The FBI wants to block individuals from knowing if their information is in a massive repository of biometric records, which includes fingerprints and facial scans, if the release of information would "compromise" a law enforcement investigation.
The FBI’s biometric database, known as the “Next Generation Identification System,” gathers a wide scope of information, including palm prints, fingerprints, iris scans, facial and tattoo photographs, and biographies for millions of people.
On Thursday, the Justice Department Agency plans to propose that the database be exempt from several provisions of the Privacy Act -- legislation that requires federal agencies to share information about the records they collect with the individual subject of those records, allowing them to verify and correct them if needed.
Aside from criminals, suspects, and detainees, the system includes data from people fingerprinted for jobs, licenses, military or volunteer service, background checks, security clearances, and naturalization, among other government processes.
Letting individuals view their own records, or even the accounting of those records, could compromise criminal investigations or "national security efforts," potentially revealing a “sensitive investigative technique” or information that could help a subject “avoid detection or apprehension,” the draft posting said.
Another clause requires agencies to keep the records they collect to assure individuals that any determination made about them was made fairly. Arguing for an exemption, the FBI posting claimed that it is “impossible to know in advance what information is accurate, relevant, timely and complete” for “authorized law enforcement purposes.”
The proposal, open for public comment for a month after it’s officially posted, would set a worrying precedent in which law enforcement has significant leeway to decide what information to collect without informing the subject, according to Jeramie Scott, a National Security Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research group advocating for digital civil liberties.
In 2014, EPIC won a lawsuit against the FBI arguing that the contracts and technical requirements supporting the Next Generation Identification database be published.
The proposal’s suggestion that data could be used to establish “patterns of activity” was particularly troubling, Scott said.
“We don’t know exactly what that means,” Scott told Nextgov in an interview. “If you have no ability to access the record the FBI has on you, even when you’re not part of an investigation or under investigation, and lo and behold inaccurate information forms a ‘pattern of activity’ that then subjects you to [be] the focus of the FBI, then that’s a problem.”
It’s unclear how many individuals are covered in the database. FBI documents obtained by privacy rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2014 suggested that the FBI’s facial recognition component was on track to contain 52 million images by 2015.
FBI did not respond to Nextgov’s request for comment.
http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2016/05/fbi-wants-exempt-its-massive-biometric-database-federal-privacy-rules/128051/
Court Scolds Maryland Cops for Stingray Use, Issues Landmark Decision on Surveillance
In what civil liberties and privacy advocates are calling a landmark decision, Maryland’s second-highest court has handed down the first appellate opinion in the country affirming that police must obtain a probable cause warrant to track cell phones.
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals issued the opinion in a ruling that rebuked Baltimore Police for failing to disclose that they had used a device called a cell site simulator, often referred to as a “stingray,” to locate an attempted murder suspect, The Baltimore Sun reports.
In court testimony last April, a Baltimore detective revealed that the Baltimore Police Department had used Stingrays more than 4,300 times since 2007, repeatedly failing to notify courts of their use in criminal cases.
The court rejected the state of Maryland’s argument that anyone turning on a phone was “voluntarily” sharing their whereabouts with the police. And the 73-page opinion also harshly scolded Baltimore police for trying to conceal their use of Stingrays from the court.
The panel of judges wrote:
We conclude that people have a reasonable expectation that their cell phones will not be used as real-time tracking devices by law enforcement, and — recognizing that the Fourth Amendment protects people and not simply areas — that people have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in real-time cell phone location information.
Stingrays are surveillance devices that act as a fake cell phone tower. They essentially allow the government to electronically search large areas for a particular cell phone’s signal – gathering data on potentially thousands of innocent people along the way.
As if this isn’t invasive enough, police have attempted to use them while avoiding many of the traditional limitations set forth in the Constitution, like individualized warrants.
Experts say that the impact of the appellate court’s ruling will be far-reaching, since it is the first court of its kind in the country to rule on whether police must disclose their intent to a judge obtain a warrant to use devices like Stingrays.
Dan Kobrin, an attorney with the public defender’s office who argued the case before the court, said the impact is “enormous” and “will hopefully curb abuse of this device and bring it out into the sunlight.”
Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney who specializes in technology and privacy with the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the decision:
The court’s opinion is a resounding defense of Fourth Amendment rights in the digital age. The court’s withering rebuke of secret and warrantless use of invasive cell phone tracking technology shows why it is so important for these kinds of privacy invasions to be subjected to judicial review.
Other courts will be able to look to this opinion as they address rampant use of cell site simulators by police departments across the country.
In 2014, awareness of the use of stingray technology grew when defense attorneys in Baltimore began to suspect and challenge the use of the device. In one case, a detective took the stand and refused to discuss the technology, and was nearly held in contempt by a judge.
Last April, The Baltimore Sun published a non-disclosure agreement that the Baltimore Police Department signed in 2011 with the FBI and Harris Corporation, a leading manufacturer of Stingrays, in which local authorities agreed never to disclose use of a stingray device.
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The agreement required the department to conceal its use of Stingrays “during pre-trial matters, in search warrants and related affidavits, in discovery, in response to court ordered disclosure … or in testimony in any phase of civil or criminal trial, without the prior written approval of the FBI.”Police departments across the country have been signing similar agreements, and prosecutors have even dropped criminal cases to avoid facing questions about Stingrays, The Intercept reports.
In 2014, Harris Corporation went so far as to petition the Federal Communications Commission to block a FOIA request for user manuals for some of the company’s products.
While the Maryland court’s decision is a positive one that is a step in the right direction, Stingray devices are hardly the only surveillance method cops use to track us. In December, The Intercept published The Secret Surveillance Catalogue, a “secret, internal U.S. government catalogue of dozens of cellphone surveillance devices used by the military and by intelligence agencies. The document, thick with previously undisclosed information, also offers rare insight into the spying capabilities of federal law enforcement and local police inside the United States.”
Police departments also use another form of surveillance technology that hasn’t received much publicity – yet: automatic license plate readers. (I didn’t know this existed until I was pulled over by a Maryland state trooper for driving on a “suspended registration.” My offense? Failing to get a car emissions test. I’d moved to the state a year prior and had no idea I even needed such a thing.)
Automatic license plate readers are mounted on police cars or on objects like road signs and bridges. They use small high-speed cameras to photograph thousands of plates per minute.The information captured by the readers – including the license plate number, and the date, time, and location of every scan – is collected and sometimes pooled into regional sharing systems. As a result, enormous databases of innocent motorists’ location information are growing rapidly. This information is often retained for years or even indefinitely, with few or no restrictions to protect privacy rights.
Law enforcement agencies claim that surveillance devices help them keep us safe, but the ACLU says the gadgets are more commonly used to solve simple crimes.
They also claim that the devices are intended to prevent terrorist attacks (in fact, many departments have bought them under the guise of that purpose), but to date, there hasn’t been a single documented instance of that actually happening.
No, the goal is control. It always has been, and it always will be.
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/04/court-issues-landmark-decision-on-stingray-surveillance.html
Maybe instead of listing this stupid stuff, I should have listed it a childish naive stuff.
DOJ halts use of word ‘felon’ and ‘convict’ to describe inmates
image: http://www.trunews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/prison-bars-jail_s640x274.jpg
An official with the Department of Justice said the agency will no longer call people “felons” or “convicts” after they are released from prison because it is too hard on them emotionally.
Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason wrote a piece in The Washington Post Wednesday saying “many of the formerly incarcerated men, women, and young people I talk with say that no punishment is harsher than being permanently branded a ‘felon’ or ‘offender.’”
Mason said the decision is not to condone their behavior, but to use words to help them reenter society.
image: http://www.trunews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Usdepartmentofjustice-300x199.jpg
In my role as head of the division of the Justice Department that funds and supports hundreds of reentry programs throughout the country, I have come to believe that we have a responsibility to reduce not only the physical but also the psychological barriers to reintegration. The labels we affix to those who have served time can drain their sense of self-worth and perpetuate a cycle of crime, the very thing reentry programs are designed to prevent. In an effort to solidify the principles of individual redemption and second chances that our society stands for, I recently issued an agency-wide policy directing our employees to consider how the language we use affects reentry success.
This new policy statement replaces unnecessarily disparaging labels with terms like “person who committed a crime” and “individual who was incarcerated,” decoupling past actions from the person being described and anticipating the contributions we expect them to make when they return. We will be using the new terminology in speeches, solicitations, website content, and social media posts, and I am hopeful that other agencies and organizations will consider doing the same.
This is one of many steps the Obama administration is using to help recently released offenders. President Barack Obama announced in 2015 federal agencies would no longer ask if people were felons in the early job application steps.
http://www.trunews.com/doj-halts-use-of-word-felon-and-convict-to-describe-inmates/#jVpQhQt4GGJ8ydxC.99
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