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government surveillance
Watchdog Says Don't Let Warner Hide Behind Pulte While Pushing Warrantless Spying Powers for Trump
“Warner’s opposition to Bill Pulte masks the fact that he is still the Democrats’ chief advocate for handing over unchecked spying powers to the Trump administration," said one progressive campaigner.
Jun 04, 2026
The watchdog group Demand Progress on Thursday warned that the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat is attacking civil liberties by collaborating with Republicans and the Trump administration to renew warrantless spying powers—even as he sounds the alarm over President Donald Trump's appointment of unqualified loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is pressing Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to use his influence to persuade Trump to reconsider appointing Pulte—a private equity firm founder and homebuilder who is currently director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—to the top intel post, which current Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard will officially vacate on June 30.
Warner this week called out Pulte's lack of relevant experience, as well as his "eagerness to use the authorities of government to pursue political retribution" against a number of Trump’s political foes for politically motivated mortgage fraud investigations.
However, critics including Demand Progress have pointed out Warner's critical role in whipping Democratic support for renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the US government to collect electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States without a warrant. Experts note that Americans’ data is also swept up during such surveillance, and civil society groups and some lawmakers from both parties have demanded reforms to prevent further abuse by federal agencies.
Section 702, which was reauthorized for two years in 2024, is set to expire next week. There is a legislative battle between lawmakers and intelligence officials who want to extend Section 702 largely intact—the so-called "clean" reauthorization backed by Trump and his allies—and privacy-focused legislators from both parties who want reforms, especially a requirement for warrants before searching Americans' communications.
A three-year proposal passed by House lawmakers in April did not include a warrantless requirement.
“Sen. Warner’s opposition to Bill Pulte masks the fact that he is still the Democrats’ chief advocate for handing over unchecked spying powers to the Trump administration," Demand Progress executive director Sean Vitka said Thursday. "Pulte obviously must go, but he’s also proof that this administration is eager and willing to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as a weapon."
"If Trump pulls Pulte, he can easily appoint another eager goon to fill the slot," Vitkaco stressed. "By focusing on Pulte and not broader reforms, Sen. Warner is not standing up for Americans or the Constitution, he is disguising his work to engineer warrantless mass surveillance against us."
"We know this because he’s been doing it publicly for months," he added. "An unprecedented, bipartisan movement is demanding privacy reforms, but Sen. Warner’s machinations threaten to derail this progress and hand Trump the surveillance powers he needs to threaten Americans and democracy itself for the rest of his administration.”
Demand Progress said that Warner "has conspicuously failed to join the chorus of Democrats and Republicans calling for reforms to FISA that would protect privacy and democracy itself."
"Warner, who is negotiating with Republicans and the Trump administration to renew FISA, has only commented on how bad Pulte is and notably stopped short of saying anything about FISA reform," the group continued. "This is particularly telling considering Warner’s history of promising future reforms to get FISA renewed and failing to deliver."
Demand Progress contrasted Warner's actions with those of his fellow Democrats, including Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who explicitly called for “reforms to ensure Americans’ privacy and rights are protected.”
Senate lawmakers could hold an initial procedural vote on extending Section 702 as soon as Thursday, with just a simple majority needed for the measure to advance. Future votes would require the support of 60 senators in order to avoid a Republican filibuster.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, warned Wednesday in a social media thread that the Section 702 extension supported by Trump, his Republican allies in Congress, and Warner "doesn’t just fail to curb warrantless domestic spying, it actually expands the government's ability to use 702 against Americans."
"Trump’s allies and Warner have produced a bill that purports to include reforms, but that makes no change whatsoever to existing standards and procedures for conducting backdoor searches, let alone a warrant requirement," she continued.
A "backdoor search" occurs when the government collects information about a US citizen when the surveillance was originally authorized for foreign targets and the government did not obtain a warrant before collecting the communications.
"These 'backdoor searches' are an affront to the Fourth Amendment," Goitein asserted. "They have led to widespread abuses, including FBI searches for the communications of members of Congress, campaign donors, journalists, and protesters across the political spectrum."
"There is broad bipartisan support in Congress for requiring the government to get a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications obtained under Section 702," she continued. "This reform has twice passed the House, and 76% of Americans support it."
"Unsurprisingly, Trump and his allies in Congress oppose this reform," Goitein wrote. "What’s more surprising is that key Democratic surveillance hawks, including Mark Warner and [Rep.] Jim Himes [D-Conn.], have teamed up with the Trump camp to ensure that his administration has continued warrantless access."
"Even more disturbing is the provision titled 'Restriction on Use of United States Person Information Acquired Under Section 702 in Criminal Prosecutions,'" she said. "Notwithstanding the Orwellian title, this provision actually *removes* existing restrictions on such use.
"Any member who is concerned with Pulte’s appointment should be aghast at the prospect of handing this administration warrantless access to Americans’ private communications and expanding its power to use those communications against Americans in court," Goitein added. "There is only one way senators can force leadership to permit amendment votes or otherwise negotiate: vote NO on the procedural motion that will take place in the coming days. Senators who support reform are the majority; they have real leverage. They must use it."
The Brennan Center for Justice and Demand Progress were among dozens of civil society groups that on Monday sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to "not abandon Americans' constitutional rights" and "reject any extension that does not include key bipartisan reforms that would protect Americans' privacy and civil rights and liberties."
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'Unforgivably Cynical': Top House Dem Ripped for Siding With Trump on Domestic Spying
“Trump has shown he will abuse every inch of power we give him," said one critic. "So you would think that given an opportunity to check his authority and protect Americans, Democrats would jump at the chance."
Mar 30, 2026
Critics denounced the top Democrat on the US House Intelligence Committee after he said Monday that he would vote to extend a highly controversial authorization for warrantless government spying sought by President Donald Trump that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times under various administrations.
While acknowledging that many of his Democratic colleagues will vote against reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because they do not trust Trump to use the provision's sweeping surveillance powers legally, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes (D-Conn.) signaled that he would support renewal and vote against any efforts for privacy protections.
“There’s a lot of people who are going to switch from yes two years ago to no today," Himes told The Hill. "Because even though Donald Trump’s been president for five years, and he has never abused the program—I would know it pretty much in real time if he did—even though that’s true, people don’t trust Donald Trump."
"And you know, that word came up a lot in the classified briefing; there’s a huge trust gap here," he added. "So there’s going to be a lot of people switching on the Democratic side from yes to no.”
While Section 702 ostensibly limits warrantless surveillance to non-US citizens, such spying also captures the communications of Americans. The measure has been abused at least hundreds of thousands of times, including to spy on protestors, congressional donors, journalists, and others.
“Donald Trump has shown he will abuse every inch of power we give him," Sean Vitka, executive director of the pro-democracy group Demand Progress, said in a statement Monday. "So you would think that given an opportunity to check his authority and protect Americans, Democrats would jump at the chance."
"But instead, Rep. Jim Himes is failing his critical role as an overseer of intelligence agencies and using his political power to lobby his fellow Democrats in service of the Trump administration domestic surveillance agenda," Vitka continued. "It is unforgivably cynical and reckless for Rep. Himes to make it easier for this administration to spy on Americans, especially at a time when government agencies’ have made it clear that they intend to supercharge surveillance with [artificial intelligence], and when their misuse of these powers is horrifically on display.”
Nearly 100 civil society groups including Demand Progress are urging congressional Democrats to "stand firm" and vote against Section 702 reauthorization without reforms, including closing the so-called data broker loophole.
Among the Democratic lawmakers reportedly considering voting against the extension is Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who voted for reauthorizing Section 702 in 2024—when Congress extended the spying power until April 20, 2026.
“I supported it because I felt very comfortable that... additional guardrails were safeguarding Americans’ privacy in a sufficiently significant way as to justify the importance of getting this information on an urgent basis," he told The Hill. "And as a former prosecutor, I know how difficult it can be to get a search warrant, and especially in these cases where there often isn’t even probable cause, but my vote was taken on the expectation that the law would be implemented as written."
“And we now have an administration that has routinely, repeatedly, regularly—and seemingly and intentionally—violated numerous laws, undermined the Constitution, attacked our democracy, and simply cannot be trusted with the privacy information that is included in the materials gathered and potentially searched," Goldman continued.
"So unless I receive a lot more information about every single search for a US person that has been done by this administration since they came into office, I don’t see how I can possibly support the reauthorization," he added.
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'She's Lying': Journalist Exposes Secret Watch Lists That Trump Official Says Don't Exist
"If we don’t explore more why all of these secret lists exist," one US intelligence officer said, there could be "even more of an environment of paranoia on the ground and more tragic killings.”
Jan 28, 2026
Despite denials from a senior Trump administration official, secret watchlists of Americans are being used by federal agencies to track and categorize US citizens—especially protesters, activists, and critics of law enforcement—as “domestic terrorists," investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein reported Wednesday.
Klippenstein said that two senior national security officials speaking on condition of anonymity told him that there are over a dozen "secret and obscure" watchlists that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI are using to track anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and pro-Palestine protesters, antifa-affiliated individuals, and "others who are promiscuously labeled 'domestic terrorists.'"
"I can reveal for the first time," he wrote, "that some of the secret lists and applications go by codenames like Bluekey, Grapevine, Hummingbird, Reaper, Sandcastle, Sienna, Slipstream, and Sparta (including the ominous sounding HEL-A and HEL-C reports generated by Sparta)."
"Some of these, like Hummingbird, were created to vet and track immigrants, in this case Afghans seeking to settle in the United States," Klippenstein explained. "Slipstream is a classified social media repository. Others are tools used to link people on the streets together, including collecting on friends and families who have nothing to do with any purported lawbreaking."
"There’s practically nothing available that further describes what these watchlists do, how large they are, or what they entail," he added.
Klippenstein's revelation seemingly flies in the face of DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin's recent denial that the administration has a database containing the names of people accused of domestic terrorism.
"There's just one problem: She's lying," wrote Klippenstein.
🚨 I've obtained a list of secret watchlists the Department of Homeland Security uses to keep tabs on American citizenswww.kenklippenstein.com/p/ices-secre...
[image or embed]
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein.bsky.social) January 28, 2026 at 1:07 PM
Many observers already thought as much, especially after a masked federal enforcer taunted an anti-ICE protester in Maine by telling her that "we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist."
White House "border czar" Tom Homan—who was recently sent to Minnesota to oversee the anti-immigrant blitz following the departure of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino amid outrage over the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti—also said this month that "we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding, and assault, we’re going to make them famous."
Reporting Tuesday that Pretti—the nurse who was disarmed and then shot dead by federal enforcers in Minneapolis last week—was known to Trump officials after a previous encounter in which agents broke his rib raised further questions about government watchlists.
"We came out of 9/11 with the notion that we would have a single ‘terrorist’ watch list to eliminate confusion, duplication, and avoid bad communications, but ever since January 6, not only have we expanded exponentially into purely domestic watchlisting, but we have also created a highly secretive and compartmented superstructure that few even understand," a DHS attorney "intimately familiar" with the matter told Klippenstein on condition of anonymity, referring to the deadly January 2021 Capitol insurrection.
According to Klippenstein:
Prior to 9/11, there were nine federal agencies that maintained 12 separate watchlists. Now, officially there are just three: a watch list of 1.1 million international terrorists, a watch list of more than 10,000 domestic terrorists maintained by the FBI, and a new watch list of transnational criminals, built up to more than 85,000 over the past decade...
Among other functions, the new watchlists process tips, situation reports, and collected photographs and video submitted by both the public and from agents in the field; they create a “common operating picture” in places like Minneapolis; they allow task forces to target individuals for surveillance and arrest; and they create the capacity for intelligence people to link individuals together through geographic proximity or what is labeled “call chaining” by processing telephone numbers, emails, and other contact information.
Asked about how the Trump administration might try to legally justify these watchlists, Rachel Levinson-Waldman, the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program director, cited President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7), which mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
Levinson-Waldman also noted Attorney General Pam Bondi's December 5 memo directing federal agencies to expand the investigation and prosecution of "domestic terrorism," including groups "aligned" with antifa, an anti-fascist ideology that does not exist as an organization.
One senior intelligence official who confirmed the existence of the watchlists warned Klippenstein: "Lists of this and that—this social media post, that video taken of someone videoing ICE, the mere attendance at a protest—gets pulsed by federal cops on the beat to check for criminality but eventually just becomes a list itself of criminality, with the cops thinking that indeed they are dealing with criminals and terrorists. Watchlists, and the whole watchlisting process, should be as transparent as possible, not the other way around."
"If we don’t explore more why all of these secret lists exist," the official added, there could be "even more of an environment of paranoia on the ground and more tragic killings.”
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Wyden Exposes Which Phone Carriers Don't Notify Customers About Government Surveillance
The Oregon Democrat also informed colleagues of his staff's findings that "senators have been kept in the dark about executive branch surveillance of Senate phones," in apparent violation of companies' contracts.
May 21, 2025
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden shared the results of his staff's probe into major phone companies in a Wednesday letter to congressional colleagues and also publicly highlighted which carriers disclose government spying to their customers.
"An investigation by my staff revealed that until recently, senators have been kept in the dark about executive branch surveillance of Senate phones, because the three major phone carriers—AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile—failed to establish systems to notify offices about surveillance requests, as required by their Senate contracts," states the letter, published on Wyden's (D-Ore.) congressional website.
"While now rectified for Senate-funded lines, significant gaps remain, especially for the campaign and personal phones used by most senators. I urge your support for legislative changes to allow the sergeant at arms (SAA) to protect senators' phones and accounts from cyber threats, both foreign and domestic," he wrote. "I also urge you to consider switching your campaign and personal phone lines to other carriers that will provide notice of government surveillance."
Wyden noted that "while AT&T and Verizon only provide notice of surveillance of phone lines paid for by the Senate, T-Mobile has informed my staff that it will provide notice for senators' campaign or personal lines flagged as such by the SAA. Three other carriers—Google Fi Wireless, U.S. Mobile, and Cape—have policies of notifying all customers about government demands whenever they are allowed to do so. The latter two companies adopted these policies after outreach from my office."
In a Wednesday statement announcing the letter and the above chart, Wyden's office warned that "beyond members of Congress, journalists, political activists, people seeking reproductive healthcare, and other law-abiding Americans who could be targeted by the government all have reason to be concerned about secret surveillance of their communications and location data."
The findings of his staff include details relevant to every American with a cellphone, but much of Wyden's letter is focused on improving protections for lawmakers. He pointed to "two troubling incidents" that "highlight the vulnerability of Senate communications" to foreign adversaries and U.S. law enforcement: Chinese Salt Typhoon hackers and the U.S. Department of Justice, during the first Trump administration, both collected records of lawmakers and their staff.
"Executive branch surveillance poses a significant threat to the Senate's independence and the foundational principle of separation of powers," Wyden argued. "If law enforcement officials, whether at the federal, state, or even local level, can secretly obtain senators' location data or call histories, our ability to perform our constitutional duties is severely threatened."
"This kind of unchecked surveillance can chill critical oversight activities, undermine confidential communications essential for legislative deliberations, and ultimately erode the legislative branch's co-equal status," he continued. Wyden called on senators to support his proposals for the next annual appropriations bill "that would allow the SAA to protect senators' phones and accounts—whether official, campaign, or personal—against cyber threats, just as we have for executive branch employees."
The longtime privacy advocate's letter to fellow senators was first reported by Politico, which noted that T-Mobile did not immediately respond to requests for comment while spokespeople for AT&T and Verizon defended their companies.
"We are complying with our obligations to the Senate sergeant at arms," AT&T spokesperson Alex Byers said in a statement to the outlet. "We have received no legal demands regarding Senate offices under the current contract, which began last June."
Verizon spokesperson Richard Young told Politico that "we respect the senator's view that providers should give notice to senators if we receive legal process regarding their use of their personal devices, but disagree with his policy position."
Meanwhile, Sean Vitka, executive director of Demand Progress—an advocacy group long critical of government spying on lawmakers and warrantless surveillance—said in response to the revelations from Wyden's office that "we now know that Comcast, Verizon, T-Mobile, and other phone companies have followed AT&T's unprecedented efforts to facilitate secret government surveillance of their own customers, with some even allowing the government to secretly spy on senators."
"This is a bright, red warning sign at a time when the Trump administration keeps blowing past constitutional checks on executive power and is siccing the Justice Department on elected lawmakers," Vitka added. "These companies should be shamed and ashamed until they fix this."
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'Five-Alarm Fire' as GOP House Speaker Tries to Ram Through Spying Bill
"Absent significant amendment, RISAA will do nothing to prevent the government's repeated abuses of Section 702 to spy on Americans," critics said.
Apr 10, 2024
Update (3:45 pm ET):
Nineteen Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday blocked the GOP speaker's effort to move forward with reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a controversial spying authority historically abused by government agencies.
"The failure of today's vote makes clear that even with the speaker's finger on the scale, Congress won't reauthorize FISA without meaningful privacy reforms," responded Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project.
"The path forward is clear: We need strong reforms to Section 702, including closing the backdoor search loophole and data broker loophole," he added. "Another short-term extension ignores the genuine privacy concerns that have been raised by members of both parties. It's time to bring a bill with genuine reforms to the House floor."
Earlier:
With just over a week left for the U.S. Congress to renew a major—and highly controversial—state surveillance program before it expires, privacy defenders on Tuesday warned that so-called "compromise" legislation is little more than a ploy to permanently reauthorize warrantless government spying on American citizens.
The Biden administration and members of Congress from both parties are seeking to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. citizens but also captures the communications of Americans.
Following a Tuesday markup session by the House Rules Committee and Wednesday consultations with intelligence officials, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is expected to call a vote on the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA) on Thursday. The bill would reauthorize Section 702 for five years while enacting what supporters call a series of reforms meant to protect Americans against state surveillance.
"Absent significant amendment, RISAA will do nothing to prevent the government's repeated abuses of Section 702 to spy on Americans," said the Brennan Center for Justice, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and FreedomWorks in a joint statement.
Introduced in February by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), RISAA would reauthorize what the congresswoman called "an indispensable tool that protects us from national security threats within the United States and abroad."
Congress passed a short-term extension of Section 702 last December, with lawmakers unable to agree on whether and how to reform the contentious law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times, including to spy on protestors, congressional donors, journalists, and others.
RISAA is meant to be a compromise between the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act and the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act. The former bill was supported by privacy defenders, while the ACLU warned that the latter "would greatly expand the government's ability to spy on Americans without a warrant."
Proponents are touting RISAA's 56 purported reforms. Johnson asserted last week that the legislation "will establish new procedures to rein in the FBI, increase accountability at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), impose penalties for wrongdoing, and institute unprecedented transparency across the FISA process so we no longer have to wait years to uncover potential abuses."
However, civil liberties defenders warn that many of RISAA's so-called reforms are little more than window dressing that preserve the status quo.
"Making 56 ineffective tweaks to a fundamentally broken law is not reforming it," said the Brennan Center, EPIC, and FreedomWorks.
Johnson had previously supported closing the so-called data broker loophole—which the government exploits to purchase sensitive information—and the backdoor search loophole, through which domestic law enforcement agencies can access Americans' communications without a warrant. While the House is expected to vote Thursday on an amendment to close the backdoor search loophole, lawmakers are also likely to vote on three FISA expansions and special protections that only apply to members of Congress.
"This is so disappointing—when Speaker Johnson was on the Judiciary Committee with me, he was in our coalition fighting for major FISA reforms to protect sensitive data. Now that he's speaker, he's folding to spy agencies who want to violate your privacy," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote on social media Tuesday.
Jayapal lamented that RISAA says the "FBI has to notify congressmembers to spy on us, but regular Americans can be spied on without a warrant?"
Demand Progress policy director Sean Vitka said in a statement, "In a truly staggering betrayal of public trust, Speaker Johnson is now not only sabotaging votes on overwhelmingly popular privacy protections for Americans, he is trying to ram through the Intelligence Committee's expansions of FISA."
"This is a five-alarm fire, born from Speaker Johnson's apparent decision to jam his thumb on the scale and sell out everyone in the United States to foreign data brokers," Vitka added.
Furthermore, RISAA contains a provision that Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security program at the Brennan Center, warns "could result in the permanent reauthorization" of Section 702 "without a single reform."
"The House must NOT pass any legislation that could be read to permanently reauthorize Section 702, let alone permanently reauthorizing it without a single reform," Goitein said. "This provision of RISAA must be fixed, or the bill should be DOA."
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ACLU Sues Colorado Springs, FBI Over 'Unconstitutional' Spying on Activists' Devices
"Unless called to account in this lawsuit, the police could seize and search the phones and devices of anyone in our community."
Aug 02, 2023
The ACLU of Colorado on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Colorado Springs, four members of the Colorado Springs Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, accusing them of illegally spying on the private communications of a local activist arrested on minor—and critics say dubious—charges during a 2021 housing rights protest.
Filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado in Denver on behalf of Jacqueline "Jax" Armendariz Unzueta and the Chinook Center, a progressive community advocacy group, the lawsuit accuses the defendants of perpetrating the "unconstitutional and invasive search and seizure of the phones, computers, devices, and private chats of people and groups whose message the CSPD dislikes."
"Over the last several years, CSPD has engaged in a concerted campaign against activists in the region, abusing its powers to target them through infiltration, surveillance, and dragnet warrants to search and seize their personal devices and digital data without justification," the complaint states.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution affirms "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."
The lawsuit contends that the actions of CSPD detectives Daniel Summey and B.K. Steckler, CSPD officers Jason Otero and Roy Ditzler, and the FBI "expose a pervasive disregard for long-standing constitutional rules meant to constrain law enforcement and protect personal privacy, with far-reaching implications for everyone in our community."
The Chinook Center—which describes itself as a "progressive, mission-driven community space that empowers and connects people and grassroots organizations working for social, economic, and environmental justice in the Pikes Peak region"—helped organize a July 31, 2021 housing rights march in which Armendariz Unzueta participated.
According to the lawsuit, "CSPD targeted Chinook Center leaders for arrest at the march, sharing pictures of the activists in advance and stating that they would get a 'boot to the head.'"
The suit continues:
Ultimately, a CSPD commander ordered arrests of prominent Chinook Center members for marching in the street, even after the protestors complied with police requests to move onto the sidewalk.
Colorado Springs police then obtained a search warrant—one of several that are the subject of this lawsuit—to search the Chinook Center's private chats on Facebook Messenger. The warrant did not even purport to be supported by probable cause. It was not limited to a search for any particular evidence, let alone evidence of a particular crime, and it was unlimited as to topics.
"The warrants targeting Chinook and Armendariz Unzueta were part of a pattern and practice of unconstitutional actions intended to teach activists a lesson: Colorado Springs police would retaliate against political expression with dragnet warrants to chill free speech," the lawsuit states.
"Tolerating or accepting this justification would eviscerate the Fourth Amendment and justify unbounded intrusions into the privacy of anyone even associated with someone accused of a crime," the complaint asserts. "Unless called to account in this lawsuit, the police could seize and search the phones and devices of anyone in our community."
CSPD's justification for the seizure and search of Armendariz Unzueta's devices is based on the fact that she was arrested for marching in the street and allegedly dropping her bicycle in the path of an officer during the march, "even though the officer easily avoided the bicycle and was not injured in any way," according to the suit.
The arrest, police said, gave them the right to search activists' devices because protesters used them to share photos and messages.
The FBI is named in the lawsuit because, according to the filing, agents at its Rocky Mountain Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory illegally seized, searched, and copied Armendariz Unzueta's personal devices.
"CSPD and the FBI searched these devices for the words 'human,' 'right,' 'housing,' 'protest,' and 'police,' among many other terms, without any time limitation whatsoever," the filing states. "They also seized and reviewed all of Armendariz Unzueta's private personal photos, videos, text messages, and emails for more than a two-month period, again unlimited by subject or topic."
In a statement responding to the lawsuit, Armendariz Unzueta said that "this case is about love for my community. I hope CSPD will never again target, terrorize, and attempt to silence others as they did to me."
"We cannot let CSPD continue to be arrogant bullies with badges and guns that violate the civil rights of innocent people because of their entrenched—and ignorant—political and racial biases," she added.
"This case is about love for my community. I hope CSPD will never again target, terrorize, and attempt to silence others as they did to me."
ACLU of Colorado legal director Tim Macdonald said that "our Constitution recognized the profound danger that these types of warrants would have on freedom and liberty and precluded them. Indeed, these types of general warrants were common in the time of King George and helped lead to the American Revolution."
"Unless called to account in this lawsuit, the police could seize and search the phones and devices of anyone in our community," Macdonald warned.
As noted in the lawsuit, "the FBI had been spying on the Chinook Center and other activist groups since the summer of 2020, with CSPD Detective April Rogers masquerading undercover as an activist, participant, and volunteer with Chinook and allied organizations" during racial justice protests in response to the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the earlier CSPD killing of De'Von Bailey, who was shot four times in the back after someone called to falsely report a robbery as revenge.
This was part of the FBI's wider infiltration campaign targeting Back Lives Matter and, according to critics, a continuation of the agency's longtime efforts to monitor, infiltrate, and destroy social justice movements.
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The FBI's New FOIA Policy Is a Big Step Backward
Feb 26, 2017
Dust off your fax machine. The FBI is planning to take a big step backward for government transparency.
As of March 1, the Bureau will no longer accept Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests via email. Anyone seeking public records from the FBI will have to use a new online portal -- or send requests via fax or snail mail.
Online FOIA portals may seem like a good idea in theory, but government agencies make them difficult to use -- with way too many burdensome requirements.
The Freedom of Information Act gives us a legal right to request public records, which allow journalists and watchdogs to hold the government accountable. FOIA requests uncovered harmful covert operations like COINTELPRO -- an FBI program designed to dismantle civil rights groups, among others -- and also exposed government surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists.
Our friends at MuckRock, which helps journalists and others access public records, raised the alarm when the terms of service of the new FBI portal came to light. These include arbitrary restrictions that aren't consistent with the law:
- Requests can't be longer than 3,000 characters.
- Individuals aren't eligible for the reduced fees available to media outlets, meaning that freelance journalists and others will have to pay extra when filing requests.
- Memos, emails and other internal communications appear to be off-limits to requesters -- a restriction that undermines government transparency.
While these terms of service might be improved going forward, the FBI has shown that it can and will arbitrarily change them without public comment.
MuckRock founder Michael Morisy told us he's concerned about what this step backward signals for government transparency. "The FBI is a hugely important agency, and if the FBI gets away with it, we worry that a lot of other agencies will follow suit."
Freedom-of-information advocates have been fighting with the federal government about FOIA for a long time. And this isn't the first time a government agency has spent taxpayer money to make public records less accessible.
You can help by signing our petition urging the FBI to keep accepting email requests and cut out arbitrary restrictions when it launches its online FOIA portal on March 1.
Given the Trump administration's hostile attitude toward the press and activists, we need our government to be more transparent, not less.
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Supreme Court Quietly Approves Rule to Give FBI 'Sprawling' Hacking Powers
Absent action by Congress, the rule change will go into effect in December
Apr 29, 2016
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court quietly approved a rule change allowing a federal magistrate judge to issue a search and seizure warrant for any target using anonymity software like Tor to browse the internet.
Absent action by U.S. Congress, the rule change (pdf) will go into effect in December. The FBI would then be able to search computers remotely--even if the bureau doesn't know where that computer is located--if a user has anonymity software installed on it.
The rule changes, which the FBI said were necessary to combat cybercrime, come amid escalating tensions between the intelligence community and technology and privacy advocates, and just a day after the U.S. House of Representatives advanced a bill that would require the government to obtain a probable cause warrant from a judge before seizing data stored with tech companies such as Facebook, Google, and Dropbox.
"These amendments will have significant consequences for Americans' privacy."
--Sen. Ron Wyden
"Whatever euphemism the FBI uses to describe it--whether they call it a 'remote access search' or a 'network investigative technique'--what we're talking about is government hacking, and this obscure rule change would authorize a lot more of it," said Kevin Bankston, director of the policy advocacy group Open Technology Institute (OTI), which previously testified against the changes. "Congress should stop this power-grab in its tracks and instead demand answers from the FBI, which so far has been ducking Congress' questions on this issue and fighting in court to keep its hacking tactics secret."
As of April, over one million people use Tor just to browse Facebook, the social media platform noted in a blog post.
Chief Justice John Roberts submitted the change to Congress as part of the court's annual collection of amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which inform every federal prosecution in the country.
In its current incarnation, Rule 41 stipulates that magistrate judges can only authorize searches within their own jurisdiction. The amendment would allow them to issue warrants to hack into and seize information on a computer if its location has been "concealed through technical means."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of Congress's more outspoken privacy advocates, slammed the proposal as a "sprawling expansion of government surveillance" and called on Congress to reject it.
"These amendments will have significant consequences for Americans' privacy and the scope of the government's powers to conduct remote surveillance and searches of electronic devices," Wyden said in a statement. "Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once, and the vast majority of the affected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of a cybercrime."
"These are complex issues involving privacy, digital security and our Fourth Amendment rights, which require thoughtful debate and public vetting," Wyden said. "Substantive policy changes like these are clearly a job for Congress, the American people and their elected representatives, not an obscure bureaucratic process."
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Censorship on Rise as Global Internet Freedom Continues Downward Spiral
Well over half of all internet users live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family has been subject to censorship online
Oct 28, 2015
For the fifth year in a row, global internet freedom continued its downward trend in 2015, with more governments censoring information of public interest while simultaneously expanding surveillance and thwarting privacy tools, according to the annual assessment by the U.S.-based Freedom House released Wednesday.
Since June 2014, 32 of the 65 countries assessed in Freedom on the Net (pdf) saw internet freedom deteriorate, according to the nonprofit, which monitors digital rights and advocates for democracy. Notable declines were documented in Libya, France, and--for the second year running--Ukraine, amid what Freedom House describes as "its territorial conflict and propaganda war with Russia."
While the end is the same--increasing erosion of privacy and human rights afforded by a free and open internet--the means have shifted slightly.
"Governments are increasingly pressuring individuals and the private sector to take down or delete offending content, as opposed to relying on blocking and filtering," explained Sanja Kelly, project director for Freedom on the Net. "They know that average users have become more technologically savvy and can often circumvent state-imposed blocks."
According to the report, authorities in 42 of the 65 countries assessed required private companies or internet users to restrict or delete web content dealing with political, religious, or social issues, up from 37 the previous year. Criticism of the authorities was most likely to attract censorship or punishment. At the same time, news about conflict, corruption allegations against top government or business figures, opposition websites, and satire were also subject to online censorship in over one-third of the countries examined.
In fact, the study found that over 61 percent of all internet users live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family has been subject to online censorship, and over 58 percent live in countries where bloggers or other internet users have been jailed for sharing content on political, social, and religious issues.
Meanwhile, even as governments in 14 of 65 countries passed new laws to increase surveillance and many more upgraded their surveillance equipment, encryption, and anonymity tools crucial to securing freedom of expression were subject to restrictions worldwide.
"Given the mounting concerns over government surveillance, companies, and internet users have taken up new tools to protect the privacy of their data and identity," the report reads, noting that UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye stated in May 2015 that encryption and anonymity are essential to basic human rights.
"Unfortunately," the report continues, "governments around the world have moved to limit encryption and undermine anonymity for all internet users, often citing the use of these tools by terrorists and criminals. Such restrictions disproportionately threaten the lives and work of human rights activists, journalists, opposition political figures, and members of ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities."
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'Codifying' Government Surveillance, Senate Passes CISA
"If President Obama does not veto this bill, he'll be showing that his administration never truly cared about the open Internet," rights group says
Oct 27, 2015
Update:
| #StopCISA Tweets |
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) without any of the proposed amendments that would have strengthened user protections. The bill passed 74-21 (see the roll call here).
Rights groups immediately called for President Obama to veto the bill and vowed to keep the pressure up.
"Every senator supporting #CISA today voted against a world with freedom, democracy, and basic human rights," tweeted digital rights organization Fight for the Future. "If President Obama does not veto this bill, he'll show that his administration never truly cared about the open Internet."
"This vote will go down as the moment Congress codified the US government's unconstitutional spying. A sad day for the Internet," the group added.
In its response to CISA's passage in the Senate, the Electronic Frontier Foundation marked its disappointment. It said: "The bill is fundamentally flawed due to its broad immunity clauses, vague definitions, and aggressive spying authorities."
With the bill now moving to conference committee, EFF expressed no confidence that it would be improved.
"The passage of CISA reflects the misunderstanding many lawmakers have about technology and security," EFF continued. "Computer security engineers were against it. Academics were against it. Technology companies, including some of Silicon Valley's biggest companies, such as Twitter and Salesforce, were against it. Civil society organizations were against it. And constituents sent over 1 million faxes opposing CISA to Senators."
EFF vowed that the fight against the bill would continue through the conference committee process, where the group would urge lawmakers to add privacy provisions. "We will never stop fighting for lawmakers to either understand technology or when they need to listen to the people who do," the group said.
The official Senate roll call to the vote follows:
Alphabetical by Senator Name
|
Alexander (R-TN), Yea Ayotte (R-NH), Yea Baldwin (D-WI), Nay Barrasso (R-WY), Yea Bennet (D-CO), Yea Blumenthal (D-CT), Yea Blunt (R-MO), Yea Booker (D-NJ), Nay Boozman (R-AR), Yea Boxer (D-CA), Yea Brown (D-OH), Nay Burr (R-NC), Yea Cantwell (D-WA), Yea Capito (R-WV), Yea Cardin (D-MD), Nay Carper (D-DE), Yea Casey (D-PA), Yea Cassidy (R-LA), Yea Coats (R-IN), Yea Cochran (R-MS), Yea Collins (R-ME), Yea Coons (D-DE), Nay Corker (R-TN), Yea Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Cotton (R-AR), Yea Crapo (R-ID), Nay Cruz (R-TX), Not Voting Daines (R-MT), Nay Donnelly (D-IN), Yea Durbin (D-IL), Yea Enzi (R-WY), Yea Ernst (R-IA), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea Fischer (R-NE), Yea |
Flake (R-AZ), Yea Franken (D-MN), Nay Gardner (R-CO), Yea Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea Graham (R-SC), Not Voting Grassley (R-IA), Yea Hatch (R-UT), Yea Heinrich (D-NM), Yea Heitkamp (D-ND), Yea Heller (R-NV), Nay Hirono (D-HI), Yea Hoeven (R-ND), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Yea Johnson (R-WI), Yea Kaine (D-VA), Yea King (I-ME), Yea Kirk (R-IL), Yea Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea Lankford (R-OK), Yea Leahy (D-VT), Nay Lee (R-UT), Nay Manchin (D-WV), Yea Markey (D-MA), Nay McCain (R-AZ), Yea McCaskill (D-MO), Yea McConnell (R-KY), Yea Menendez (D-NJ), Nay Merkley (D-OR), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Yea Moran (R-KS), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Yea Murphy (D-CT), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea |
Nelson (D-FL), Yea Paul (R-KY), Not Voting Perdue (R-GA), Yea Peters (D-MI), Yea Portman (R-OH), Yea Reed (D-RI), Yea Reid (D-NV), Yea Risch (R-ID), Nay Roberts (R-KS), Yea Rounds (R-SD), Yea Rubio (R-FL), Not Voting Sanders (I-VT), Nay Sasse (R-NE), Yea Schatz (D-HI), Yea Schumer (D-NY), Yea Scott (R-SC), Yea Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shaheen (D-NH), Yea Shelby (R-AL), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Yea Sullivan (R-AK), Nay Tester (D-MT), Nay Thune (R-SD), Yea Tillis (R-NC), Yea Toomey (R-PA), Yea Udall (D-NM), Nay Vitter (R-LA), Not Voting Warner (D-VA), Yea Warren (D-MA), Nay Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea Wicker (R-MS), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Nay |
Earlier:
As the U.S. Senate gears up for a vote on Tuesday's controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), privacy advocates are galvanizing an 11th-hour push against the bill they say does nothing more than expand government spying powers.
A slew of digital rights groups, including Fight for the Future and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, along with whistleblower Edward Snowden and outspoken CISA opponent Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), joined forces Monday night for an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit, which has also come out against the bill. The session was the latest action by civil society groups, activists, and tech companies calling on Congress to reject CISA for its anti-privacy provisions.
"CISA isn't a cybersecurity bill," Snowden wrote during the Q&A. "It's not going to stop any attacks. It's not going to make us any safer. It's a surveillance bill."
Supporters of CISA--including Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.)--say the bill would make it easier for tech companies to share data in cases of security breaches and other digital attacks. But critics say there aren't enough safeguards in place to protect user privacy, and the bill only works to serve intelligence agencies in domestic surveillance operations.
"What it allows is for the companies you interact with every day--visibly, like Facebook, or invisibly, like AT&T--to indiscriminately share private records about your interactions and activities with the government," Snowden wrote on Monday. "CISA allows private companies to immediately share a perfect record of your private activities the instant you click a link, log in, make a purchase, and so on--and the government with reward for doing it by granting them a special form of legal immunity for their cooperation."
Fight for the Future campaign director Evan Greer said the Senate's vote on Tuesday "will go down in history as the moment that lawmakers decided not only what sort of Internet our children and our children's children will have, but what sort of world they will live in."
The campaigns, which are being waged under the hashtag #StopCISA, urge senators to oppose the bill and protect civil liberties.
Greer added, "Every Senator who votes for CISA will be voting for a world without freedom of expression, a world without true democracy, a world without basic human rights. And they will be voting for their removal from office because the Internet will not forget which side of history they stood on."
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