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For Immediate Release
September, 13 2013, 01:12pm EDT
Contact:
Josh Bell, 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org
FISA Court Orders Declassification Review of Rulings on NSA Spying in Response to ACLU Request
ACLU Welcomes Ruling for Transparency
WASHINGTON
In an important decision, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered the government to review for release the court's opinions on the meaning, scope, and constitutionality of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The ruling is on a motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of the Nation's Capital, and Yale Law School's Media Freedom and Access Information Clinic. Section 215, which authorizes the government to obtain "any tangible things" relevant to foreign-intelligence or terrorism investigations, is the claimed legal basis for the NSA's mass phone records collection program.
"We are pleased that the surveillance court has recognized the importance of transparency to the ongoing public debate about the NSA's spying," said Alex Abdo, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "For too long, the NSA's sweeping surveillance of Americans has been shrouded in unjustified secrecy. Today's ruling is an overdue rebuke of that practice. Secret law has no place in our democracy."
In its ruling today, the court gave the government until October 4 to identify FISC opinions on Section 215 and set a timetable for declassification review. The court's order covers all opinions except for those covered by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU in October 2011 that is still being litigated in New York. On Tuesday, in response to that FOIA lawsuit, the government released a number of FISC opinions revealing that the NSA repeatedly violated court-imposed limits on its surveillance powers. The government in that case has also agreed to release additional sets of documents by October 10 and October 31.
The ACLU's motion with the FISC asked whether earlier FISC opinions have been revisited in light of more recent rulings by other courts, such as the Supreme Court's 2012 decision in the GPS tracking case U.S. v. Jones. Another answer sought by the motion is whether the FISC has considered the constitutionality of the "gag order" provision that bars companies from revealing that they have been ordered to turn over information under Section 215. (In 2008, a federal appeals court agreed with the ACLU that an analogous gag order provision relating to "national security letters" was unconstitutional.)
In 2007, the FISC rejected an ACLU request for the release of legal opinions relating to the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSA's mass phone records collection program. Oral argument in the case is scheduled for November 1 in New York.
Today's ruling is at:
https://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/courts/fisc/misc-13-02-order-130813.pdf
More information and legal filings on the motion are at:
https://www.aclu.org/national-security/fisa-court-motion-requesting-pub...
This press release is at:
https://www.aclu.org/national-security/fisa-court-orders-declassificati...
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Florida-Bound Biden Faces Calls to Declare Climate Emergency After Hurricane Idalia
Campaigners also argue that "Big Oil CEOs and politicians like Ron DeSantis must be held accountable for knowingly fueling the climate crisis that heats our oceans and strengthens deadly storms."
Aug 31, 2023
As U.S. President Joe Biden plans to visit Florida on Saturday to tour the wreckage from Hurricane Idalia, climate campaigners this week have yet again renewed demands for the Democrat—who is seeking reelection next year—to declare a climate emergency.
"I don't think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore," the president said in a Wednesday speech about the hurricane response and wildfire recovery efforts in Maui. "Just look around: historic floods—I mean historic floods; more intense droughts; extreme heat; significant wildfires have caused significant damage like we've never seen before."
Biden suggested during an interview earlier this month that he had "practically" declared a climate emergency—which campaigners forcefully refuted, stressing that actually doing so would unlock various powers to tackle the global crisis.
After the president on Thursday confirmed his upcoming trip to Florida, the youth-led Sunrise Movement wrote on social media that "Biden must declare a climate emergency and do everything he can to prevent future disasters now."
White House Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall told reporters on Thursday that Biden will "visit the areas most impacted" by the storm and has been receiving regular updates from her and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell "on the latest developments with Hurricane Idalia, and also of course with the ongoing recovery operations in Hawaii on the island of Maui," according toCNN.
Since the Category 3 hurricane made landfall in Florida early Wednesday before moving on to Georgia and the Carolinas, multiple groups, including Greenpeace USA and the Center for Popular Democracy, have called for a climate emergency declaration.
Scientists have warned that continuing to heat the planet through human activities like fossil fuel use will lead to increasingly devastating hurricanes—particularly because the global ocean has absorbed most of the warming from greenhouse gases in recent decades.
"We can see climate change fueling hurricanes," Andra Garner, a hurricane expert at Rowan University in New Jersey, toldNPR on Wednesday, explaining how hotter ocean water is tied to more intense storms. "Think of it like getting a coffee in the morning and getting a couple extra shots of caffeine in there."
Along with calls for a climate emergency declaration, demands are also mounting for the fossil fuel industry—and the politicians who support it, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate—to be held accountable for driving the disasters.
"As we Floridians face the devastation of yet another massive hurricane, we know exactly who is responsible for making these countless disasters exponentially worse: the Big Oil CEOs profiting off the climate crisis and their political allies," CLEO Institute executive director Yoca Arditi-Rocha said Thursday. "Big Oil CEOs and politicians like Ron Desantis must be held accountable for knowingly fueling the climate crisis that heats our oceans and strengthens deadly storms—then leading the fight to strip away resources our state could use to respond."
John Paul Mejia, a Miami native and national spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement, shared that "it's hard to see the people and places I love suffering after yet another climate disaster. But the truth is, Florida is standing out as an example of what a world ruled by fossil fuel executives and the politicians they employ looks like."
"By turning down millions of dollars in climate investments while people suffer, Gov. DeSantis has shown he's more willing to shield Big Oil executives from accountability than serve the people of Florida," the campaigner added. "My generation won't forget this and we will do anything in our power to defeat politicians like him."
"It's time to hold Big Oil accountable for the climate disasters they're fueling," declared Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media, which recently bought billboards in U.S. communities blaming heatwaves on fossil fuel giants. "Big Oil executives are sitting in cushy corner offices making massive profits while people in Florida, Hawaii, and all over the world are losing their homes, businesses, and lives. Finally holding this industry accountable for the damage they're causing has become a major priority for the global climate movement."
As frontline communities and activists seek accountability, including through climate liability lawsuits against oil and gas companies, "the spate of summer disasters has highlighted another potentially looming crisis in the U.S." Inside Climate Newsreported Tuesday. "The federal Disaster Relief Fund, which allocates billions of dollars to help communities recover after a major disaster, is set to run out of money this fall if Congress can't come to an agreement on how to replenish it."
As the outlet detailed:
On Monday, the Biden administration announced nearly $3 billion in funding for hundreds of communities across the U.S. to reduce their vulnerability to climate-fueled extreme weather events. The money, which will come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Congress passed in 2021, will go toward building more weather-resilient infrastructure and flood mitigation efforts, among other projects.
But that money—though important—is geared toward preventative measures and is separate from FEMA's disaster relief fund, meaning it won't help communities recover from this summer's devastating weather. If the relief fund isn't replenished soon, the agency could be forced into a difficult position, having to choose which disaster recovery efforts to fund and which to postpone.
Climate scientist and activist Peter Kalmus said on Democracy Now! Thursday that "the public just doesn't understand, in my opinion, what a deep emergency we are in. This is the merest beginning of what we're going to see in coming years. And to me, it's absolutely horrifying."
"I don't think people really fully appreciate how irreversible these impacts are," he continued. "We can't just reverse this. It's not like cleaning up trash in a park. How hot we allow this planet to get is how hot it will stay for a very long time. And I feel like climate scientists, including myself, have been being ignored for decades by world leaders. They just don't seem to get this, either."
"I'm glad to hear President Biden finally using his bully pulpit a little bit to try to wake people up that this is real, but he continues to expand fossil fuels at breakneck pace," Kalmus added, pointing to drilling on public lands, the Willow project in Alaska, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Appalachia. "And that's the cause of all of this damage that we're seeing."
"I've got two sons, and it breaks my heart to see the Biden administration continue to expand fossil fuels and take us deeper into this catastrophe, instead of trying to bring us back from this," said the expert, who has called on the president to declare a climate emergency. "He's deeply on the wrong side of history."
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Greg Casar Drafting Bill to Connect Texas to National Electric Grids
"Whether we're in the middle of a heatwave or a winter storm, Texas should be able to keep the lights on," said the congressman.
Aug 31, 2023
Motivated by this summer's extreme heat and a devastating winter storm a couple of years ago, Democratic Texas Congressman Greg Casar announced Thursday that he is working on federal legislation to connect the state to national electric grids.
About 90% of the Lone Star State is covered by a grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) while the rest of the continental United States is served by the Eastern Interconnection and Western Interconnection, which are divided by the Rocky Mountains.
"The state has long refused to connect its grid in an attempt to avoid federal standards and consumer protections," Casar's office explained in a statement Thursday. "The U.S. Congress has the legal authority to require Texas to connect to the national grids to protect consumers, improve electric reliability nationwide, and safely regulate commerce."
Confirming his plans for a bill requiring the state to connect to national grids, Casar declared that "whether we're in the middle of a heatwave or a winter storm, Texas should be able to keep the lights on. This legislation will help consumers, improve the economy, generate more clean power, and save lives."
Texas' grid garnered national attention when it failed in February 2021, during Winter Storm Uri. The Texas Department of State Health Services put the official death toll at 246, but BuzzFeed Newsestimated the cold conditions and power outages may have killed 700 people.
In addition to leaving millions of people without electricity or water, the 2021 winter weather in the state potentially caused $100 billion in economic damages, according to research from a Texas-based team published in IOPscience earlier this year.
Casar's office pointed to a report that showed "each additional gigawatt of transmission tied between the Texas power grid and the Southeastern U.S. could have saved nearly $1 billion, while keeping the heat on for hundreds of thousands of Texans."
Winter Storm Uri and the hot summer that followed spurred conversations about whether Texas should connect to national grids.
Two years later, "the Texas power grid survived another close call" last week, barely avoiding rolling blackouts, according toTexas Public Radio. That came amid unprecedented extreme heat that scientists say is tied to humanity's continued use of climate-wrecking fossil fuels.
In addition to pushing for legislation to connect Texas to national grids, Casar has joined with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to fight for the Connecting Hard-to-Reach Areas With Renewably Generated Energy (CHARGE) Act, which would establish infrastructure needed to boost reliability, cut costs, and spark clean energy innovation.
"As the climate crisis worsens, we must do everything we can to increase grid reliability across the country. That's why we must pass the CHARGE Act," Casar said when they introduced the bill last month. "Every single family should be able to rely on their utilities."
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Biden Infrastructure Report Pushes 'Disastrous Water Privatization Schemes,' Watchdog Says
"President Biden should have never appointed an investment banker to chair an advisory council for the nation's infrastructure," said one advocate.
Aug 31, 2023
An under-the-radar report by U.S. President Joe Biden's National Infrastructure Advisory Council should not go unnoticed, said the national watchdog Food & Water Watch on Thursday, as buried in the document is a call for the privatization of U.S. water systems, which progressive lawmakers and civil society groups have long opposed.
On page 15 of the 38-page report, the advisory council said the federal government should "remove barriers to privatization, concessions, and other nontraditional models of funding community water systems in conjunction with each state's development of best practice."
Food & Water Watch (FWW) suggested that the recommendation goes hand in hand with the panel chairmanship of Adebayo Ogunlesi, who is the chairman and CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).
GIP is "an infrastructure investment bank with an estimated $100 billion in assets under management that targets energy, transportation, digital, and water infrastructure," said FWW, making the takeover of public water and wastewater utilities by a private corporation—often under the guise of improving aging systems and lowering costs—financially beneficial for the bank.
"Instead of relying on Wall Street advisers, President Biden should support policies that will truly help communities."
Mary Grant, Public Water for All campaign director at FWW, called the recommendation "a terrible idea."
"President Biden should have never appointed an investment banker to chair an advisory council for the nation's infrastructure," said Grant. "Wall Street wants to take control of the nation's public water systems to wring profits from communities that are already struggling with unaffordable water bills and toxic water."
FWW has analyzed water privatization schemes for years, finding that they it often leave communities "with higher water bills, worse service, job losses, and little control to fix these problems."
A 2018 report by the group titledAmerica's Secret Water Crisisfound that out of 11 privatized water utilities across the U.S., all but one refused to provide data about shutoffs for nonpayment. The group's 2011 brief Water = Lifeshowed that low-income households are disproportionately affected by water price hikes by private owners, as privatization turns a resource recognized by the United Nations as an "essential human right" into a commodity.
"Privatization would deepen the nation's water crises, leading to higher water bills and less accountable and transparent services," said Grant. "Privately owned water systems charge 59% more than local government systems, and private ownership is the single largest factor associated with higher water bills—more than aging infrastructure or drought."
Grant noted that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 was "a step forward" as it invested $55 billion to expand water infrastructure, but pointed out that "it provided only about 7% of the identified needs of our water systems."
"Instead of relying on Wall Street advisers, President Biden should support policies that will truly help communities by asking Congress to pass the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability (WATER) Act (H.R. 1729, S. 938)," she added.
Introduced in 2021 by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) in the U.S. House and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate, the WATER Act would expand funding to small, rural, and Indigenous communities; create a water trust fund; fund projects to eliminate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, contamination; and require the Environmental Protection Agency to analyze water affordability, shutoffs, and civil rights violations by water utilities, among other steps to improve public water access.
"The WATER Act," said Grant, "would fully restore the federal commitment to safe water by providing a permanent source of federal funding at the level that our water and wastewater systems need to ensure safe, clean, and affordable public water for all."
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