Secure Liberties Newsletter
TOP LINE
Remember Trump’s lame duck $23 billion UAE arms sale? Biden has given it the green light. After conducting a review of the sale of advanced weaponry and aircraft to the United Arab Emirates, the Biden Administration has announced it will go forward with the sale despite serious reservations by civil society and lawmakers over UAE’s human rights record in Yemen and previous transfers of arms to malign groups in the region. The Forum on the Arms Trade has helpfully collected many opposing statements here.
Biden commits to withdrawing troops from Afghanistan before that war’s 20th anniversary, as calls for the same continued to roll in from members and veterans (among other civil society).
NYPD used 217,000 secret subpoenas on tens of thousands since 2010 for “internal investigations,” citing Patriot Act, per NBC NY. Microsoft alerted a former NYPD officer that his former bosses were after the information, apparently because he was critical of the department on social media. Reminder: no Representatives were allowed to vote on meaningful reforms to the Patriot Act in 2019 or 2020, and it took 9 months after (partial) sunset to get basic, critical information.
“We are so far past the scope of what any member serving in ‘01 or ‘02 imagined” — Sen. Coons on AUMF repeal. The 2001 AUMF is considered the biggest challenge, but without a doubt, Congress appears to be stepping up its efforts to assert its war powers authority. Relatedly, Rules Ranking Member Tom Cole endorsed sunsetting AUMFs here (hat tip @sorendayton).
There has been a lot of movement the past two weeks to end the US-backed Saudi blockade of Yemen. More than 80 representatives have signed letters to President Biden urging him to use U.S. leverage with the Saudi government to lift the blockade. This was coupled with 70+ organizations and a dozen celebrities sending a similar letter to the administration. Currently, young Yemeni-American activists are on their 16th day of hunger strike in front of the White House to oppose the blockade. However, the Biden Administration has denied the existence of a blockade and has downplayed Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen’s fuel shortages.
ARMS, INTEL, and NDAA
Worldwide Threat Hearings are upon us (SSCI today, HPSCI tomorrow). The unclassified report, per ODNI, “examines the diverse array of threats that exist against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, great power competition, and rapidly evolving technology.” As we watch, the most notable two things so far: the NSA specifically said the administration is not seeking expanded surveillance authorities but does want more private companies to give it data, and Sen. Wyden is searching for answers on FISA, why emergency warrants aren’t being used in cybersecurity contexts, and the purchase of data.
HFAC and Rules held two hearings advancing the Congressional reassertion of its war powers authority, which included support for the same from unlikely voices like former executive branch officials Jack Goldsmith (formerly OLC) and John Bellinger III (formerly NSC). Chairmen McGovern and Meeks followed up with a joint statement citing “emerging bipartisan consensus that we must end endless wars and reclaim Congress’ constitutional responsibility over why and when we send our uniformed men and women into harm’s way.”
White House announces 11 key national security and law enforcement nominations, from director of NCTC (Christy Abizaid) to National Cyber Director (Chris Inglis). Notably, this continues the trend that all top cyber spots have gone to former NSA officials.
Humanitarian impact of sanctions continues to worry civil society. 55 civil society groups representing over 65 million supporters sent a letter to Biden commending his plan to review the impact of U.S. sanctions on global pandemic responses, but called for a broader review of sanctions’ impacts and urged implementing several recommendations to mitigate their negative humanitarian impacts.
Appeals court overturns lower ruling, holding terror watchlist is Constitutional. We’ll keep tracking this important case, which now appears headed for en banc review and, perhaps, SCOTUS.
See a refugee camp in Yemen from the eyes of a girl who lives there. No politics in this one, but a window worth looking through.
Biden snubs progressives with slight increase in defense budget amid calls for major cuts. Last Friday, the Biden Administration revealed their defense budget request of $715 billion, which is a 1.6 percent increase over the last budget under Trump, who significantly raised the budget during his tenure. Progressive lawmakers have been urging the president to cut the budget and use the money for social spending, with some calling for at least a 10% reduction.
SURVEILLANCE
Facing down Clearview AI: Mijente, NorCal Resist, and local activists are suing the facial recognition company Clearview AI over allegedly unlawful surveillance activities. The LA Times has the story. Speaking of Clearview AI…
A BuzzFeed News investigation has found that employees at law enforcement agencies across the US ran thousands of Clearview AI facial recognition searches — often without the knowledge of the public or even their own departments. (Hat tip @JakeLaperruque.)
CBP and ICE are tracking cars through GM OnStar, Geotab, and Spireon, per Forbes — another factor pushing the surveillance debate toward location tracking and into the automotive industry.
PCLOB releases 6-year “report” on Executive Order 12333! But it’s missing anything that looks like an investigation, which civil liberties advocates were most interested in. Those problems aside, it may be a useful overview of the murky and controversial authority. Meanwhile, 12333 (and Section 702) continue to be a threat to US-EU business.
HPSCI Rs question authority to conduct Domestic Violence Extremism Assessment, which the ODNI, DOJ, and DHS just released an unclassified summary of. HPSCI Rs sent a letter levying a variety of challenges to the assessment. Though some may be detached, what stuck out to us was a request for “a memorandum outlining the legal authorities you believe each IC element has to conduct any activities related to domestic violent extremist threats, to include collection, analysis, dissemination, and operations.” Others have been asking closely related questions.
Surveillance hawks are framing the SolarWinds hack as basis for more domestic surveillance authority, per this thoughtful analysis by journalist Kim Zetter. Zetter identifies the claimed gap in authorities and the opposition. As Sen. Wyden said, “It’s … unclear why the FBI’s existing emergency surveillance authorities aren’t adequate and why it’s somehow necessary to unravel a decades-old consensus that the NSA should stick to its foreign mission.”
Meanwhile, Russian hackers were found to have accessed emails of DHS secretary Chad Wolf and cybersecurity staff as part of the hack, and the FBI and CISA are warning about more security vulnerabilities… and the FBI is also deleting malicious code from computers without prior notice to users.
India is standing up to WhatsApp (its biggest market), bringing the company to court over its controversial decision to share data with parent company Facebook. India’s antitrust body, the Competition Commission of India, has since ordered an investigation into the policy changes.
Court dismisses most of a lawsuit against the FBI, brought by the ACLU and Xiaoxing Xi, a professor who was wrongfully accused of espionage using secret evidence (that we still don’t know the origins of). The last claim standing is against the government’s wrongful surveillance of Professor Xi. More about his case here.
LA Progressive decries ACLU CCOPS proposal, arguing that the “compromised” initiative “undermines organizing efforts against police surveillance.” Compromising on surveillance in exchange for transparency, they argue, allows police to frame the issue at the expense of the community, and ultimately is “inherently anti-Black.”
Boehner’s book offers an example of how the Speaker of the House picks HPSCI members, a process unique to that committee, and one Demand Progress and other groups have called to change. The former Speaker describes demands from Michele Bachmann to be on Ways and Means — knowing she had no support in the caucus, he simply appointed her to HPSCI.
RELEVANT, TOO
Biden’s “Team of Rival Consulting Firms” — around 20 officials have ties to the same three firms
Jason Pye: Bipartisan Consensus on AUMF Repeal
Op-ed by Yemeni hunger striker opposing the blockade: I’m on hunger strike until the U.S. ends all support for the Saudi-led blockade against Yemen
The Senate confirmed William Burns, a former diplomat, as CIA director by unanimous consent (this one’s a little old, but notable nonetheless)
Coded Bias is on Netflix — a film Vice journalist Janus Rose calls “The most important film about AI you can watch today.”
Op-Ed: How the U.S. invested in the war on terrorism at the cost of public health
Sen. Hawley: ‘Time to Ditch the Patriot Act’
National Intelligence Council released Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World
New CRS Reports of interest: National Emergency Powers and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): An Overview
BOTTOM LINE
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