying to do is get to the bottom of who has the right to be here and who might be posing as a U.S. citizen."

there is a deeper, darker, underlying purpose of these raids, and that is to produce fear and get us accustomed to seeing heavily armed federal agents sweeping through places that we once felt safe, and to instill the belief that, "wow, that could be ME they're hauling away..." and if you think that isn't part of the plan, i've got a private island off the coast of belize i want you to consider purchasing...

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Warrantless search and seizure at U.S. Customs

two years ago this coming june 1, my laptop, digital camera, flash drive, and a number of cd's were seized as i was coming through u.s. customs at san francisco international airport... all were returned three weeks later, altho' i'm positive that the contents of my hard drive were copied... it seems like the high-handedness of george's illegal police state is starting to really piss some people off, and that's a good thing...

The seizure of electronics at U.S. borders has prompted protests from travelers who say they now weigh the risk of traveling with sensitive or personal information on their laptops, cameras or cellphones. In some cases, companies have altered their policies to require employees to safeguard corporate secrets by clearing laptop hard drives before international travel.

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, are filing a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.

The lawsuit was inspired by some two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.

i was astounded when i found out that i had no ability to stop them... literally, a huge chunk of my entire life is conducted electronically, and, without my laptop and internet access, i am crippled... but that doesn't matter to our overlords...

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Deporting a legal U.S. resident who has been acquitted of terrorism charges

read this from the miami herald, a story i was pointed to by emptywheel... not only will it perfectly illustrate the degree to which our country is now behaving like a rogue police state, it will also chill you to the bone... sure, you may say, the government MUST have SOME reason for doing this, right...? RIGHT...?

Lyglenson Lemorin, acquitted of terrorism charges last week in federal court in Miami, is still a guilty man in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Lemorin, 32, a lawful U.S. resident, remains behind bars -- far from his Miami family -- in the tiny town of Lumpkin, Ga., a deportation center 150 miles south of Atlanta.

On Thursday, Lemorin's wife learned from The Miami Herald that federal authorities have charged her husband with unspecified ''administrative immigration violations'' and that he has been placed in ''removal proceedings'' that could lead to his deportation to his native Haiti.

"He has kids here, and we really need him home,'' said Lemorin's wife, Charlene Mingo Lemorin. ``He can't do anything for us in Haiti. Everything was settled by the jury. He was found not guilty. It's like the nightmare is not over."

[...]

Lemorin was arrested along with six other men in June 2006 on charges of conspiring with al Qaeda -- in an FBI-directed undercover sting -- to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and federal buildings in Miami and other cities. They were dubbed the "Liberty City 7."

A federal jury found him not guilty on Dec. 13. Jurors deadlocked on the others, with a retrial set for Jan. 7.

The day after he was acquitted, immigration agents whisked Lemorin away to Miami International Airport.

Lemorin -- born in Haiti, raised in Miami and the father of two children who live in Little Haiti -- told his family and attorneys that he feared the agents were going to put him on a plane to his native Haiti.

Instead, they drove him to the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade County. Then came an overnight drive to the Stewart detention center in Lumpkin.

Leonard Fenn, who temporarily represented Lemorin in the immigration case, expressed outrage over the government's actions.

"We're presuming they're claiming there is reason to believe he was a supporter of terrorist activities or a terrorist himself," said Fenn, who got on the case through Lemorin's criminal attorney, Joel DeFabio.

"It's outrageous -- a complete misallocation of government resources," Fenn said.

Immigration experts said that under the USA Patriot Act, adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a lawful U.S. resident such as Lemorin may still be locked up and possibly deported on terrorism-related charges -- even if they cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in federal court.

go back and read that last sentence very slowly and very carefully...

"...a lawful U.S. resident such as Lemorin may still be locked up and possibly deported on terrorism-related charges -- even if they cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in federal court..."

now, making things ever so much worse, the judge has slapped a gag order on everybody involved, including lemorin's wife...

With a sweeping gag order imposed Dec. 13, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard cited the need to damp down media coverage that could complicate efforts starting Jan. 7 to find impartial jurors to rehear the case.

Her order at the close of the first trial prohibits the defendants, their lawyers, prosecutors, and others, such as agents, investigators and witnesses, from talking to reporters, raising issues for defenders of free speech and drawing a challenge from one of the lawyers covered by the order.

Lenard extended the same restrictions to Lyglenson Lemorin, who was acquitted, and his criminal defense lawyer, as well as an attorney representing the Haitian national in immigration proceedings.

The gag order is so broad that federal prosecutors preparing to retry the case contend it applies to Lemorin's wife, who was once listed as a potential defense witness.

the strategy is clear... build a base of precedent on the backs of those who have no way to defend themselves, and, even if the justice system demurs, fall back on unconstitutional laws to insure that the emerging police state isn't obstructed... when there's enough precedent established, you and i are next in line...

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RIAA escalation - a post for mettle

oh, golly... i can just hear him now... "I TOLD YOU SO...!"

[I]n an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

here's mettle, commenting on the relatively recent good ol' days when all we had to worry about was the heinous crime of File-Sharing...

The scary specter of Terrorism alone, no longer seems to provide Big Brother enough pretext and cover to smash the heel of the Jackboots down onto most everybody in order to grind the People into so much mash in the earth.

-- mettle

i am in complete agreement... this isn't simply about protecting the music industry... it's absolutely about expanding the controls of an increasingly fascist society...

you realize where this will start hitting immediately, don't you...? for those of us who travel outside the u.s. frequently, this will give just one more pretext for the warrantless search and seizure of laptops and mp3 players at u.s. customs inspection points, and the immediate detention of those who are found in violation... mark my words...

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We've created an environment of fear so intense that illegal immigrants are afraid to save themselves from fire?

great jumping jeebus on a ritz cracker...

Immigrants from south of the border, many illegal, provide the backbone of menial labor in San Diego, picking fruit, cleaning hotel rooms, sweeping walks and mowing lawns.

[...]

[F]our bodies were found in a burned area in southeastern San Diego County, a region known for intense illegal immigration.

[...]

Terri Trujillo, who helps the immigrants, checked on those in the canyons, urging them to leave, too, when she left her house in Rancho Peñasquitos ahead of the fires.

Ms. Trujillo and others who help the immigrants said they saw several out in the fields as the fires approached and ash fell on them. She said many were afraid to lose their jobs.

“There were Mercedeses and Jaguars pulling out, people evacuating, and the migrants were still working,” said Enrique Morones, who takes food and blankets to the immigrants’ camps. “It’s outrageous.”

Some of the illegal workers who sought help from the authorities were arrested and deported.

[...]

The Border Patrol also arrested scores of illegal immigrants made visible by the fires. Agent Fisher of the Border Patrol said 100 had been arrested since the fires started Sunday.

[...]

The American Civil Liberties Union said it had received reports that people had been denied help at shelters because they lacked proper identification. Officials have been checking identification to prevent people not affected by the fires from taking advantage of the free food, clothes and other services.

[...]

Wayne A. Cornelius, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies border questions, said that if the past was a guide there would be more friction over the fires and their effects on illegal immigrants.

“San Diego likes its illegal migrants as invisible as possible,” Mr. Cornelius said. “So whenever something happens that calls attention to their presence, it is fodder for the local anti-immigration forces.”

so much for a natural disaster bringing people closer together... why don't we just turn trained hunting dogs loose to go flush them out of the brush and chase them right into police wagons...?

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