Daily Archives: October 20, 2019

Last week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released three redacted opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (also known as the FISA Court) and the FISA Court of Review (FISCR). In the first opinion, the FISA Court held that the FBIs procedures for accessing Americans communications that are incidentally collected under Section 702 of FISA violated both the statute and the Fourth Amendment. The government appealed, and in the second opinion, the FISCR upheld the FISA Courts decision. The FBI was forced to revise its procedures to conform with the Courts ruling, and in the third opinion, the Court approved the revised procedures.

The government will no doubt try to sell this as an oversight success story. After all, the Department of Justices audits had detected instances of FBI non-compliance with legal requirements, and the Department reported those instances to the FISA Court. The Court solicited the assistance of amici and adopted their position in significant part. It ordered remedies that the FBI is now required to implement. And all of this became public because Congress in 2015 required the disclosure of significant FISA Court opinions. The system worked, right?

I see a very different story. This is now the fourth major FISA Court opinion on Section 702 in 10 years documenting substantial non-compliance with the rules meant to protect Americans privacy. The opinion, moreover, reveals that the FBI is conducting literally millions of backdoor searchesincluding so-called batch queries that rest on the same discredited legal theory used to justify the NSAs bulk collection of Americans phone records. Despite the enormous implications for Americans privacy and the governments dismal record, the remedy suggested by amici and imposed by the Court was just more record-keeping. And the government sat on the opinion for a year, hoping for an appellate victory that would help mitigate the PR damage from disclosure.

Background: Section 702s Troubled History

To put the Courts recent opinions in context, some background is necessary. Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed in 2008, the National Security Agency (NSA), operating inside the United States, is authorized to collect communications of foreigners overseas for foreign intelligence purposes. No warrant is required for this collection because courts have held that foreigners have no Fourth Amendment rights. Instead, each year, the FISA Court must sign off on the procedures that govern the surveillance.

Although ostensibly targeted at foreigners, Section 702 surveillance inevitably sweeps in massive amounts of Americans communications. Recognizing the impact on Americans privacy, Congress required the NSA to minimize the sharing, retention, and use of this incidentally collected U.S. person data. But the government and the FISA Court have embraced an interpretation of minimize that is remarkably maximal. The NSA shares raw data with multiple other agenciesincluding the FBI and the CIAand all of them retain the data for a functional minimum of five years. Moreover, the FBI routinely combs through it looking for Americans communications to use in purely domestic cases, even in situations where the FBI lacks a factual predicate to open a full investigation.

In 2011, the government disclosed to the FISA Court that it had misrepresented the nature of its upstream collection activities under Section 702. (Upstream collection takes place as the communications are transiting over the Internet backbone; downstream collection acquires stored communications, usually from the servers of Internet Service Providers.) When conducting upstream surveillance, the government was acquiring, not just communications to or from the targets of surveillance, but communications that simply mentioned certain information about them (known as abouts collection). As a result, the government was acquiring packets of data containing multiple communications, some of which had nothing to do with the target. This included tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications.

The Court was not pleased to learn about this significant issue three years into the programs operation. It held that the governments handling of the data violated the Fourth Amendment, and it required the government to develop special rulesapproved by the Court in 2012for segregating, storing, retaining, and accessing communications obtained through upstream collection.

In 2015, the Court was under the impression that these rules were being followed. However, in approving Section 702 surveillance that year, it noted several incidents of non-compliance with other rules designed to protect Americans privacyincluding FBI violations of protections for attorney-client communications, a failure of access controls by the FBI, and the NSAs failure to purge certain improperly collected data. Once again, the Court expressed displeasure at being notified of infractions long after they occurred.

In 2016, the FISA Court learned that the NSA had been violating the rules established in 2012. Because those rules were designed to remedy a Fourth Amendment violation occurring since the start of the program, the NSAs non-compliance meant that its upstream collection activities had been operating unconstitutionally for eight years. Moreover, the government did not report this issue for several months after discovering it. Unable to bring itself into compliance, the NSA made the only decision it could: In the spring of 2017, it abandoned abouts collection, which was at the root of the problem.

When Section 702 came up for reauthorization in late 2017, civil liberties advocates pointed to this troubled history. They also pointed to a growing body of case law holding that searches of government databases can, in certain circumstances, constitute a separate Fourth Amendment event. They argued that government agencies should be required to obtain a warrant before searching Section 702-obtained data for the communications of Americans (a practice formally called U.S. person queries and informally dubbed backdoor searches). They also urged Congress to ban abouts collection, lest the government attempt to resume it.

Congress rejected these proposals. Although Congress did require the FBI to obtain the FISA Courts permission to conduct U.S. person queries in a tiny sliver of cases, it blessed the vast majority of these searches, which previously had no foundation in the text of Section 702. It simply required the FBI to develop querying procedures that the FISA Court would have to approve. It also required the FBI to keep records of each U.S. person query it conducted. With respect to abouts collection, Congress required the government to obtain FISA Court approval and to give Congress advance notice before resuming the practice.

The Courts October 2018 Ruling

In March 2018, the government submitted its annual certifications and procedures to the FISA Court for its approval. In a decision dated October 18, 2018, and released last week, the FISA Court held that the FBIs minimization procedures violated both the statute and the Fourth Amendment. The Courts opinion addresses three main practices by the FBI: downstream collection of certain communications; the FBIs failure to record USP queries; and the FBIs improper use of USP queries.

Downstream collection and abouts communications. Although this section of the opinion is highly redacted, it appears that the government is engaged in a new form of downstream collection that raised a flag for the FISA Court. The Court solicited amicis advice about whether the statutory preconditions for resuming abouts collection apply to downstream collection, and whether certain activities in the governments 2018 certifications involve the acquisition of abouts communications. Amici argued that the answer to both questions was yes; the governments answer was no in both cases. The Court split the baby, holding that the statutory requirements apply to any kind of abouts collection, but that no such collection would occur under the governments certifications.

The heavy redactions make it difficult to assess the significance of this part of the opinion. However, on its face, the definition of abouts collectionbasically, anything other than a communication to or from the targetshould not be difficult to apply. It is worrisome that the government and amici reached different conclusions about whether a certain form of collection merited the label abouts. The uncertainty strongly supports a suspicion civil liberties advocates have held for some time: that the selectors the government uses to identify the communications to be collected are not necessarily unique identifiers (such as email addresses), but can sweep in people other than the intended targets (as would, for instance, IP addresses).

The statutory requirement to count U.S. person queries. In its January 2018 reauthorization of Section 702, Congress ordered the government to adopt querying procedures that included a technical procedure whereby a record is kept of each United States person query term used for a query. Instead, in the querying procedures that the FBI submitted to the FISA Court, the Bureau announced that it intends to satisfy the record-keeping requirement by keeping a record of all queriesin other words, the FBI would lump together U.S. person queries and non-U.S. person queries, without distinguishing between them.

The government defended this approach with a weak argument that the statutory text was somehow ambiguous, and that both the legislative history and policy considerations weighed against requiring the FBI to document U.S. person queries. In a refrain often heard when an intelligence or law enforcement agency is asked to devote time or resources to safeguarding civil liberties, the government claimed that requiring the FBI to figure out whether a particular investigative subject was a U.S. person would divert resources from investigative work . . . to the detriment of public safety.

The FISA Court has historically yielded to such pleas, and on this occasion, the Court seemed sympathetic. Ultimately, however, the Court concluded that it had no choice. It stated: Regardless of how persuasive the FBIs considerations may be, the Court is not free to substitute its understanding of sound policyor, for that matter, the understanding of the Director of the FBIfor the clear command of the statute. The law, the Court held, was unambiguous in its directive to count U.S. person queries.

On appeal, the FISCR upheld the Courts ruling on this question. The FISCR, however, seemed somewhat less sympathetic to the governments position. Under the FBIs querying procedures, U.S. person query term is defined as a term that is reasonably likely to identify one or more specific United States persons. This definition does not require a high level of certainty. Moreover, the procedures provide for the application of default assumptions in cases where specific information is lacking. Under these circumstances, it is hard to argue with the FISCRs assessment that counting U.S. person queries is not a burdensome substantive requirement, and that it would simply mean adding one (largely ministerial) item to the checklist that FBI personnel most likely already work through when conducting queries for investigative purposes.

Somewhat oddly, the FISCR did not resolve the other major issue on appeal: whether the FBIs repeated violations of its own querying and minimization procedures rendered those rules unlawful and unconstitutional as implemented. Those violations, and the FISA Courts failure to require an adequate remedy for them, will be the subject of Part II of this post.

Read the original here:
The FISA Court's 702 Opinions, Part I: A History of Non-Compliance Repeats Itself - Just Security

The Supreme Court will hear a gun control case in December that could significantly limit the ability of state and local governments to regulate guns for public safety reasons.

The case involves a New York City regulation on transporting handguns that was repealed in July. Although that original rule is no longer in effect, for now the court has not determined the matter to be moot, so the case will move forward.

In this dispute and others, opposition to gun regulations is often grounded on the premise that once an individual interest is identified as a fundamental right, that interest prevails over all countervailing public concerns.

That premise is profoundly mistaken. And, importantly, it is inconsistent with the way that constitutional doctrine has developed with other fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Second Amendment rights should be treated no more favorably, despite the political rhetoric of gun rights supporters who claim that any firearm regulation is an unconstitutional infringement on their rights.

Of course, a constitutional right does carry with it a strong presumption against government interference with that particular activity, even though the exercise of the right involves a societal cost. We protect freedom of religion, for example, even though we know that some religious practices like pulling children out of school after the eighth grade might be considered problematic or harmful.

But there is a critical difference between assigning a high value to a constitutional right when balancing it against social concerns, and arguing that the right necessarily overrides the publics ability to regulate that activity in ways that may be needed to protect the community.

The doctrine surrounding freedom of speech is instructive. No one doubts that speech rights are taken seriously in America. Yet the right to free speech is not absolute and can be regulated in numerous circumstances. Courts subject government regulations that affect speech to different standards of review that balance the publics interest against the individuals liberty. Among factors considered are the kind of speech involved and the location and manner of the restriction.

For example, a ban on rallies on public streets in residential neighborhoods after 9 p.m. would likely be upheld even though it burdens speech, so long as the law did not discriminate based on the message rally speakers expressed.

So too with protections for personal privacy under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. That amendment doesnt bar all searches and seizures, but instead requires that such intrusions be reasonable, a concept that inherently involves some kind of balancing of interests. Hence, we all must endure airport security screening searches because they are a reasonable means to protect air travel safety.

The individual right to bear arms for self-defense, as announced by the Supreme Court in 2008, is likewise not unlimited. Even though the court in that case struck down a flat ban on possession of handguns that might be used for self-defense in peoples homes, it observed that states could for historical and public-policy safety reasons prohibit people with felony convictions or people with mental illness from possessing guns, demonstrating that the very scope of the Second Amendments protection takes account of countervailing public objectives.

For instance, some states require that gun owners keep their firearms locked up if there are children living in the home, even though gun owners might prefer easier access to firearms for self-defense.

Or consider the contours of self-defense itself. A Second Amendment right to keep guns for self-defense does not eliminate the need for society to think about how guns should be responsibly employed, even in self-defense situations. If someone uses a gun purportedly for self-defense purposes and kills another person, the Second Amendment does not preclude an evaluation of whether the alleged threat was sufficient to justify the use of deadly force or whether the killing involved excessive force because reasonable nonlethal alternatives were available for the shooter to defend himself.

The national debate now has focused on proposed regulations such as background checks and assault weapons bans. Whether specific measures would be permissible under the Constitution depends on their particulars, but the big point is that particulars matter.

In evaluating gun control regulations, its legitimate to take into account the social harms and risks arising from individuals keeping, bearing and using firearms.

Constitutional analysis of the Second Amendment, as with other fundamental rights, requires some kind of balancing of interests, which includes considering the states need to promote public safety.

Vikram D. Amar is dean and professor of law at the University of Illinois College of Law. Alan E. Brownstein is professor of law at the UC Davis School of Law.

Originally posted here:
Commentary: What the gun lobby gets wrong about the Second Amendment - The Daily World

Newly declassified judicial opinions, released last week, revealed that the government has again violated the rules for access to vast databases containing Americans private communicationsand that its warrantlessly searching these databases on a massive scale.

The databases contain communications collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial statute that authorizes the warrantless collection of Americans international communications in the name of foreign intelligence. Relying on this law, the government vacuums up billions of Internet and phone communications and stores them for years in agency systems. These databases include untold volumes of sensitive and private information, including the communications of Americans suspected of no wrongdoing.

Once these conversations are intercepted and stored, the FBI and other agencies exploit whats known as the backdoor search loophole: they query Section 702 databases for information about Americans, including in criminal investigationswithout obtaining a warrant at any stage of the process. Only a handful of anemic statutory and court-ordered restrictions apply to the governments backdoor searches. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has held that the FBI is permitted to engage in these warrantless queries so long as the FBI believes a query is reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crimea very low threshold.

As Liza Goitein outlined, the opinions released last week provide an unprecedented look at the breadth of the FBIs backdoor searches, and they show that the FBI has failed to abide by even the most minimal limitations. In particular:

Faced with these violations, in October 2018, the FISC found that the FBIs procedures were inadequate and unreasonable. But it held that the FBI could cure the deficiencies simply by creating records of U.S.-person queries and documenting the basis for its backdoor searches. The FBI initially refused to adopt even these basic requirementsit did so only after appealing to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR), which largely endorsed the FISCs opinion.

To put the FBIs violations in context, readers should keep in mind the bigger picture: the constitutional problems posed by warrantless searches of Section 702 databases for Americans information. Nothing in the newly released opinions meaningfully addresses or remedies those problems. Indeed, the FISC continues to allow the FBI to conduct backdoor searches under a remarkably permissive set of rules, including at the earliest stages of criminal investigations.

At bottom, the drawn-out fight in the FISC was about two simple documentation requirements. These requirements are no substitute for a warrant. Even if the FBI could manage to properly document its warrantless searches, which it has apparently struggled to do, its queries would violate the Fourth Amendment. The newly released opinions provide even more evidence that the current system fails to adequately protect Americans privacy.

The Backdoor Search Problem

To understand the scope of the constitutional problems with backdoor searches, as well as the rules that the FBI violated, some background:

In 1978, largely in response to unlawful executive branch surveillance, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. To conduct electronic surveillance inside the United States, FISA generally requires the government to apply to the FISC for an order approving surveillance of a particular target. The government must establish, among other things, probable cause to believe that the target of surveillance is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration conducted widespread warrantless wiretapping of Americans communications without FISC authorization, in violation of FISA. Years later, Congress amended FISA to ratify elements of President Bushs warrantless wiretapping program, as reflected in Section 702.

Section 702 allows the government to target any non-U.S. person abroad who is reasonably likely to communicate foreign intelligence informationdefined expansively to encompass information related to the foreign affairs of the United States. There is no requirement of probable cause to believe that targets are associated with foreign powers, and there is no judicial review of individual targets. Instead, the FISC annually reviews the targeting and minimization procedures that apply to Section 702 surveillance. Targeting decisions are left to the discretion of agency analysts.

Notably, the governments Section 702 targets need not have any connection to terrorism investigations or criminal activity. Targets may be academics, journalists, or human rights workersanyone likely to communicate about foreign intelligence.

The resulting surveillance is incredibly broad. Last year, the United States targeted more than 164,000 individuals and groups under Section 702, likely resulting in the mass collection of more than a billion communicationsincluding emails, video calls, telephone calls, texts, and online chats. This vacuuming up of foreigners messages means a vast number of Americans international communications end up in government hands, too.

Not only are Americans communications warrantlessly collected in enormous quantities, but they are retained for years by default, routinely searched, and used in later investigationsincluding in domestic criminal investigations that are unrelated to the original foreign intelligence purpose behind the surveillance.

In 2014, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board explained that the FBI conducts backdoor searches as a matter of course, whenever the FBI opens a new national security investigation or assessment. To better understand the scope of the issue, civil liberties advocates and Congress sought data about precisely how often the FBI conducts these searches. Until very recently, the FBI has refused to count, estimate, or report these numbers.

But as weve now learned from one of the recently declassified FISC opinions, in 2017, the FBI ran 3.1 million searches of Section 702-acquired information, on just one of its systems. Although the FBI records dont differentiate between query terms associated with Americans and those associated with foreigners, the FISC explained that, given the FBIs domestic focus[,] it seems likely that a significant percentage of its queries involve U.S.-person query terms.

As the ACLU has written elsewhere, Section 702 surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment because it permits the government to intercept, use, and disseminate the international communications of U.S. persons without obtaining a warrant or submitting to any kind of individualized court review. The fact that Americans conversations are captured while targeting foreigners abroad does not justify dispensing with these safeguardsand the governments backdoor searches for Americans communications only compound the constitutional problems.

Yet the FBI continues to conduct these searches, even though FBI agents have repeatedly failed to comply with the modest requirements that Congress and the FISC have imposed.

Newly Declassified Opinions Reveal the FBIs Systemic Compliance Violations

The FISC and FISCR opinions declassified last week show that the FBI resisted its congressional mandate to track U.S.-person queries, conducted backdoor searches in violation of existing court-ordered rules for those queries, and resisted documenting the basis for future queriesthwarting meaningful oversight in the process.

The FBIs Failure to Track Backdoor Searches for Americans Communications

When Congress renewed Section 702 surveillance authorities in early 2018, it imposed a documentation requirement for backdoor searches. Each time an agency queries its Section 702 databases with a United States person query term, it is required to create a record of that fact.

In March 2018, the FBI submitted its Section 702 targeting and minimization procedures to the FISC for its annual review. After the FISC expressed initial concerns, the FBI submitted amended versions in September 2018. In the September 2018 procedures, the FBI proposed that it would comply with Congresss new directive by recording all queries of its Section 702 databases, but it would not record or track which of those queries were U.S.-person queries.

In an October 2018 ruling that was declassified just last week, FISC Judge James E. Boasberg painstakingly explained why the FBIs proposal did not satisfy the statute. The FBI then appealed to the FISCR, which likewise concluded that Congress expressly required agencies to record their use of U.S.-person query terms. After the FISCRs ruling, the FBI finally agreed to comply and amended its proposed minimization procedures accordingly. The FISC approved the FBIs revised procedures in September 2019.

Meanwhile, for 21 months, from January 2018 until September of 2019, the FBI did not conduct the count that Congress had mandated as part of its decision to renew Section 702 powers.

The FBIs Failure to Document Its Basis for Its Backdoor Searches

The FISC-approved rules for access to Section 702 communications generally allow FBI agents to conduct backdoor searches when they believe a search is reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime.

In the proceedings leading up to the October 2018 FISC opinion, the government reported that, since April 2017, a large number of FBI queries did not meet the requisite standard. (These improper queries are discussed at length below.)

Although Judge Boasberg concluded that the FBIs querying standard was lawful as written, he held that the FBIs procedures, as implemented, failed to satisfy the requirements of Section 702 and the Fourth Amendment. His holding was based in part on the fact that, unlike personnel at the CIA, NSA, and NCTC, FBI personnel did not memorialize their reasons for believing that query terms were appropriateand this omission contributed to the FBIs significant violations of the querying standard.

Adopting the recommendation of court-appointed amici, Judge Boasberg reasoned that, if the FBI documented the basis for its queries, it would result in fewer violations of the querying standard. Notably, the court proposed documentation in limited circumstances: only after FBI personnel conduct the U.S.-person query, review any responsive metadata, and decide to examine responsive content information.

The FBI refused and appealed to the FISCR. Although the FISCR did not formally reach the issue on appeal, it characterized the documentation requirement as a modest measure that would alleviate the most significant concerns raised by the FISC. Following the FISCRs opinion, the FBI relented and adopted the documentation requirement.

While this modest measure will generate data that could be used for oversight purposes down the road, it does little to restrain the vast number of warrantless queries that the FBI uses to access Americans private communications.

Violations of the Existing Limits on Backdoor Searches

The October 2018 FISC opinion describes substantial and systemic FBI violations of the existing limitations on backdoor searches. Of especially serious concern to Judge Boasberg was the large number of queries evidencing a misunderstanding of the querying standardor indifference toward it[.]

As just one example, the FBI conducted queries using 6,800 Social Security numbers, which are clearly U.S. persons information. Other illegal searches stemmed from investigators trying identify Americans to collaborate as potential confidential sources of information.

In another instance, FBI agents used 70,000 identifiers to search for information about FBI employees or contractorscontrary to the advice of the FBI Office of General Counsel, which had explained that higher-level approval would be required for these searches.

Theres a systemic problem lurking here. Indeed, its of interest that these types of bulk queries could be thought to be permissible at all. One of the issues is that FBI interprets the querying standard quite liberally. It argued to Judge Boasberg that even when an individual query would not satisfy the low querying threshold, it may nevertheless be permissible to engage in so-called categorical batch querying.

In an effort to justify its batch queries, the government posited the following hypothetical: say an employee at a cleared defense contractor has access to certain technology and unlawfully plans to sell it. According to the government, if 100 employees of the contractor have access to that technology, the FBI could properly run a categorical query of the identifiers associated with these 100 employeeseven though a search for any one of those employees on his or her own is impermissible.

The flaws in this logic are obvious. What would prevent the FBI from conducting a batch query using identifiers associated with everyone in a particular neighborhood or city? Although Judge Boasberg was rightly skeptical of the governments reasoning, the new FISC-approved minimization rules do not expressly prohibit categorical batch queries.

Going Forward

In light of what weve learned about the governments backdoor searches of its Section 702 databases, its clear that Congress and the courts have a role to play in safeguarding Americans fundamental privacy rights.

Congress and the courts should prohibit warrantless backdoor searches for the information of Americans and individuals in the United States. These warrantless searches of Section 702 databases violate the Fourth Amendments fundamental protections. The few rules governing these searches havent been followedand they are no substitute for a warrant.

Congress and the courts should protect metadata from abusive searches. Although Judge Boasberg rightly recognized that metadata can implicate privacy interests, he nevertheless allowed the FBI to query and access non-content metadata without documenting the basis for the query. In addition, the FISCs opinion expanded the FBIs ability to indefinitely retain Americans metadata collected under Section 702.

Congress should reform FISA to ensure judicial review of Section 702 surveillance in public courts. To date, no civil court has reached the merits in a challenge to Section 702 collection, in part because of the difficulty litigants face in establishing standing. The ACLU has brought two challenges to Section 702Amnesty International USA v. Clapper, Wikimedia v. NSAthat the government has sought to block on standing grounds.

Given the number of Americans impacted by this novel and invasive surveillance, the public courts have a vital role to play in determining what set of safeguards the Constitution requires.

Courts should enforce the governments compliance with its obligation to provide notice of Section 702 surveillance. The government should, but does not, fully comply with its obligation to notify individuals when it intends to use Section 702 information against them in criminal proceedings. Notice is essential to ensure that defendants subject to this surveillance have the opportunity to challenge it and to seek redress. In order to facilitate this judicial review, courts should require the government to disclose to defendants basic information about how it obtained their communications under Section 702, including the queries that agents used to identify defendants communications.

Here is the original post:
How to Address Newly Revealed Abuses of Section 702 Surveillance - Just Security

The Honorable Jerrold Nadler

Chairman

U.S. House Committee on the

Judiciary

2138 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Doug Collins

Ranking Member

U.S. House Committee on the

Judiciary

2142 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Adam Schiff

Chairman

U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Capitol Visitor Center, HVC-304

Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Devin Nunes

Ranking Member

U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Capitol Visitor Center, HVC-304

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Nadler and Ranking Member Collins and Chairman Schiff and Ranking Member Nunes,

The undersigned groups write to urge you to ensure that any legislation to reauthorize expiring FISA authorities scheduled to sunset on December 15, 2019 include key reforms to Section 702.

On October 8, 2019, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released alarming new information related to surveillance conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which poses a serious threat to the privacy of both U.S. and non-U.S. persons. The documents reveal significant privacy violations, including the wrongful use of this powerful tool for personal purposes, queries that violated both the statute and the Fourth Amendment, and efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to evade laws designed to access how often this tool is turned against people in the United States. In addition, the opinions raise additional concerns regarding the extent of the government's so-called abouts collection.

These abuses demand action by Congress and underscore the need to reform Section 702. In particular, we urge you to ensure that any legislation reauthorizing provisions of FISA include the following reforms:

Congress must prohibit warrantless backdoor searches. Though Section 702 prohibits the targeting of Americans, the government routinely conducts warrantless searches of Section 702-acquired information looking specifically for information of Americans. For years, civil liberties advocates have decried the governments practice of conducting these warrantless backdoor searches as a dangerous end-run around the Fourth Amendment. These documents prove the point, revealing tens of thousands of searches conducted in violation of the law, which requires them to be conducted only when reasonably likely to return foreign-intelligence information or evidence of a crime. In some instances, FBI personnel reportedly even queried FISA information to spy on relatives in violation of the law.

These large-scale privacy violations underscore the significant threat that the backdoor search loophole poses to the rights of people in the United States. They also demonstrate the urgent need to ensure court approval of any searches of Section 702 information looking for information about U.S. persons to prevent abuse. Thus, we urge Congress to prohibit backdoor searches looking for information about U.S. persons absent a probable cause warrant.

Congress must prohibit abouts collection. The documents also raise questions regarding the scope of the governments abouts collection, which involves collection of communications that are not to or from a surveillance target. In response to persistent compliance violations, the government ended certain types of abouts collection in 2017. However, these documents raise questions regarding whether the government is engaged in new abouts collection that Congress did not authorize. Based on the documents, it appears that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) rejected arguments made by the appointed amicus regarding whether certain surveillance practices could constitute abouts collection, which would trigger Congressional notification requirements prior to initiation. Given this divergence, it is crucial that Congress clearly define and prohibit any type of abouts collection.

The abuses in the documents also underscore the need to further strengthen the role of court-appointed amicus, enhance transparency, and ensure prompt declassification of novel and significant FISC opinions. It should not have taken a full year to declassify the October 2018 opinion, which covers numerous significant issues.

The reforms referenced above are necessary additions to, not substitutes for, those that our organizations and others have already highlighted regarding Section 215 and other FISA authorities scheduled to sunset on December 15. However, the FBIs inability to comply with the law compels further Congressional action.

Sincerely,

Access NowAdvocacy for Principled Action in GovernmentAmerican Civil Liberties UnionAmerican-Arab Anti-Discrimination CommitteeAmericans for ProsperityAntiwar.comArab American InstituteBrennan Center for Justice at NYU School of LawCampaign for LibertyCenter for Democracy & TechnologyColor of ChangeConstitutional AllianceDefending Rights & DissentDemand ProgressDue Process InstituteThe Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)Fight for the FutureFree Press ActionFreedom of the Press FoundationFreedomWorksGet FISA RightGovernment Accountability ProjectGovernment Information WatchHuman Rights WatchIndivisibleMedia AllianceMillion Hoodies Movement for JusticeNAACPNational Association of Criminal Defense LawyersNational Coalition Against CensorshipNew America's Open Technology InstituteOakland PrivacyOCA - Asian Pacific American AdvocatesOpen the GovernmentPeople For the American WayThe Project On Government OversightRestore The FourthRootsAction.orgSouth Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)TechFreedomWikimedia Foundation, Inc.X-Lab

Here is the original post:
Groups Urge Surveillance Reforms as End-of-Year Deadline Approaches - Human Rights Watch

Trump Doral (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Yes, Donald Trumps decision to award himself the G-7 Summit at his Doral Resort is a violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. And its probably a violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause. In fact, its probably the most obvious violation of those clauses in American history. Its self-dealing; its corrupt; its an impeachable offense on its own. The House Judiciary Committee is going to investigate the self-dealing, because they pretty much have to.

Trump has, of course, violated the Emoluments Clause before. Hes actually facing two lawsuits about that. In fact, the Fourth Circuit just agreed to hold an en banc rehearing of one of the emoluments lawsuit.

Emoluments Clause is probably enough law for the political press to handle for one scandal. But, just among us chickens, can we also talk about how the Trump administration is potentially violating laws regarding the assignment of government contracts? Like, ALL of the them?

This isnt Nam, there are rules. Hosting the G-7 is, at base, the awarding of a government contract. We have multiple, overlapping statutes regarding that process. There are procedures. There are forms. Those forms require signatures. Getting a government contract is a big part of our economy. Since our economy is based on competition, as opposed to central planning, its simply NOT A THING for the President of the United States to just pick winners of that economy, before we even get to the part where picking himself the winner is a violation of the Constitution.

Im no expert on the laws regarding government contracts, because government compliance lawyer has never been my calling. But, unlike anybody at the White House apparently, I can Google. Heres the header from the Legal Information Institute which is just Wikipedia for people who dont want to pay Westlaw:

The United States Government is the single largest procurer of goods and services in the world, and the Department of Defense (DOD) accounts for the lions share of federal acquisitions. Three major characteristics distinguish Government acquisitions from private sector contracts. First, Government contracts are subject to myriad statutes, regulations, and policies which encourage competition to the maximum extent practicable, ensure proper spending of taxpayer money, and advance socioeconomic goals. Second, Government contracts contain mandatory clauses which afford the Government special contractual rights, including the right to unilaterally change contract terms and conditions or terminate the contract. The most important clauses are the Changes clause, the Termination for Convenience clause, and the Default clause. Third, due to the Governments special status as a sovereign entity, claims and litigation follow the unique procedures of the Contract Disputes Act.

Government contracts are subject to several statutes, including the Competition in Contracting Act and the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act. In addition to statutes, there are a multitude of regulations which govern acquisitions by executive branch agencies. Foremost among these is the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), which is codified in Parts 1 through 53 of Title 48, Chapter 1 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Executive branch agencies may issue their own regulatory supplements to the FAR, such as the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). The FAR is amended pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, with proposed changes issued jointly by the DOD, the General Services Administration (GSA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in coordination with the FAR Council.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) is a dense section of law, codified in Title 48 of the U.S. Code. The prohibition against self-dealing in this space is not one of those ephemeral norms that Trump disregards all the time. The self-dealing prohibition is codified right in the statute:

48 CFR 3.601 Policy.

(a) Except as specified in 3.602, a contracting officer shall not knowingly award a contract to a Government employee or to a business concern or other organization owned or substantially owned or controlled by one or more Government employees. This policy is intended to avoid any conflict of interest that might arise between the employees interests and their Government duties, and to avoid the appearance of favoritism or preferential treatment by the Government toward its employees.

(b) For purposes of this subpart, special Government employees (as defined in 18 U.S.C. 202) performing services as experts, advisors, or consultants, or as members of advisory committees, are not considered Government employees unless

(1) The contract arises directly out of the individuals activity as a special Government employee;

(2) In the individuals capacity as a special Government employee, the individual is in a position to influence the award of the contract; or

(3) Another conflict of interest is determined to exist.

Again, the law is complicated and full of exceptions and Im no compliance wonk. But the point is that this law EXISTS. So do others. The Trump administration needs to show that it complied with the law, or show that it doesnt need to comply with the law because it is eligible for some sort of exception. ALL OF THAT MUST BE WRITTEN DOWN. If those arguments dont hold water, Trump is in violation of statute. If those arguments are lies, on official government documents, those lies are crimes.

Making the Emoluments Clause argument against the president for this deal is valid, but its a little bit like pursuing a Fourth Amendment violation against the president for a car-jacking. Sure, it probably is. But, also, THERE ARE LAWS AGAINST CAR-JACKING.

President Trump and his administration, including his administrations lawyers, act like our laws are mere guidelines that dont apply to a strong president. Thats just not true. Awarding yourself a government contract is, at least, a facial violation of law. Does Trump have a defense? Mick Mulvaney suggests that he just wont show us the governments defense to these CHARGES which is also not an acceptable answer.

Trump, obviously, isnt allowed to do this. WHO IS GOING TO TELL HIM?

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

The rest is here:
President Trump Is Violating More Than The Emoluments Clause With His Doral Summit - Above the Law

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) A lawsuit against a southern Minnesota city and its police department alleges that excessive force was used in an arrest earlier this year, leaving a man with several broken bones and nearly $150,000 in medical bills.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the lawsuit Monday against the city of Worthington and its police department. The suit names the police chief, Troy Appel, officer Mark Riley, and Rileys friend, Evan Eggers, who was on a ride-along at the time of the arrest.

The victim is identified as Kelvin Francisco Rodriquez, an Iowa man who works in Worthington.

During the arrest on Jan. 12, he suffered four broken ribs and internal bleeding due to lacerations to his pancreas and liver, according to the ALCU. The lawsuit alleges that he told officers multiple times that he needed to go to a hospital but they refused to take him to one for several hours.

By the time Rodriquez got medical attention, he had to be airlifted to a hospital in South Dakota, where he was hospitalized for five days, incurring close to $150,000 in medical bills.

The lawsuit alleges that Rodriquezs Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the use of excessive force and his Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by the delay in medical treatment.

Dashcam Video Of Kelvin Rodriquezs Arrest

In a statement released by the ACLU, Rodriquez says hes speaking about what happened to him because its happening to other people in the Worthington.

As a human being, I ask that the police be held accountable for not adequately doing their job and respecting me as a human being, he said. My wife and children saw me going in and out of life and death. I think it is fair to ask for justice.

According to the lawsuit, Rodriquezs arrest came after he noticed a squad car trailing him and, out of fear of how police treat minorities in Worthington, tried to avoid them by turning into a parking lot.

The squad car followed Rodriquez into the lot, where he quickly parked his car and started to run. But when the squad cars emergency lights flashed, he stopped and put his hands up. This can be seen in police dashcam video.

Riley ordered Rodriquez to get on the ground and put his hands behind his back. While out of view of the dashcam video, Riley places his knee and full body weight on Rodriquezs ribs, the lawsuit alleges. Rodriquez can be heard on the video moaning in pain.

The lawsuit is seeking damages to be paid to Rodriquez, although no specific dollar amount was listed.

This is the second time that the ACLU has sued Worthington and its police department over what it claimed was the use of excessive force. In 2016, Anthony Promvongsa was pulled over by a drug task force and punched and kneed while he was still seat-belted in his car.

That case ended with a $60,000 settlement for Promvongsa, and the city agreeing to a number of policy changes dealing with use of force.

Among the policy changes was a requirement for Worthington officers to document when they see officers using force. The lawsuit filed on behalf of Rodriquez accuses the police department of not following this and other policies related to use of force.

WCCO reached out to the Worthington Police Department for comment.

Read this article:
ACLU Sues Worthington For Arrest That Left Man With Nearly $150K In Medical Bills - WCCO | CBS Minnesota

Signup to receive the Early Edition in your inboxhere.

Before the start of business,Just Securityprovides a curated summary ofup-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Heres todays news.

TURKEY AND SYRIA

The House yesterday overwhelmingly approved a resolution formally condemning President Trumps withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria. The non-binding measure, which passed in a 354-60 vote, states Congress opposition to the troop pullback and calls on Turkey to halt its military action in Syria. The resolution also urges the Trump administration to present a clear plan for an enduring defeat of the Islamic State group (ISIS). Connor OBrien reports at POLITICO.

The House vote was followed by a White House meeting with congressional leaders in which Trump apparently insulted top Democrats, calling House Speaker Nancy a third-rate politician, before they walked out, accusing the president of having a meltdown. Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in Congress said they cut short the contentious high-level briefing on the Syria crisis after it quickly devolved into an insult-fest and it became clear the president had no plan to prevent the potential resurgence of ISIS in the Middle East. Katie Rogers reports at the New York Times.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham offered a different account of the meeting, saying in a statement that Trump was measured and decisive and that Pelosi had no intention of listening. While Democratic leadership chose to storm out and get in front of the cameras to whine, everyone else in the meeting chose to stay in the room and work on behalf of this country, Grisham added. Clare Foran reports at CNN.

Trump later lashed out at Pelosi on Twitter, accusing the speaker of experiencing her own meltdown, while adding that she needs help fast! There is either something wrong with her upstairs, or she just plain doesnt like our great Country, the president wrote in a message. AFP reports.

Just hours before the meeting, Trump had defended as strategically brilliant his decision to pull American troops out of Syria, insisting that the U.S. had no interest in intervening in the ongoing conflict between Turkey and the Kurds because it was over land that has nothing to do with us and the Kurds, who helped the U.S. in its campaign against ISIS, were no angels. Trump however sent mixed signals by playing down the regions importance to America while hitting back at critics, citing a letter he apparently sent to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week as evidence that he had not given the leader a green light to advance Turkish forces into Syria. Seung Min Kim and Mike DeBonis report at the Washington Post.

In the Oct. 9 letter, which began with the sentence Lets work out a good deal!, Trump called on his Turkish counterpart to negotiate an end to Turkeys assault against U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters, warning him: dont be a tough guy, dont be a fool. You dont want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I dont want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy and I will, Trump wrote, adding, history will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. Vivian Salama reports at the Wall Street Journal.

Trump shrugged off concerns that his decision to pull back had cleared the way for Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and ISIS to advance in the territory and reassert influence in the area. I wish them all a lot of luck, Trump said of the Russians and Syrians, adding, if Russia wants to get involved with Syria, thats really up to them. Peter Baker and Catie Edmondson report at the New York Times.

Syrian forces last night entered the strategic border town of Kobani, blocking one route for the Turkish military to create a safe zone free of Syrian Kurdish fighters along the frontier as part of its week-old assault. The AP reports.

The Turkish incursion into northeast Syria has so far killed 218 civilians and wounded more than 650 others since it began a week ago, the Kurdish-led administration in the region said today. Reuters reports.

More than a thousand Syrian refugees have crossed the Iraqi border in the days since U.S. troops withdrew troops and Turkey moved in to push Kurdish-led forces from its southern frontier, aid groups said. Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim report at the Washington Post.

The U.N. Security Council expressed concern yesterday over the risks of a deterioration in the humanitarian situation in northeast Syria and the escape of ISIS fighters, but made no reference to the Turkish offensive on U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish militia and did not urge Turkey in its statement to end its operation. Reuters reports.

Iraqs Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali-Hakim declared today that his country would only take back Iraqi citizens detained in Syria who were fighters with ISIS and their families, saying that the home nations of other former Islamic State group members and their families should take the necessary measures. The AP reports.

Turkey is very unlikely to be expelled from NATO over its incursion into northern Syria, the AP reports.

Vice President Mike Pence today arrived in Ankara in an unlikely bid to persuade Erdogan to end Turkeys military incursion into Syria. Pence will lead a high-level delegation that includes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. national security adviser Robert OBrien, the AP reports.

TRUMP AND CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIONS

Former top adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Michael McKinley yesterday told impeachment investigators that he resigned last week out of frustration over the Trump administrations mistreatment of career U.S. diplomats and the alarming allegations related to efforts to pressure Ukraines president into investigating President Trumps political rivals, including former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Carol Morello and John Hudson report at the Washington Post.

McKinley said he quit his job because of Trumps attacks on the ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine [Marie Yovanovitch] and the State Departments unwillingness to protect career diplomats from politically motivated pressure, according to people familiar with the closed-door testimony. McKinley also warned that efforts to pressure Ukraine to procure negative information on political opponents would have a serious impact on foreign service morale and the integrity of our work overseas. Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney report at POLITICO.

Former White House senior director for European and Russian affairs Fiona Hill reportedly said she believed that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union (E.U.) Gordon Sondland created a national security risk because his inexperience could be exploited by foreign governments. Hill did not say Sondland acted maliciously but described his use of a personal phone for official diplomatic business and said he told foreign officials they could visit the White House whenever they wanted, according to two people familiar with Hills closed-door testimony before the House this week. Nicholas Fandos and Adam Goldman report at the New York Times.

Lawmakers are set to hear from Sondland today about his knowledge of efforts by Trump to urge Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and allegations the president withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine as part of that effort. Josh Lederman reports at NBC News.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry reportedly contacted Rudy Giuliani this spring at Trumps direction to address the presidents concerns about alleged Ukrainian corruption, a sign of how closely the presidents personal lawyer worked with the administration on Ukraine policy, Timothy Puko and Rebecca Ballhaus report on an exclusive interview with Perry at the Wall Street Journal.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell outlined the next few months of impeachment yesterday at the Senate Republicans weekly luncheon. McConnell told the caucus that House Democrats wanted to move expeditiously, possibly approving articles of impeachment by Thanksgiving, adding that the Senate could deal with the trial by Christmas. Rachael Bade and Erica Werner report at the Washington Post.

One by one, a parade of Trump administration career diplomats and senior officials has offered a cascade of revelations, Michael D. Shear and Nicholas Fandos report on the latest disclosures at the New York Times, writing that just a week after the White Houses declaration to House impeachment investigators, it has become clear that Trumps attempts to stonewall the Democrat-led inquiry that has imperiled his presidency and ensnared much of his inner circle are crumbling.

The addition of former Rep. Trey Gowdy to Trumps legal team dealing with the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry raises pertinent questions, Sidney Blumenthal comments at Just Security, proposing 10 questions that Gowdy needs to answer.

Sondland wedged his way into Ukraine policymaking anyway, attending the new presidents inauguration in Kiev in May and briefing Trump afterward, all over the objections of the national security adviser at the time, John Bolton, Sharon LaFraniere, Michael Crowley and Michael S. Schmidt write at the New York Times ahead of Sondlands testimony today.

Impeachment investigations have moved at staggering speed and produced a torrent of damaging revelations for the White House, Stephen Collins writes in an analysis at CNN, noting the key testimony on the horizon.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS

Three American diplomats were briefly detained on Monday in Russia near the military testing site where a mysterious explosion released radiation in August, it was reported yesterday by the New York Times.

Chinese diplomats in the U.S. must now notify American authorities before holding any meetings with U.S. officials under new rules which the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. called a violation of the Vienna Convention. The BBC reports.

President Trump appeared to confirm [yesterday] that U.S. nuclear weapons are being housed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, making him the first U.S. official to publicly acknowledge what has been considered an open secret for years, Zachary Cohen reports at CNN.

A fourth man involved in a campaign fraud case involving associates of Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is being held in federal custody, Edward Helmore reports at the Guardian.

Dozens of Democratic lawmakers yesterday pushed the State Department to label three white supremacist groups as foreign terrorist organizations, arguing that reclassification could help the U.S. seriously confront the escalating crisis of white extremist violence. Emily Birnbaum reports at the Hill.

The second part of the analysis of last weeks Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (F.I.S.A. Court) opinion, including what the opinion reveals about the number of F.B.I. queries that did not comply with internal rules, the statute, or the Fourth Amendment, is provided by Elizabeth Goitein at Just Security.

More here:
The Early Edition: October 17, 2019 - Just Security

In the second episode of Netflixs Living Undocumented, a six-part documentary series following the lives of several undocumented immigrants in the U.S., lawyer Andrea Martinez is wheeled out of a Kansas City Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on a stretcher. Her heels are off and her left knee is bloody. Moments earlier, cameras caught an ICE agent shoving her to the ground as she tried to enter the building with her three-year-old client, Noah. He was reuniting with his detained, pregnant mother before they were both deported to Honduras.

In the next scene, Martinez says to the camera, The fact that an ICE agent would assault me in front of cameras and 40 observers, knowing that Im an attorneyimagine, just imagine, how immigrants are treated in private ICE detention facilities.

At the time, Martinez and her colleague, attorney Megan Galicia, were accompanying Noah and his stepfather, Luis Diaz, to the ICE facility. Diaz was hesitant to go inside because he is also an undocumented immigrant, so the lawyers planned for him to hand off Noah in the parking lot. ICE agents previously said Diaz would not be detained, but when he arrived with his stepson, the agents told the lawyers Diaz would need to go inside because of the rain. As Martinez and Galicia asked Diaz if he wanted to enter the facility, an ICE agent approached and threatened to detain him if he didn't go inside. As the lawyers tried to join him, the ICE agent pushed them out of the door and locked it. Martinez fell to the ground, and says she suffered a fractured foot and a concussion.

Inside, Noah and his mother were deported, and Luis was detained anyway. When the agents finally let Martinez inside the facility, the officer tried to get her arrested for forcibly entering without permission. "It was the most strange set of events, because when you're told you have to come into a space and then the ICE agent flips and calls the police and lies, you think, 'What world am I living in?'" she told ELLE.com. "'What is happening?'"

Though a criminal investigation occurred right after, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Timothy Garrison, decided not to press charges. But this past Thursday, Martinez, represented by the ACLU, filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri, suing the U.S. government for excessive force and unlawful search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment, as well as the two ICE agents for assault, battery, false arrest, false imprisonment, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

ELLE.com spoke with Martinez to discuss her lawsuit, her experience watching the documentary, and how she takes care of herself with such an intense job.

After law school, I spent nine months in Guatemala assisting with a human rights organization called International Justice Mission. I returned to the U.S. and spent a year as a law clerk for a federal judge at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. During that year, I married my Honduran husband and did his immigration paperwork and realized it is a very complicated field of law. People started asking me questions about immigration law, and I became increasingly interested in the complexities of the field and decided that I was going to dedicate my career to it, in large part because I always wanted to be a human rights lawyer. I believe the rights of immigrants are human rights, and this is the human rights struggle of our day.

It started when my colleague Megan Galicia received an email to a Listserv in April 2018. It was a plea to help a pregnant detained woman. Megan said she sat on it for a couple of days. One night she couldn't sleep because she kept thinking about this Bible verse that says, I was in prison, and you visited me, from Matthew 25. She felt tormented by the thought of what it would be like to be a pregnant woman detained in a place [where] you don't speak the language, you don't know anyone. Megan finally came to me and said, "No other lawyers have agreed to take the case. Do you feel like we should go visit this woman?" And I told her, "Yeah, let's go visit her."

Courtesy of Netflix

Megan and I visited Kenia. It was really disturbing to see a pregnant immigrant woman with no criminal history being detained in a county jail with people who had committed crimes. We started reaching out to local press to talk about how disturbing this new ICE policy was. This was a fairly new policy at that time, that ICE would detain pregnant women; they used to not, in our experience. The Kansas City Star wrote up a newspaper article about her being detained, and little did we know, Netflix was scouring the internet, looking for stories of immigrants that they could feature in a new documentary. I got a call from some film producers and they said, "Hey, we'd like to follow Kenia's story. Can we come film them?" We asked Kenia and Luis if that was something they would be open to. They both said yes. And wow, did [Netflix] show up.

I don't think it's happened to any immigration attorney before. It sent shockwaves throughout the lawyer world because, of course, we expect to be able to do our jobs without getting assaulted or physically injured. Thats one of the reasons why this lawsuit is so important. Lawyers simply cannot be assaulted when doing their jobs or tricked the way that we were. These ICE agents have no excuse for behaving the way they did. There were cameras, there were observers, but they were peaceful and they were in a public space. My advice is that whenever ICE is around, people need to take out their phones and start recording what's happening.

I've been going to therapy for about a year now, since the ICE assault happened, and I immediately was like, I think I need to go to more therapy. It's really hard. It was very distressing to be locked in a room with an armed ICE agent who had just assaulted me and who was refusing me medical treatment and was trying to take my phone and not letting me call the police.

Courtesy of Andrea Martinez

It's a disgrace to the United States how these immigrants are treated. The problem is that many immigrants who are abused and mistreated by ICE are eventually deported, or [are] so voiceless that they don't sue or can't sue. That's why this lawsuit is so important. This case was about me, but it represents a lot more. It represents, in my opinion, all the immigrants who have suffered abuse and mistreatment by officials at the Department of Homeland Security and have never gotten justice for the suffering that they've endured.

Im a huge proponent of self care and taking the time you need to take care of yourself first. If we're going to help other people, we have to make sure we're strong and we're healthy as advocates. For me, that means I really prioritize my faith. Also, the other immigration lawyers throughout the United States, they're such an encouragement. We don't act like competitors. We're just all sort of surviving, and there's something that's really beautiful about that. It's a community.

Go here to see the original:
The World Watched as an ICE Agent Pushed an Immigration Lawyer to the Ground. Now, Shes Suing the U.S. Government. - ELLE.com