CBP Refuses to Tell Congress How It Is Tracking Americans Without a Warrant
vice.com
vice.com
Ironically the legislation that created DHS (a big mistake made opportunistically at the time) also included a GOP wish that made it not subject to the same set of employee rules the rest of the civil service is.* So DHS is the easiest to do this with.
* It is still partially unionized, though the GOP tried to eliminate this when forming the department as well.
A real analysis of the three branches including the fourth estate will show the executive has gobbled them all up in the backroom, of course allowing the illusion to continue for the public. This bribery-blackmail system is bipartisan, and as for the executive... it's the cabinet and shadow cabinet with real power.
This part is over the top which distracts from a more interesting direction for the conversation to take.
Epstein wasn't a one off. There are many more Epstein's you haven't heard about yet, still doing their thing. They don't do it alone either, you have intelligence agencies of all kinds involved, because of the power differential it offers them. This is the machiavellian realpolitik of power. Lets have the courage to talk about it and not shirk the responsibility to do so.
1. https://www.mintpressnews.com/shocking-origins-jeffrey-epste...
2. https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/23/long-before-epstein-se...
PS. Wikipedia is heavily controlled on these topics, so don't reference it expecting to find details on the subject. A good example of this editorial censorship would be the Franklin Scandal. If one were to just read the wiki entry one would walk away thinking it was just a hoax, which isn't even close to the truth.
Being an extremist, you are vastly more likely to unite the country against yourself and roll back any progress on your cause than you are to advance it.
If they get much more broken there's going to be riots in the places rich white people live.
Now that I think about your idea more, I agree. Destroy the entire social safety net, bring in 20-50 million refugees and hope America survives the civil war.
Mass migration also hinders assimilation. When you have a steady stream of migrants, those migrants can integrate into the local culture. When you have a massive burst as you would if you suddenly deregulated immigration, those individuals have enough non-native support as to never come under pressure to assimilate. This is not a good thing and is precisely what leads to massive nationalist backlash.
All that being said, I do support generally increasing quotas while also largely uncapping skilled immigration.
But in the end that funds the margins, not the bulk of the funds required.
They have teeth if they truly want to get to the bottom of it, don't let anyone fool you. The Legislature has it's own "Executive-Lite" arm specifically intended to facilitate the conductance of legislative business whether the summoned feels like cooperating or not.
That the Legislature refuses to flex that capability is more a sign of the woeful state of modern politics than anything else.
I want to see the Mace of the United States get used, damnit!
However, it also sounds like they're guilty of contempt of congress. Jail the guy they were talking to, call his superior. Repeat until you have the answers.
It is the Congress' job to conduct oversight. You can't have any "oversight" without cooperation and truthfullness.
There are plenty of logistical issues. I'm not sure the Sergeant at Arms even owns handcuffs, much less a place to keep people being held, and I'm sure it would suddenly become a huge scandal - but it would be very interesting.
There is no actual jail on premises.
In 1934, the Senate cited two men for contempt of Congress and sentenced them to 10 days in the DC jail. One, William P. MacCracken, Jr, fought the case in court, eventually losing in the Supreme Court case Jurney v. MacCracken of 1935. He served one night of his sentence in the home of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and another in the Willard hotel... I was unable to figure out if he ever actually ended up in the DC jail.
"Sir, this is my guest room, please don't break the window trying to escape or my wife will be the one deputized to recapture you."
Maybe not, but the House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms jointly supervise the Capitol Police, whose officers I'm sure either can deputize at need. I'm fairly certain that the Capitol Police both have and are intimately familiar with the use of the whole panoply of law enforcement gear.
AIUI, that's true. However, action (and inaction) by the Executive and inaction by Congress, not just recently either, complicates matters.
A pretty good article at Lawfare[0] discusses this at some length.
Also a bill[1] was introduced in the House last June to clarify some of these issues.
Hopefully more attention will be paid to ensuring that Congressional oversight is able to function effectively.
However, one must also guard against politicization of those processes -- but, IMHO, that's less important than making sure the Congress can effectively exercise its oversight role.
[0] https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-congress-fine-federal-offici...
[1] https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-lieu-...
A lot of this came up during the investigations prior to the Trump impeachment in the context of forcing witnesses to appear.
It's slightly scary to think about how total surveillance works on the populace in general, but nobody has any interest in most people (and knowing surveillance is in operation is enough motivation to make people intentionally less interesting.) Politicians and corporate decisionmakers are and will be the most subject to surveillance and control through that surveillance.
In short, blackmail doesn't work on the shameless.
It appears as something like “Leaked photographs reveal scandalous behavior by Congressman X. This scandal destroyed his reputation in Congress leading to him being ineffective in Congress, and made him deeply unpopular with voters, which will lead to him losing his next election”.
Blackmail works on anybody.
I'm far less convinced that their investigative and committee powers should be held in that high of a regard, they're too easily hijacked by partisan politics and often fail to have any meaningful impact.
If they're truly that concerned about the problem, then make it illegal for federal law enforcement agencies to buy data on suspects or investigative targets from third-party sources. If you don't definitively kill the market, then I suspect you might just be looking for a political hand out.
I'm finding it hard to understand why you wouldn't want congressional committees (i.e. the people who regulate the country) to have the power to investigate bodies established and funded by Congress. Can you clarify?
> they're too easily hijacked by partisan politics and often fail to have any meaningful impact.
When somebody says "I think X because Y", please don't fire back with "I finding it hard to understand why you think X, can you clarify?"
His/her statement is relatively vacuous without further clarification, which is why I asked for it.
I think the examples are self evident to most people who follow American politics. If you had indicated that you were a foreigner and indicated that you were asking for an example, not a clarification, I might have given a kinder response.
An existing law says CBP must answer questions from Congress, but they're simply not complying.
How would writing any new law fix that? It doesn't matter what any new laws states, CBP can just continue to not follow them.
They may however take away some people's livelihood capriciously and without due process.
Well, not quite. If Amazon fires you in the first few years of working there they'll demand part of the signing bonus back. That may not be wage garnishment but I know firsthand that it feels coercive to people in that situation; a fine for quitting a job is awfully close to indentured servitude. I quit as soon as that period had past but I would have quit a year earlier if not for that policy.
And speaking of indentured servitude, H1B workers have it even worse since quiting or getting fired might get them deported, not merely fined.
This is a really wild take! Why would Amazon be required to keep doing business with some random product manufacturer or reseller?
You may think it's foolish to create such a fragile business. I know I do. But the fact remains that this happens. Ebay and YouTube are to other obvious examples of corporate platforms people use to pay rent, which many cut them off capriciously and without due process. As are mobile appstores, particularly Apple's.
The weather app would be a little tricky, but clearly what we need is a way to spoof our location. Just pick a random coordinates each time these apps request it. Add as much noise to the data as possible to make it as useless as possible. I don't think it is enough to limit location to when we're using the app. We need to flood these apps with bad data.
A handful of us nerds may run some niche version of Android that allows this, but it is hard to imagine Google allowing random location spoofing on all the phones with its Play Services installed, especially considering that Google itself wants to know your exact location for advertising purposes.
The US's problem is that Congress has abdicated most of its power to government agencies in the Executive branch, and politicians are happy with this as it makes them less responsible for failures to properly govern.
This would be the first hypothesis I'd investigate. That politicians would launch investigations for mere political purposes seems plausible.
https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts/who-br...
For example, Congress holds Constitutional authority to appropriate funds to agencies. A great place to see where Congress exercises that authority is via spending bills[1][2]. Depending on the organization, they will get into nitty gritty details to the point of almost micromanaging an organization. As an example of where you do not typically see/look, is the lead up to the creation of spending bills. There is a ton of research, cajoling, persuading, and compromising on all sides of the aisle during that process.
It may seem that there is not a balance of power, but perceptions are notoriously faulty. It is the same way that if I were to watch the news regularly, I would think the world is being taken over by terrorists or that crime is at an all time high - neither of which are true. Things are not nearly as bad as they seem and people have a habit of romanticizing the past.
That being said, there is currently a divided government (e.g., political science speak for Legislative and Executive branches being controlled by different parties). In addition, this administration has had three Supreme Court appointments in a single term. That is pretty much unheard of. The Legislative Branch has also delegated some pretty significant authorities to the Executive, which has been problematic in some cases.
I guess to wrap this up - what you are seeing is not new. The behavior is just more apparent because of modern society's unprecedented access to information and a recent trend of politicians who don not have enough shame to hide their shady behavior.
[1] 2020 Spending Bill - https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1865...
[2] FY 2021 Intelligence Authorization Act - https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/390...
Congress has taken the path of contacting the agency's IG and asking them to investigate and follow up. In a situation where the the IG is a trusted actor, which is usually true, this is a normal and reasonable preliminary step for Congress to take in an investigation.
Congress have the option to get increasingly adversarial in their oversight if it doesn't work out, but the nice thing about working with the IG is, there are no constitutional separation of powers issues with an investigation run by a cabinet-level agency's IG. When the system is functioning halfway normally, bureaucrats and political appointees in the agency must cooperate with the IG, and woe to them if they don't. Contrast that with a Congressional investigation that might be contested legally in a number of ways based on separation of powers concerns. Constitutionally and practically, it's the difference between the executive branch being investigated by the legislative branch and the executive branch being investigated by their own superiors in the executive branch.
The trick is that the system assumes IGs strive to be independent and empowers them accordingly, but the Trump administration has fired [1] multiple IGs that he felt were not friendly to his cause. With the investigation, if the IGs are not working in good faith, the Attorney General thwarts the investigation, the President is a crook, or whatever, the whole system melts down. And in this instance - where Congress is aware that the IG and others might not be working with their normal independence - Congress taking a lighter approach might be deference to the executive branch's authority, but practically, it's recognition of the fact that there's a decent chance there will be new cabinet officials, a new Attorney General, and a new President a few months from now. It's an inappropriate time for them to go nuclear.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_dismissal_of_inspectors_g...
Last I checked they were not special ops doing off the books assassination mission deep behind enemy lines.
I've since turned on the limiting feature. For those that didn't know:
[0] https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/the-government-has-your-...
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It also seems to follow that slippery slope proverb "they came ... until they came for you" - government started by outsourcing (to military contractors) illegal actions against foreign citizens, statistically mostly accidental civilians, and the citizenry was mainly fine with it, and now government seems to apply the outsourcing loophole (starting with data, the rest will come later) to its own citizenry.
Failure to obey Congress? We're talking about agency which seems to have lost all humanity in their agents who shackle pregnant women right before and after delivery - i'm waiting for some military contractor to come up with and the CBP to buy the shackles allowing delivery while still on. Compare to that some database search without warrant...
I mean it is kind of naive to think that illegality and inhumanity can be practiced while confined just at one agency or area of operations without metastasizing across.
A fair assessment of the current situation. However, there's nothing stopping the US (or any other government) from restricting both the collection of such data and/or government use of that collected data.
What's apparently missing is the political will. Which points to the larger problem in the US -- sewers of filthy lucre flowing through the political system.
If you get rid of the necessity for all that money with strict public funding of elections, along with resources to allow all citizens to express themselves on an equal footing with everyone else, we're more likely to get a government focused on the needs of constituents rather than the desires of big money contributors.
Similarly, Palantir's collection of data isn't considered to be owned by those who it documents.
I may despise Palantir, or think there should be other reforms to how data "ownership" works, and I may think that private companies are creating a giant Constitution-circumventing loophole, but it's very disengenuous to suggest that our history would make any government purchasing or licensing of something from a private business subject to a warrant.
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-usgs-do-a-survey-or-study-my-p...