I feel that demands like this fundamentally misunderstand the hows and the whys of these posts being filled in the first place. The nature of power in America seems to me to be widely misunderstood.
I think that the ability for those organizations to stone-wall is important and needs to be preserved - especially prior to the fact being released there may be very valid reasons for withholding facts... but if the stonewalling is without a just cause (which we can examine at lengths after the release of information) then there should be more severe penalties.
We're getting to a point where claiming it's "a matter of National Security" is pretty much a meme and it erodes legitimate uses of this privilege - and that erosion will cause a lot of harm over time as legitimately sensitive material is forced out early... but, at the same time, being overly aggressive with punishment over borderline cases of withholding information may also have a chilling effect over properly exercising those rights. So maybe we need to leave a pretty wide grey zone.
Government derives its power from the consent of the governed. Consent cannot be meaningfully granted from ignorance—it’s called informed consent for a reason.
The thing that damages national security is keeping secrets.
I, personally, want to know if the US is assassinating people with drones, illegally detaining people overseas or snooping in on conversations... But I don't need to personally know who is working in such-and-such embassy, nor do I want to know (or want the public to know) which routes they commonly take to drive to the embassy, what their favorite foods are or where their family members reside.
National secrets are a thing, there are legitimate details about government employees that are good to keep secret - so I don't think your blanket statement is really all that valid.
They should be approved or denied. Stonewalling is undemocratic. There is no due process because there is no process. It is effectively a dribble or slowloris attack against the requestor.
>[ICE/CBP's] continued efforts to target and tear apart communities across the country.
Is this kind of partisan dog-whistling really necessary? The ACLU does good work at the end of the day, but this sentence makes their stance on border control loud and clear.
And I call it dog-whistling because it does nothing but detract from an otherwise reasonable stance on surveillance abuse, for the sake of a wink and a nod.
To say that ICE or CBP's "effort" is to "target and tear apart communities" is the kind of dishonesty that would be rightly flagged off of HN as inflammatory nonsense.
>However, The New Yorker spoke to lawyers and advocates who said there is no formal process or clear protocol for tracking parents and children within the system and that chaotic systems and inadequate record keeping make it difficult even to know which facility a child might be kept at.
I don't think it rises to the level of dishonesty, but I do think the writer should not have included something as unknowable and irrelevant as the possible hidden motives of these agencies.
Nevertheless, suing these agencies to prevent unwarranted surveillance is justified.
They did actually - but while Obama was in office information about the program was far less public - here's a summary of events leading up to a Jan 13, 2016 lawsuit[1] and here's an article from early 2016 on a different lawsuit[2]. The ACLU has had a consistent stance as far as I'm aware - if you have some sources to indicate otherwise please do supply them.
And, not doing a thing because it wasn't done before is a whataboutism appeal that prevents us from improving our actions - it isn't a really logical argument except within the realm of US law and prior precedent.
It’s not “for the sake of a wink and a nod” or “dogwhistling.” The ACLU is actively campaigning against the way the US Government and ICE in particular treats immigrants and people around the borders.
Have a look at the ACLU website... their position is quite clear.
> Many people who are left to on their on recognizance never show up to their court dates.
Many implies a majority. In fact, far from it. ICE and CBP already have tools to deal with people they deem a flight risk including but not limited to ankle monitors, etc.
Their stance on civil liberties has been pretty consistent. All people are equal, and all are entitled to equal protection of their fundamental civil liberties. Their position on border control follows from this: you are entitled to civil liberties because you are human, not because you are an American citizen. There're some pragmatic limitations on this (there's little that the ACLU can do to protect the civil liberties of people residing in China or Russia, for example), but they've consistently fought to extend civil liberties to everyone - even, for example, American citizens of Iraqi descent residing in Iraq.
It's both of the major parties that have inconsistent stances on this, which can largely be summed up as "civil liberties for me, but not for thee". That's why the ACLU tends to get flack from both sides of the aisle. Both parties try to define one group of people as their "tribe" and maximize their own liberties, while defining another group as an outgroup and trying to deny their liberties. And it works: there's nothing quite so motivating as an outgroup. But I'm glad that there are organizations that take a principled, logical stance toward freedom without discriminating against who gets that freedom.
Those liberties are restricted, justly, when one violates a law. Setting aside the perfectly reasonable outrage at mass surveillance techniques, the ACLU seems to have a problem with any border enforcement, including the kind of temporary detainment that is a requirement for any kind of justice system to function!
Civil liberties do not include the right to enter another sovereign country without that country's consent, so yes, the liberty of free movement into and within a country is something that citizens and legal residents have that other people do not.
This is not a simple problem that lends itself well to the kind of pithy soundbites I complained about in the OP.
It's the interpretation of the second amendment by SCOTUS that has been inconsistent over time, not the ACLU's position. Collective/militia rights is a widespread interpretation of the second amendment (which the ACLU holds). Interpreting "right to bear arms" as unrestrained individual gun ownership is not the default position just because modern NRA advocacy says it is.
This isn't responsive to Rayiner's point. "Why" the ACLU doesn't expansively support the right to bear arms the way they do speech and freedom from search is interesting, but doesn't rebut Rayiner's point "that" they don't.
You're painting their position with a brush the size of a small planet. Here's their actual position, which is for Constitutionally-consistent gun regulations and against proposed gun regulations which raise civil liberties concerns: https://www.aclu.org/blog/civil-liberties/mobilization/aclus...
This article approaches gun regulation from the standpoint that the 2nd amendment mostly doesn't exist. It's arguing that the regulations should be consistent with the equal-protection clause. That's basically in-line with what rayiner said: the ACLU doesn't care about the 2nd amendment, and only defends gun issues when they touch other constitutional issues.
Has the ACLU's stance on the right to bear arms has been inconsistent, as in, changed quite a bit over time? Or they just haven't had much of a stance to speak of? Honest question.
In 1991, they believed it was an individual right. Now they believe it's a collective right. I don't know of any major cases the ACLU brought on behalf of gun owners (but probably wouldn't know if they had).
I can't speak to that - but they also haven't felt as much of a need to devote resources to it as they feel, accurately, I believe, that the NRA has enough resources and a loud enough voice on that topic.
I don’t think it’s a dog whistle, because the ACLU is stating it openly and clearly: ICE and CBP are unconstitutionally violating our civil rights. Nothing winky or noddy about it, and good on them for not mincing words!
I misunderstood the title. I thought that ICE and CBP had somehow taken to retaliating against ACLU for their inquiries about Stingrays, that the ACLU had somehow found out about this and was counter-retaliating with a lawsuit. Fortunately, nothing so dramatic is happening here; their FOIA requests having been stonewalled, and they're taking to the courts to try to force compliance with FOIA. Good on them. I hope they succeed.
I could do without some of the phrasing of the press release though, it comes across as needlessly inflammatory, deliberately written to paint ICE and CBP as some sort of anti-immigration evil league of evil. As an example, take the scare quotes around the term "unlawful-reentry". Here, I use the quotes to mark the word as a word under discussion, apart from the meaning the sentence would have were it not quoted. There, the only common use of quotes that makes sense to me is to mark the use as sarcastic. Sarcasm isn't helpful. If you enter a country without going through a port of entry, that's unlawful entry. If you go back to a country without going through a port of entry, that's unlawfully reentry. That holds true at every national border on this planet, and isn't some anti-immigrant invention of ICE or CBP.
This sort of thing makes me sad, because that kind of sarcasm and disingenuousness makes it easier for people and groups who actually are actively opposed to rights for various other groups to paint the ACLU as acting in bad faith. Don't give your enemies free ammunition. Stick to the facts, and leave the emotionally inflammatory remarks for personal social media accounts.
I agree, but took the intent to be worse than sarcastic, rather a manipulative effort to invalidate another's position by implying the very language they use to describe reality is invalid. In other words, it's like prefacing the words with "so called."
While such legal action is commendable, it seems to me that surveillance of anyone-and-everyone, at whim or at all times, is by now very ingrained in federal-level organizational practice and culture. So much so that it will not go away just because it is ruled illegal or unconstitutional. Plus, its continued use may also have legitimized it enough in the view of judges for them to have developed a large blind spot for their constitutionality.
I got my Guardians of Liberty card this year, third one after donating $15 / mo to the ACLU for two or three years. The cards keep getting better, maybe if I keep donating I can get like a silver or platinum card like those credit cards. Or maybe it’s just this year that the card stock is good.
I should increase my monthly donations after I get a job, $15 / month is too low for somebody in software. Maybe $50 / month.
Seems like the real news is that ICE and CBP haven't been given direct access to the data of cell towers from the get-go, right? Or is that not how that works?
> to track down an immigrant suspected of “unlawful reentry” into the country.
In other words - we don't know who they even are. Just that they're furtive and evading authorities.
The unlawful entry in itself is bad, but what exactly they're doing, which could range from a scheme to dodge customs fees, unfairly circumvent immigration procedures our democratically elected congress put into law, to drug running, to spying, to hurting people.
Every country identifies its entrants. Why are people so eager to make light of such a fair procedure?
There is a serious national security rationale backing identifying an "unlawful entrant" ASAP. I hope the law gives the government maximum authority and upgrades their tools so they can keep us safe.
I wish places like ACLU would be good examples and be candid. By the way they talk in this letter - it's not like they disagree with a law - it's like they're against the concept of the most basic principle of international travel: Getting your passport stamped.
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 99.1 ms ] threadWe're getting to a point where claiming it's "a matter of National Security" is pretty much a meme and it erodes legitimate uses of this privilege - and that erosion will cause a lot of harm over time as legitimately sensitive material is forced out early... but, at the same time, being overly aggressive with punishment over borderline cases of withholding information may also have a chilling effect over properly exercising those rights. So maybe we need to leave a pretty wide grey zone.
The thing that damages national security is keeping secrets.
National secrets are a thing, there are legitimate details about government employees that are good to keep secret - so I don't think your blanket statement is really all that valid.
Is this kind of partisan dog-whistling really necessary? The ACLU does good work at the end of the day, but this sentence makes their stance on border control loud and clear.
And I call it dog-whistling because it does nothing but detract from an otherwise reasonable stance on surveillance abuse, for the sake of a wink and a nod.
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family...
>However, The New Yorker spoke to lawyers and advocates who said there is no formal process or clear protocol for tracking parents and children within the system and that chaotic systems and inadequate record keeping make it difficult even to know which facility a child might be kept at.
Nevertheless, suing these agencies to prevent unwarranted surveillance is justified.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/656/let-me-count-the-ways
https://www.aclu.org/cases/aclu-florida-v-city-sarasota-stin...
And, not doing a thing because it wasn't done before is a whataboutism appeal that prevents us from improving our actions - it isn't a really logical argument except within the realm of US law and prior precedent.
1. https://www.aclunc.org/our-work/legal-docket/aclu-v-doj-stin...
2. https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/watchdog/article59...
Have a look at the ACLU website... their position is quite clear.
Many people who are left to on their on recognizance never show up to their court dates.
https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/26...
Many implies a majority. In fact, far from it. ICE and CBP already have tools to deal with people they deem a flight risk including but not limited to ankle monitors, etc.
It's both of the major parties that have inconsistent stances on this, which can largely be summed up as "civil liberties for me, but not for thee". That's why the ACLU tends to get flack from both sides of the aisle. Both parties try to define one group of people as their "tribe" and maximize their own liberties, while defining another group as an outgroup and trying to deny their liberties. And it works: there's nothing quite so motivating as an outgroup. But I'm glad that there are organizations that take a principled, logical stance toward freedom without discriminating against who gets that freedom.
Civil liberties do not include the right to enter another sovereign country without that country's consent, so yes, the liberty of free movement into and within a country is something that citizens and legal residents have that other people do not.
This is not a simple problem that lends itself well to the kind of pithy soundbites I complained about in the OP.
Except the right to bear arms, of course.
https://reason.com/2019/04/12/the-aclu-defends-the-rights-of... has some discussion of this.
The ACLU is rather consistent. It’s you who just happens to believe there are some people undeserving of civil liberties.
A civil liberties Organisation that only acts on behalf of groups enjoying broad sympathy is useless.
Where was the lawsuit from ACLU during the Obama years?
That’s what makes the lawsuit partisan.
I could do without some of the phrasing of the press release though, it comes across as needlessly inflammatory, deliberately written to paint ICE and CBP as some sort of anti-immigration evil league of evil. As an example, take the scare quotes around the term "unlawful-reentry". Here, I use the quotes to mark the word as a word under discussion, apart from the meaning the sentence would have were it not quoted. There, the only common use of quotes that makes sense to me is to mark the use as sarcastic. Sarcasm isn't helpful. If you enter a country without going through a port of entry, that's unlawful entry. If you go back to a country without going through a port of entry, that's unlawfully reentry. That holds true at every national border on this planet, and isn't some anti-immigrant invention of ICE or CBP.
This sort of thing makes me sad, because that kind of sarcasm and disingenuousness makes it easier for people and groups who actually are actively opposed to rights for various other groups to paint the ACLU as acting in bad faith. Don't give your enemies free ammunition. Stick to the facts, and leave the emotionally inflammatory remarks for personal social media accounts.
I should increase my monthly donations after I get a job, $15 / month is too low for somebody in software. Maybe $50 / month.
In other words - we don't know who they even are. Just that they're furtive and evading authorities.
The unlawful entry in itself is bad, but what exactly they're doing, which could range from a scheme to dodge customs fees, unfairly circumvent immigration procedures our democratically elected congress put into law, to drug running, to spying, to hurting people.
Every country identifies its entrants. Why are people so eager to make light of such a fair procedure?
There is a serious national security rationale backing identifying an "unlawful entrant" ASAP. I hope the law gives the government maximum authority and upgrades their tools so they can keep us safe.
I wish places like ACLU would be good examples and be candid. By the way they talk in this letter - it's not like they disagree with a law - it's like they're against the concept of the most basic principle of international travel: Getting your passport stamped.