Freedom To Travel – Page 21

Apr 17 2015

Bill C-51 would match Canadian no-fly scheme to the US — and go further

This week is Stop C-51 Week, marked by events throughout Canada and elsewhere in opposition to Bill C-51, currently under consideration by the Parliament of Canada, “An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.”

We’ve joined a who’s who of civil liberties and human rights organizations, activists, and experts from Canada and around the world who have co-signed a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper opposing Bill C-51.

It’s only a slight oversimplification to say that Bill C-51 is Canada’s version of the USA Patriot Act, 13 years later but on steroids. It appears to violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canadian obligations pursuant to several human rights treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). But if enacted, and if not voided on constitutional grounds by Canadian courts, it would purport to authorize a wide range of government spying, “pre-crime” policing (profiling), and preemptive interference with the exercise of fundamental rights.

Apr 16 2015

Feds change no-fly procedures to evade judicial review

In updates filed with Federal courts in at least two pending challenges to US government “no-fly” orders, lawyers for the government have revealed plans for changes to the internal procedures administrative agencies use in deciding who they “allow” to fly — and who they don’t.

While these changes look like cosmetic but inadequate improvements, they actually include an obscure but much more significant change designed to make it harder for people on the no-fly list to get the factual basis (if any) for the decision to put them on the list reviewed by a judge.

By shifting official responsibility for administrative no-fly decisions from the FBI to the TSA, the government hopes to bring those decisions fully within the scope of a special Federal jurisdictional law, 49 U.S.C. § 46110, which is designed to preclude any effective judicial review of TSA decisions — but which doesn’t apply to decisions (nominally) made by the FBI or other agencies outside the DHS.

This law allows TSA administrative orders to be reviewed only by Courts of Appeal (which have no ability to conduct trials or fact-finding), on the basis of the “administrative record” supplied to the Court of Appeals by the TSA itself. The Court of Appeals is forbidden to second-guess the TSA’s fact-finding, even if it was made through a secret and one-sided internal process: “Findings of fact by the Secretary, Under Secretary, or Administrator, if supported by substantial evidence, are conclusive.” As long as there is substantial evidence in the record constructed by the TSA to justify its actions, the Court of Appeals is forbidden to consider the weight of contrary evidence, even if it is also in the record. And the TSA is free to decide that evidence submitted by anyone on the no-fly list is, for that very reason, not credible.

No-fly cases have been considered by District Courts, and one of them has gone to trial, only because the FBI (as the agency nominally responsible for the inter-agency Terrorist Screening Center) has been declared by both TSA and FBI to be the agency officially responsible for no-fly decisions. When FBI decisions are challenged by people who claim their rights have been violated, those decisions are reviewed in the normal manner by District Courts that can conduct trials, hear testimony, receive evidence, and make their own findings of fact — without being required to rely exclusively on self-serving submissions by the FBI itself.

Apr 09 2015

Why did the TSA prevent these people from flying?

Documents newly released to us by the TSA strongly suggest that the TSA has been lying about whether people are “allowed” by the TSA to fly without showing ID, and that decisions about whether to allow travelers to fly without ID are being made arbitrarily, on the basis of irrelevant and unreliable commercial data and/or at the “discretion” of individual field-level TSA staff. The TSA documents also show that, at least for the limited sample of data initially released, the “false-positive” rate of watch-list matches is 100%.

The TSA has for many years been contradicting itself, both in word and in deed, as to whether travelers are required show government-issued (or any other) ID credentials in order to fly, or whether it is possible to fly without ID.

TSA signs at airports say that passengers are “required” to show ID. But the TSA has repeatedly told courts at all levels — from in camera (secret) submissions to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Gilmore v. Gonzales in 2006 to public testimony of the TSA’s witness in the (unsuccessful) state court frame-up of Phil Mocek in Albuquerque in 2011 — that these and other official TSA notices to passengers are false, that ID is not required to fly, and that the TSA does have (secret) “procedures” that allow people to fly without having or showing ID.

The TSA’s actions are equally bipolar. People who say they have lost their ID cards or had them stolen are “allowed” to fly every day. But people who the TSA deems (for secret or not-so-secret reasons, or completely arbitrarily) to be”suspicious” or “uncooperative” are routinely subjected to retaliation and summary sanctions including denial of their right to travel. Mr. Mocek, for example, was both prevented from boarding the flight for which he had a valid ticket, and falsely arrested by local police at the behest of TSA staff, when he tried to fly without ID and to document the process that the TSA claimed would have allowed him to do so.

What’s the real story? From our close reading of the available evidence, it appears that:

There are no publicly-disclosed “rules” (and probably not even any unambiguous secret rules) defining what is or is not permitted or required of travelers at TSA checkpoints, or what conditions the TSA imposes on the exercise of the right to travel by air.
The TSA claims to have the legal authority, and in practice exercises actual power, to determine who to allow to fly, and who not to allow to fly, in an entirely secret, standardless, and arbitrary manner, at its sole discretion, which discretion is often delegated to front-line TSA staff.

How does this work in practice? We are just beginning to find out.

Apr 08 2015

Where can you complain if your human rights are violated?

As we’ve been pointing out for years, the right to travel is not just a right under the First Amendment to the US Constitution (“the right of the people… peaceably to assemble”) but a human right guaranteed by an international treaty ratified by the US (“the right to freedom of movement”).

But what good is a “human right” guaranteed by international treaty if there is no independent entity to which you can complain, and which has the authority to enforce your rights?

At a minimum, what’s needed is the ability of people whose human rights have been violated by the US government to seek redress through US courts, and the ability of those courts to order the government to comply with its treaty obligations.

Given the US government’s current interpretation of many human rights treaties as not being “self-effectuating”, that would require legislation by Congress to effectuate those treaties by creating a cause of action for treaty violations and give US courts jurisdiction to hear such complaints.

That’s exactly what the UN Human Rights Committee concluded a year ago, following its periodic review of US implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR):

The State party [i.e. the US] should … Taking into account its declaration that provisions of the Covenant are non-self-executing, ensure that effective remedies are available for violations of the Covenant, including those that do not, at the same time, constitute violations of U.S. domestic law, and undertake a review of such areas with a view to proposing to the Congress implementing legislation to fill any legislative gaps.

In the year since this recommendation from the UNHRC, neither the Administration nor any member of Congress has proposed such effectuating legislation for the ICCPR or any other human rights treaty.

So in the meantime, where can you turn if your human rights are violated by the US government?

Mar 31 2015

You can’t tell the travelers without a scorecard

[Point scores assigned by TSA “Behavior Detection Officers” are used to decide whether to search you or your luggage, interrogate you, call the police, or allow you to fly. (Diagram from 2013 GAO report. Click image for larger version.]

The Intercept has published the scorecard used by TSA “Behavior Detection” precogs to assign points to travelers, as part of the TSA’s “SPOT” pre-crime scheme for deciding which travelers to subject more intrusive search and/or interrogation or “refer” to local police:

Whether you call SPOT and the TSA’s other pre-crime profiling programs “junk science”, “culturally biased”, or simply “unconstitutional”, it’s clear that the TSA can’t tell the terrorist travelers with or without a scorecard.

The SPOT scorecard includes pairs of, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” point categories. “Avoids eye contact with security personnel or LEO [Law Enforcement Officer]”? +1 point. On the other hand, “Cold penetrating stare” or “Widely open staring eyes”? +2 points.

Disturbingly, some of the largest point values are assigned for the exercise of First Amendment rights to express opinions, ask questions, and observe what is in plain sight: “Asks the BDO [Behavior Detection Officer] security-related questions”? +3 points. “Shows arrogance and verbally expresses contempt for the screening process”? +2 points. “Scans area, appearing to look for security personnel or LEO”? +2 points.

In what appears to be flagrant discrimination against people with disabilities, anyone attempting to communicate in sign language is severely penalized: “Exhibiting hand gestures to others”? +3 points.

Part of the scorecard is broken down into “Stress”, “Fear”, and “Deception” categories. Stress and fear would seem to be natural responses to being profiled, judged, interrogated, and groped by government agents in cop-like uniforms who claim discretionary and deliberately unpredictable power to stop us from exercising our rights. What traveler anywhere in the world doesn’t tense up when they are stopped at a checkpoint, and breathe a sigh of relief when they have made it through?

Points are also assigned for attributes having nothing to do with these factors, and which cannot lawfully be construed as constituting a reasonable basis for suspicion sufficient to justify search or detention.

Are you one of a party of, “Males traveling together who are NOT part of a family”? +1 point. Take that, pairs of traveling salesmen, and pairs of Mormon Elders on a mission! Do you appear to be a “Member of a family”? -2 points. What’s a “family”? And how can the TSA tell?

Possession of duct tape “which the passenger has no apparent reason to possess”? +1 point. Isn’t the reason to carry duct tape that you never know for what purpose you will need it?

Cash is considered presumptively and for outbound international travelers conclusively suspicious. Possession of, “Large sum of monies leaving U.S.”, or “Large sum of monies with no apparent reason to possess”? Automatically notify a law enforcement officer.

Some of the scoring categories appear to be purely cultural or fashion bigotry: “Face pale from recent shaving of beard”? +1 point. Others show age and/or gender bias: “Facial flushing while undergoing screening”? +1 point. So much for any woman who happens to have a hot flash at a checkpoint. “Apparent married couple with both spouses over 55 years old”? -2 points.

The Intercept quotes two unnamed former TSA “Behavior Detection Officer” managers. One says the scorecard is, “designed in such a way that virtually every passenger will exhibit multiple ‘behaviors’ that can … justify BDO interaction with a passenger. A license to harass.” Another describes the SPOT porgram as, “Bullshit. Complete bullshit.” We couldn’t have said it better.

Mar 23 2015

Smile for the camera, citizen!

The Department of Homeland Security is extending its photography of travelers at US border crossings, ports, and international airports from foreign nationals to US citizens entering and leaving our own country.

On January 5, 2004, under an “interim final rule” for the “US-VISIT” program effective the same day it was published in the Federal Register, agents of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began fingerprinting and photographing foreign visitors on their arrival and again on their departure from the US.

At first, only those foreign citizens who required visas to enter the US were given this treatment. A few countries. starting with Brazil, took this as a sign of their “least favored nation” status with the US government, and reciprocated by photographing and fingerprinting US citizens arriving in and departing from their countries. Many other countries didn’t take things quite so far, but partially reciprocated to the extent of increasing their visa or entry fees for US visitors, or imposing new fees where entry for US tourists had been free, to match the US$135 minimum fee for a tourist or transit visa to the US for citizens of most other countries.

On August 31, 2004, under yet another “interim” rule effective the same day it was published, fingerprinting and photography at US airports and borders was extended to citizens of countries in the US “visa waiver program”.

For the third phase of expansion of US-VISIT fingerprinting and photography of border crossers, the DHS published a notice of proposed rulemaking in 2006, giving organizations and individuals a chance to object before the rules were finalized. But the numerous objections, including ours, were ignored. In December 2008, the DHS promulgated a final rule extending the fingerprinting and photography of visitors to all non-US citizens, including permanent US residents (green-card holders).

Now, without bothering to propose or finalize any new regulations, DHS has announced through a non-binding “Privacy Impact Assessment” (PIA) posted on its website that CBP is already conducting a “Facial Recognition Air Entry Pilot” program under which some unspecified fraction of US citizens entering the US by air are being required to submit to facial photography by CBP agents:

U.S. citizens with U.S. e-passports arriving at air ports of entry testing the technology may be selected to participate in the pilot at port discretion. Individuals that are selected do not have the option to opt out of this process.

Facial recognition software is being used to compare the photos to the digital photos stored on the RFID chips in US citizens’ passports, and to assign a score indicating the robot’s “confidence” that the photo in the passport and the photo taken at the airport depict the same person. “The facial recognition system is a tool to assist CBPOs [CBP officers] in the inspection process.”

The selection is supposedly random, but there is no specified limit on how large the percentage of US citizens subjected to this requirement might be:

Supervisory CBPOs (SCBPO) will set the standard for the random selection criteria and have discretion to change the criteria as needed. For example, the SCBPO may choose to select every fifth traveler but may change to every third or every seventh traveler at his or her discretion.

DHS has a history of prolonging and expanding “tests” as cover for de facto full implementation of controversial requirements. There’s nothing in this PIA to rule out the extension of the “pilot” program to nine out of ten arriving US citizens, or 99 out of 100.

Disturbingly but characteristically, DHS suggests that US citizens returning to our own country can be required to do whatever is necessary to “satisfy” CBP officers:

A person claiming U.S. citizenship must establish that fact to the examining [CBP] officer’s satisfaction [emphasis added] and must present a U.S. passport or alternative documentation as required by 22 CFR part 53. If such applicant for admission fails to satisfy the examining immigration officer that he or she is a U.S. citizen, he or she shall thereafter be inspected as an alien.

Mar 20 2015

Amtrak lies about police use of passenger data

[Passenger Name Record (PNR) view from Amtrak “Police GUI”. Click image for larger version.]

The first “interim” release of documents responsive to our FOIA request for records of police and other government access to Amtrak reservation data show that Amtrak is not only giving police root access and a dedicated user interface to mine passenger data for general state and local law enforcement purposes, but also lying to passengers about this, misleading Amtrak’s own IT and planning staff about the legal basis for these actions, and violating Canadian if not necessarily US law.

Our FOIA request was prompted by Amtrak’s obviously incomplete response to an earlier FOIA request from the ACLU. That response omitted any mention of government access to Amtrak reservation data, even though we’ve seen records of Amtrak travel in DHS files about individual citizens obtained in response to previous Privacy Act and FOIA requests. The documents we have just received were clearly responsive to the ACLU’s request, and should have been, but weren’t, included in Amtrak’s response to that request.

Amtrak is still working on our request, but has begun providing us with responsive records as it completes “processing” of them: search, retrieval, and redaction. (Amtrak is even further behind in responding to some other FOIA requests, such as this one for certain disciplinary records related to misconduct by Amtrak Police.)

The first “interim” release to us by Amtrak includes just a few documents: a 2004 letter from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to the Amtrak Police legal department, requesting “voluntary” provision by Amtrak to CBP of Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS) identification data about all passengers on international Amtrak trains, and a 2004-2005 project summary and scoping document for the work that would be required by Amtrak’s IT department to automate the collection, maintenance in Amtrak’s “ARROW” passenger reservation database, and delivery to CBP of this data.

Mar 18 2015

Appeals court hears argument on appeal by “Freedom Flyer” Phil Mocek

A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit US Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Denver yesterday on the lawsuit brought by “Freedom Flyer” Phil Mocek against the TSA checkpoint staff and Albuquerque police responsible for falsely arresting him and trying to delete his audio and video recordings in retaliation for his trying to exercise his Constitutional rights to travel by air without carrying government-issued ID documents, and to film and record the TSA’s “ID verification” process for flyers without ID.

Mr. Mocek was able to recover his audio and video recording after the police returned his camera when they let him out of jail. On the basis of that recording, Mr. Mocek was acquitted by an Albuquerque jury of all of the trumped-up criminal charges.

After his acquittal, Mr. Mocek filed a Federal civil rights lawsuit against the TSA, the Albuquerque police department, and the individual TSA employees and ABQ airport police responsible for violating his rights.

Mr. Mocek’s lawsuit was dismissed, before it could go to trial, by US District Court Judge James Browning in Albuquerque, who ruled that Mr. Mocek had “failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted.”

The issue in rulings like this is not whether the plaintiff (Mr. Mocek) has proven his case, or what the judge believes actually happened. Those are issues for a jury to decide, after hearing the evidence presented in a trial. A motion to dismiss can be granted only if — even assuming that everything the plaintiff says in the complaint can be proven to be true — those facts would not be sufficient to constitute a basis for a finding that the plaintiff’s legal rights have been violated.

That’s what is now being considered by three judges of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals (Presiding Judge Timothy Tymkovich and Judges Neil Gorsuch and Jerome Holmes), and that was argued before them on Tuesday morning in Denver by lawyers representing Mr. Mocek, the TSA and its employees, and the city of Albuquerque (on behalf of the Albuquerque police department, its airport division, and its employees).

[Official audio recording by the court in downlaodable podcast and streaming formats.]

Clearly there are problems with the Albuquerque Police Department which might call for oversight or corrective action by the Federal courts. Five cases, all of them appeals from decisions of the US District Court for New Mexico, were argued on Tuesday before the 10th Circuit panel that heard argument in Mocek v. Albuquerque et al. Of those five cases, three were lawsuits against the Albuquerque police, under the same Federal civil rights statute as in Mr. Mocek’s case, for a variety of violations of individuals’ Constitutional rights by the police department and its officers.

In many respects, all of these appeals concerned the limits of legal liability, and the corresponding limits of impunity, for actions by government agencies and agents that violate individuals’ rights.

Mar 16 2015

“Naked American Hero” goes to court

John Brennan, the “Naked American Hero” who took off all his clothes at a TSA checkpoint at the Portland, Oregon airport, will finally have his day in a Federal court more than three years later.

Mr. Brennan was (falsely) arrested by Portland city police, acting at the behest of the TSA checkpoint staff, on April 17, 2012. He was acquitted of criminal charges by a local judge, since nudity as a form of political expression has been held to be protected by Oregon’s state constitution.

But the TSA assessed a $500 administrative fine against Mr. Brennan for “interfering with screening”, notwithstanding both the Oregon court’s finding that his action was form of protected political expression and the fact that he never interfered with anyone at the TSA checkpoint. It was the TSA staff who chose not to search Mr. Brennan’s clothes after he took them off, not to complete his “screening” once they could see that he wasn’t carrying any weapons or explosives, and to shut down the entire checkpoint.

The TSA’s administrative decision to fine Mr. Brennan followed a kangaroo-court administrative hearing (held in a courtroom rented for the day from the US Bankruptcy Court), a decision by a so-called Administrative Law Judge (not actually a judge, but a DHS staff person rented from the US Coast Guard), and an administrative appeal to a TSA decision-maker designated by the head of the agency.

Throughout these administrative proceedings, the TSA and other DHS staff were forbidden to consider the Constitutionality or validity of the TSA’s regulations or actions. Only after jumping through three years of these hoops is Mr. Brennan entitled to have a real judge of a real court assess whether the TSA acted lawfully or had any authority to impose a fine for actions such as Mr. Brennan’s.

In an effort to frustrate even this belated judicial review, Congress requires that it be conducted by a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, based on “deference” to the TSA and the TSA-supplied “administrative record” rather than an actual trial or any fact-finding by the Court of Appeals. (Our Freedom of Information Act request for the administrative record of the TSA’s proceedings with respect to Mr. Brennan is still pending and unanswered after almost two years.) But the Court of Appeals can now finally, at this stage, consider Constitutional and other objections to the legality of the TSA’s actions.

On November 14, 2014, Mr. Brennan filed a petition with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for that court to review the TSA’s order assessing a $500 fine against Mr. Brennan. The case in the 9th Circuit is John Brennan v. US DHS and TSA, docket number 14-73502. Mr. Brennan is represented in the 9th Circuit by Michael Rose of Portland, the same attorney who successfully defended Mr. Brennan against the state and local criminal charges.

On March 2, 2015, Mr. Brennan’s attorney filed his brief asking the Court of Appeals to void the TSA fine, making the arguments he wasn’t allowed to make in the TSA administrative proceedings regarding the unconstitutional vagueness and other defects in the TSA’s regulations and actions. Mr. Brennan’s brief was accompanied by excerpts from the TSA administrative record, although most of that record continues to be improperly withheld from disclosure by the TSA despite our FOIA request.

Following a written response from the DHS and TSA (the government has already asked for, and been granted, an extension of time), and a written reply from Mr. Brennan, the 9th Circuit will decide whether to schedule oral argument or make a decision solely on the basis of the written arguments.

Mr. Brennan is continuing to pay for his own legal representation. There’s more information here about how you can contribute to his legal defense and help spread the word about his case.

Feb 25 2015

2nd person told they’ve been taken off the US “No Fly” list

For only the second time, a would-be traveler has been given offical notice by the US government that they are not on the US “No Fly” list.

Just weeks before a scheduled March hearing in a Federal lawsuit brought by US citizen Jamal Tarhuni challenging his repeatedly having been prevented from boarding commercial airline flights, including flights back to his home in Oregon from overseas, the director of the DHS “Traveler Redress Inquiry Program” (DHS-TRIP) has sent Mr. Tarhuni the letter above, telling him that, “We have been advised that you have been removed from the No Fly List.”

The only previous time the US government has told anyone they weren’t on the no-fly list was last year, in response to a direct order from a Federal court in the case of Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim. Unlike Mr. Tarhuni, Dr. Ibrahim is not a US citizen, although one of her children was born in the US and is a US citizen. Dr. Irahim’s US visa has been revoked, so she can’t return to the US regardless of whether she is on the US no-fly list. The Supreme Court heard arguments earlier this week on whether State Department decisions to deny visas to family members of US citizens are subject to judicial review.

The DHS-TRIP letter to Mr. Tarhuni makes no promises about future actions, and doesn’t guarantee that he will be allowed to travel by air. He still doesn’t know why he was on the no-fly list in the first place. He could be put back on the no-fly list at any time (including, as happened to him before, while he is abroad), without notice or explanation. And even if he isn’t put back on the no-fly list, he could be refused permission to board any flight (again potentially including flights home to the US from abroad) based on real-time pre-crime profiling and risk scoring.

Presumably, the government will now seek to have Mt. Tarhuni’s complaint dismissed as “moot”.

The government is also likely to use its latest letter to Mr. Tarhuni as evidence in other pending no-fly cases, including those of Yonas Fikre (who is represented in his ongoing lawsuit by the same attorney as Mr. Tarhuni) and Gulet Mohamed. So far as we know, Mr. Fikre is the only person who has been given official notice that he is on the US no-fly list, and not just constructive notice in the form of a denial of transportation by an airline. Mr. Fikre was denied asylum in Sweden, and, since he is still on the US no-fly list, was able to return to the US only because the Swedish government chartered a private jet to deport him.

The system of secret, extrajudicial no-fly orders is working, the government will claim, so the courts don’t need to exercise oversight over the process. The government will argue that if DHS-TRIP and the government’s recently-revised “No Fly 2.0” procedures provide sufficient administrative due process, the courts don’t need to review the allegedly derogatory evidence (if any) supporting DHS and FBI no-fly decisions.

Papers, Please!

The Identity Project