Secure Liberties Newsletter

Hajar on April 1, 2022

TOP LINE

Biden’s new budget proposal increases military spending; Progressives push back. The President’s new FY 2023 budget request is out, and to the chagrin of advocates hoping to lower – or even flatten – defense-related spending, the budget calls for a whopping $813 billion in military spending, a $31 billion increase from the recently passed FY 2022 appropriations bill (and $60 billion more than what Biden requested last year). This would put the US on track to spending $8 trillion on military over the next decade. Congressional Progressive Caucus leaders released a statement rallying against the increased Pentagon spending (noting half of it will likely go to private defense contractors) and asking why in the face of unquestioned military spending increases, they have been “forced to pinch pennies for decades when it comes to investments in working families.” Jake Johnston, writes more on this at Common Dreams. Paul Waldman asks another important question in WaPo: will this increase in military spending even make us safer?

The Ukrainian government is receiving access to facial recognition technology provided for free by Clearview AI. The technology will “help them identify dead soldiers, aid in informing families, and add transparency to the Russian army’s death toll,” per Forbes. The use of such technology raises serious concerns and comes with many flaws such as “false positive matches and racial biases, privacy advocates warn.” The flaws and limitations of facial recognition technology are threatening to drastically impact innocent lives. “[W]hen the technology is used to identify suspects in criminal cases, those flaws in the system can have catastrophic, life-changing consequences. People can be wrongly identified, arrested, and convicted, often without ever being told they were ID’d by a computer,” WIRED reports.

ABROAD

Saudi-UAE-led coalition’s war on Yemen enters its 8th year. Last Friday marked the 7th anniversary since the Saudi-UAE-led coalition, assisted by the United States, launched its military intervention into Yemen. On the anniversary, Reps. Jayapal, DeFazio, Khanna and Senator Sanders renewed calls for Biden to end US participation in the war, and to exert US leverage to lift the Saudi blockade. The Members of Congress also declared their commitment “to invoking Congress’ constitutional authorities to pass a new Yemen War Powers Resolution to end unauthorized involvement in this conflict.” To learn more, the Quincy Institute’s Annelle Sheline recently released a brief “The Yemen War in Numbers: Saudi Escalation and U.S. Complicity.” The Yemen Data Project also released this sobering summary on seven years of air war casualties in Yemen.

But the prospects for peace are still unclear, as this week sees back and forth attacks, disagreements over ceasefire terms, and renewed calls for a US defensive treaty. Last Friday, after the Houthis targeted a Saudi oil depot, triggering a Saudi response, they declared a three-day ceasefire to establish a potential opening for talks. If Saudi Arabia committed to ending its blockade and air campaign, the ceasefire could be permanent, a Houthi spokesman said. Hours after the announcement, Saudi forces bombed Sanaa. However, yesterday, Saudi Arabia announced its own ceasefire as Ramadan approaches, but was rejected by the Houthis because it did not include the previously requested conditions of lifting the naval and air blockade, a major driver of humanitarian harm in Yemen. The Houthis also recently refused an earlier offer to join the Gulf Cooperation Council’s yearly summit in Saudi Arabia, preferring instead to hold talks in a neutral location. It was also reported this week that the UAE and Saudi Arabia are pursuing a written security treaty with the US in light of recent attacks on energy infrastructure.

New coalition calls on Biden to ‘maximize’ diplomacy to end the Russia-Ukraine War. This week, a group of 13 foreign policy, peace, and faith organizations sent a letter to the Biden Administration, urging it to step up efforts to support a Ukraine-led negotiation to end the war, and to avoid moves that would risk escalating conflict between US and Russia (like a no-fly zone or publicly calling for regime change in Russia). Warning of the increased costs of a prolonged war, the groups outline a list of concrete ways for Biden to support diplomacy. Recently, Zelensky announced readiness to negotiate on key points ranging from Ukraine’s neutrality to Crimea and Donbas. Russia also announced it will significantly reduce military operations around Kyiv and Chernihiv as talks progress (however those claims have drawn skepticism from the US and Ukraine), as well as establishing an evacuation corridor out of Mariupol.

Bipartisan majorities want Congress to have more say over war and arms sales, new poll finds. This week the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation released the results of a new public opinion survey, which asked voters their thoughts on automatic funding cut offs if Congress didn’t proactively authorize President-initiated military operations after 60 days; whether the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force should be repealed; and whether Congress should have to approve any arms sale over $14 million. The survey found a majority of Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters supported these policies. See the full report here.

ICYMI: Check out this week’s Demand Progress briefing on ‘flip the script’ legislation to reform Congressional oversight of US arms sales. The page also contains a great list of resources on the issue.

Reps. Nikema Williams, Meijer, and Jacobs want the American public to know how much they pay for war. On Tuesday the bi-partisan group of lawmakers introduced the “Cost of War Act ” that would require the Department of Defense to publicly share the cost per American taxpayer of each military operation conducted by the United States Armed Forces since 9/11 and into the future. The bill would update and expand language passed by Rep. John Lewis passed in the 2017 NDAA.

JCPOA talks stalled again over the issue of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ FTO designation. Another key detail needs to be ironed out before an agreement can be reached on returning to the JCPOA: delisting the IRGC from the US’s terror list. Trump designated the branch of Iran’s armed forces in 2019, which carried heavy sanctions penalties (though many IRGC entities were already subjected to sanctions before the move). Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, writing in Bourse & Bazaar, argues that the benefits would outweigh the risks in delisting the IRGC if it means a deal can be reached. For more on the JCPOA, see the CPCC’s latest explainer here.

AT HOME

Biden is requesting an 11 percent increase in federal cybersecurity funding, totaling $10.9 billion across government agencies. “The request symbolizes the Biden administration’s appetite for resourcing cybersecurity at a time when the United States faces a host of cyberthreats like ransomware and potential Russian cyberattacks amid the war in Ukraine,” says The Cybersecurity 202 – more highlights here.

Okta Inc. is in hot water for delaying disclosure after the hacking group Lapsus$ released screenshots from a breach. Okta initially disclosed “an unsuccessful attempt to compromise,” but later revealed that “the attack had affected as many as 366 customers, or 2.5% of the more than 15,000 businesses and institutions it services world-wide,” reports The Wall Street Journal. The seven individuals arrested by London police were released as the investigation continues, but it is unclear if the 16-year-old Lapsus$ leader from Oxford was one of the arrested. The identity verification company’s share price has since fallen and Okta has admitted that they “made a mistake.”

Two new bipartisan bills tackling government surveillance were introduced this month. Reps. Nadler and Fitzgerald’s NDO Fairness Act “eliminates the rubber-stamp process that has governed email and phone records requests for far too long by requiring prosecutors demonstrate why there is a need to withhold information from American citizens.” Sens. Wyden, Daines, Booker and Lee’s Government Surveillance Transparency Act of 2022 will “require public reporting and notice of the hundreds of thousands of criminal surveillance orders issued by courts each year, which are typically sealed, indefinitely, keeping government surveillance hidden for years, even when the targets are never charged with any crime.” Reps. Lieu and Davidson introduced a companion bill.

In FBI v. Fazaga, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the FBI; the U.S. and EU unveiled their new transatlantic data deal. “The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this month in FBI v. Fazaga, a case challenging FBI surveillance, will make it significantly harder for people to pursue surveillance cases, and for U.S. and European Union (EU) negotiators to secure a lasting agreement for transatlantic transfers of private data,” wrote Patrick Toomey and Ashley Gorski of the ACLU.

PCLOB is tackling domestic terrorism. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) will hold a public forum to consider “privacy and civil liberties issues concerning the government’s efforts to counter domestic terrorism” in late May or early June. In the meantime, they are seeking public comment.

A 2018 audit reveals FBI agents violated agency rules dozens of times during a two-year period. “The internal review showed 82 ‘compliance errors’ in 466 open cases… from Sept. 28, 2016, to July 22, 2018,” reports The Washington Times. The audit was uncovered by Patrick Eddington of the Cato Institute in litigation against the FBI. “When you have the FBI essentially engaging in what amounts to the law enforcement version of covert action… everybody ought to be really concerned about that, especially since it’s just clearly not [getting]… the kind of attention that it really deserves,” said Eddington. The FBI stated that they “strive to avoid any compliance errors, the review did not identify any intentional misconduct or activities undertaken for an improper purpose.”

45 civil liberties groups sent a letter re: CIA bulk surveillance of Americans to the chair and ranking member of the intelligence and judiciary committees in both chambers. “Given the breadth of this type of surveillance and its roots in an unaccountable claim of inherent presidential power, Congress must act now or risk diminishing its own power to conduct intelligence oversight and to establish the rules governing intelligence surveillance of Americans,” wrote the groups. The letter is in response to a revelation by Sens. Heinrich and Wyden that the CIA has been operating bulk surveillance programs for years, acquiring not only financial transactions but also some other kind of record — in bulk.

Israel denies Ukraine access to NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to avoid upsetting Russia, reports The Washington Post. Ukraine has attempted to acquire this surveillance technology since 2019, “but Israel’s Defense Exports Controls Agency blocked such licenses.” NSO Group just can’t seem to avoid media attention. NSO Group’s past and current owners are battling in court re: assessing how much the company is worth – the ousted leaders are hoping for a payout. “NSO has reportedly mulled shutting down its Pegasus division” which “could leave NSO as a much smaller and potentially less valuable company.” Pegasus accounts for approximately half of the company’s revenue. In other news, the Chief Minister of West Bengal stated that NSO Group tried to sell Pegasus to Bengal Police.

More on Guantanamo:

Mark Fallon–former NCIS Deputy Assistant Director and Homeland Security Senior Executive–wrote that the “Supreme Court’s rejection of Abu Zubaydah’s plea is another black mark on American justice.”
Virginia Thomas wants to fill Guantanamo in response to the “stolen election,” according to text messages she sent to Mark Meadows.
During Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson faced scrutiny over her work on behalf of Guantánamo detainees.
In US v. Husayn (Abu Zubaydah): “[o]f course he was tortured; no one can credibly maintain otherwise,” said Justice Breyer.