The internet.
Has the internet fucked up anyone else’s book reading?
Chaffetz: Be Scared, DOJ 'Hiding Something' About Location Tracking
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201 ... n-tracking
The House oversight chairman agreed to review long-secret legal guidance, but he's reconsidering, fearing he’d become hogtied.
The chairman of the House oversight committee announced this week the Justice Department had agreed to allow two members of Congress – including himself – access to legal guidance on electronic tracking of Americans’ location, appearing to end a yearslong bid to look at the documents.
But the long-sought review of memos written after the Supreme Court’s 2012 http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201 ... ngdecision in U.S. v. Jones came with strings, Rep. Jason Chaffetz said during a Wednesday hearing. The Utah Republican said he and the committee's ranking member, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., would be allowed to bring just one staffer each, and they would not be permitted to take notes.
“We were able to reach an appropriate balance between legitimate congressional oversight and protecting law enforcement sensibilities,” Cummings crowed.
But on Friday, Chaffetz told U.S. News he’s not sure if he actually will review the memos. He says he’s concerned that a burdensome list of demands from the Justice Department may hamper his ability to push privacy legislation that would require warrants for cellphone location data.
“I don’t want to hamper my ability to actually craft legislation,” he says. “They gave us a whole list of things we’re supposed to not do. I will live up to any agreement I make, but I’m hesitating because I’m not sure I should have to strike any deal.”
[FBI DIRECTOR: Authorities 'Will Go to Jail' If They Look at Snapchats Without Warrant]
The quest for access to the memos began shortly after the Jones decision was made. Months later, the American Civil Liberties Union submitted a Freedom of Information Act request. In response, the group received two lengthy but almost entirely redacted documents, dated February and July 2012.
In 2013, Chaffetz and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., demanded the documents be released, but the request fell on deaf ears.
The secrecy surrounding the memos contrasts with what the Obama administration has previously described as effective oversight of surveillance programs by Congress. After whistleblower Edward Snowden’s 2013 leaks, the administration said interested members of Congress could have learned about the most controversial programs, such as the now-discontinued automatic bulk collection of domestic call records.
“Their first premise is that we won’t keep it secret,” Chaffetz says of the legal memos. “But I think they’re worried that they are being far too intrusive – much more intrusive than the public believes.”
At the committee hearing, a Justice Department official appeared to suggest authorities fear an unfavorable court ruling when Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., badgered Richard Downing, the department’s deputy chief for computer crime and intellectual property, for an explanation on why he could gain access to classified nuclear weapons information but not the location data memos.
[READ: Pre-Snowden Whistleblower Faces Misconduct Charges, 12 Years Later]
“It’s not really a matter of trust, that’s not the right way to think about this,” Downing said. “The department has confidentiality needs in things like the positions we’re going to take. … We’re also worried that disclosures of one sort will be regarded later by a court as a waiver of a privilege.”
That consideration isn't hypothetical. Federal appeals courts currently are divided on whether a warrant is necessary for authorities to gain historical location information from cellphone companies, though the Supreme Court passed on reviewing the issue in November. Legal challenges to warrantless acquisition of real-time location data have been hindered by intense secrecy around cell site simulators – often called Stingrays – but a Maryland appeals court this week ruled a warrant is required for their use.
Historical cellphone location data is acquired by the Justice Department using a court order that has a lower standard than probable cause, Downing told members of Congress. But the data sometimes comes in bulk from so-called tower dumps. Chaffetz says “most Americans would be shocked that most anybody in the federal government can go look up your historicial records of where you’ve been and how long you’ve been there – that’s fairly easy information to pull up.”
The Justice Department unilaterally announced last year it would require federal workers under its umbrella – including FBI and DEA agents, but not other federal workers with access to Stingrays, such as IRS employees – to get a warrant to track a person’s movements in real time. That requirement does not apply to state or local law enforcement.
Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at the ACLU, says the Justice Department, in imposing a warrant requirement on itself explicitly said the decision was a matter of policy not required by law. Such a policy could be changed without public notification, she says.
[ALSO: DEA's Well-Paid Amtrak Spy, Bribe-Giving Agents Still Anonymous as Probe Ends]
The 2012 memos sought by lawmakers were written after the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Jones that police must get a warrant to surreptitiously track suspects using a GPS device. The majority decision, however, was based on trespass grounds. Two concurrent opinions, jointly signed by a five-justice majority, were sympathetic to requiring a warrant for GPS tracking on the basis that people have some expectation of privacy over their movement.
A protester checks his cellphone during a rally against police brutality in Ferguson, Mo., in November 2014.
RELATED CONTENT
Police Use of Stingrays That Gobble Phone Data Unaffected by New Federal Warrant Rule
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on why members of Congress cannot more easily gain access to the location tracking documents, but Chaffetz says he believes the reason is that the content would startle readers.
“I think this is probably very controversial,” he says. “I think there’s a reason why they are hiding it so close to the vest. There’s something they don’t want us to see and that should scare everybody. I don't know what they're hiding, but when they're hiding something it scares me.”
