Mar 15 2017

Palantir, Peter Thiel, Big Data, and the DHS

San Francisco and Silicon Valley are among the centers of opposition to President Trump and his fascism, especially as it relates to restrictions on movement, border controls, immigration, and asylum. Bay Area technology companies and their better-paid classes of employees like to think of themselves as building a better world that reflects the distinctive values […]

Feb 27 2017

What should you to do if you are asked for your password at a US airport or border?

Our work is cited in an article today by Kaveh Waddell in The Atlantic, “How Long Can Border Agents Keep Your Email Password? Some data gathered from travelers going through customs can stay in a Homeland Security database for 75 years.” The article in The Atlantic highlights several recent incidents in which international travelers have […]

Feb 21 2017

The right to record police anonymously

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has joined other Courts of Appeals in finding that the First Amendment protects the right to make audio and video recording of police activities in public places, including recording police officers and vehicles outside a police station  from a public sidewalk. The Court also found that Texas Penal Code […]

Feb 16 2017

Executive Orders, lawsuits, and the right to travel

[D]ue process requires… notice and a hearing prior to restricting an individual’s ability to travel. (9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Order on Motion for Stay, February 9, 2017, State of Washington and State of Minnesota v. Trump) President Trump’s Executive Orders prohibiting entry to the US by citizens of specified blacklisted countries and cutting off […]

Feb 15 2017

Searches at airports and US borders

President Trump’s Executive Order expanding the pre-existing and ongoing #MuslimBan from foreign airports to US points of entry, by forbidding entry to the US by citizens of specified blacklisted countries,  doesn’t say anything explicit about searches or interrogation of people entering or leaving the US. But this Executive Order seems to have been interpreted by […]

Dec 21 2016

“AFI” is the latest DHS name for “extreme vetting”

We’ve heard a lot of talk in recent months about “extreme vetting” of immigrants, Muslims, and foreign visitors to the US. But what does “extreme vetting” really mean? “Vetting” of both domestic and international travelers — making predictive pre-crime decisions as to whether or not to allow them to travel — is already extreme, and […]

Nov 18 2016

What does Donald Trump’s election mean for our work?

We endorsed neither Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, nor any other candidate for elected office. So what does the presumptive election of Donald Trump as President of the U.S. — when the electors cast their ballots on December 19, 2016, and the votes are counted on January 6, 2017 — mean for the work of the […]

Oct 14 2016

CDC proposes martial law in the guise of “medical quarantine”

In the guise of a proposal for “medical quarantine“, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have proposed regulations that would give CDC employees sweeping martial-law powers of warrantless search, interrogation, tracking of movements, arrest, and extrajudicial mass detention (at the detainees’ own expense!) of individuals or entire groups of unlimited numbers of […]

Sep 27 2016

Proposed laws would expand travel controls from airlines to passenger railroads

Legislation has been introduced in both the USA and Belgium to subject rail travelers to the same sorts of travel surveillance schemes that are already being used to monitor and control air travelers. If these proposals are enacted into law, passenger railroads would be required to collect and enter additional information such as passport or […]