March, 16 2020, 12:00am EDT
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Senate Leadership Stifles Growing Bipartisan Opposition in Push to Reauthorize Dangerous Spying Powers
As Patriot Act surveillance authorities ‘sunset,’ Congress must not pass legislation that reinstates this threat to privacy rights.
WASHINGTON
On Monday, Senate leadership plans to push through a vote on the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020, legislation that would reauthorize abusive government spying powers that expired on March 15.
The Act passed the House on a 278-136 vote, but with significant bipartisan opposition from civil-liberties champions in Congress and from leading privacy, racial-justice and constitutional-rights groups, including Free Press Action.
If signed by the president, the bill would reauthorize Section 215 powers Congress established under the USA Patriot Act in 2001. Section 215 is the provision national-security agencies cited in the past to support their unwarranted collection of phone records of hundreds of millions of innocent people in the United States.
A bipartisan group of House Representatives and Senators has called for meaningful reforms to federal spying powers, including Section 215. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has prevented Sens. Steve Daines, Patrick Leahy, Mike Lee, Ron Wyden and others from offering any amendments that would better protect the privacy rights of Americans.
Free Press Action Government Relations Director Sandra Fulton made the following statement:
"Senator McConnell is blocking any congressional vote on amendments or alternative bills making essential reforms to this harmful spying program. We saw similar efforts to silence dissent and debate when the House Judiciary Committee cancelled a markup of the Reauthorization Act and rushed the bill through a floor vote after a senior member of the committee said they would offer pro-privacy amendments.
"If McConnell's push through the Senate succeeds, it would renew the government's power to warrantlessly acquire billions of data points on every person in the United States. These are terrifying powers to hand to President Trump, considering his record of surveilling and abusing marginalized communities -- but as we've seen, the president's supporters alike have complained that these overbroad powers were used against the Trump campaign, too.
"This reauthorization of unchecked spying passed the House despite bipartisan opposition from a growing number of civil-liberties champions. Democrats joined Republicans to say that this legislation didn't do enough to protect everyone's privacy rights.
"Opposition to this legislation is gaining momentum on the Hill. That's one of the reasons McConnell is pushing so aggressively for a vote today while so much of the nation is focused on the coronavirus crisis. It's unthinkable to extend these spying powers to the same agencies that have so often sidestepped safeguards and ignored Americans' fundamental privacy rights. Every senator should vote against the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act and demand more reforms and restrictions to curb runaway government surveillance."
LATEST NEWS
From a Coup to Assassinations, Just How Much Immunity Does the US President Now Have?
"If Trump, as commander-in-chief, ordered his troops to assassinate somebody or stage a coup, that would seem to fall within the absolute immunity provision of the court's decision," said one legal expert.
Jul 03, 2024
Right-wing Chief Justice John Roberts accused his liberal colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court of "fearmongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals" in their alarmed dissents against the conservative supermajority's ruling in Trump v. United States, which held that current and former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for so-called "official acts."
But legal experts said in response to the decision that the "nightmare" scenarios Justice Sonia Sotomayor outlined in her dissent—including a president ordering the Navy's SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a domestic political opponent or staging a coup to remain in power, all without legal consequences—aren't farfetched readings of the new ruling.
"The language of the Supreme Court's decision seems to suggest that because this is a core function of the president, that there is absolute immunity from criminal prosecution," Cheryl Bader, a criminal law professor at Fordham Law School and a former federal prosecutor, toldPolitico. "If [presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald] Trump, as commander-in-chief, ordered his troops to assassinate somebody or stage a coup, that would seem to fall within the absolute immunity provision of the court's decision."
"If brazenly attempting to overturn a democratic election by claiming the powers of the presidency can be a so-called 'official' act of the president, then where does it end?"
Bader was hardly alone in her interpretation of the ruling, which Trump and the far-right architects of his possible second White House term celebrated as a critical victory in their effort to seize the levers of the federal government.
"If I'm reading the court correctly," Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf wrote on social media after the decision was released Monday, a president "can openly accept bribes for pardons, because those fall within his 'exclusive' authority."
During oral arguments over the case in April, an attorney for Trump conceded in response to questioning from Sotomayor that assassination of a political rival "could well be an official act"—thus making it unprosecutable under Trump v. United States.
Orin Kerr, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, warned that if Trump wins another term, he's "going to preface every blatantly illegal thing he does by saying, 'Official act, this is an official act.'"
Justice Sotomayor: "If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military...to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?"
Trump’s Lawyer: "That could well be an official act."
– Trump v. US, oral arguments pic.twitter.com/6hOzZ3WFPN
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) July 1, 2024
Analysts, lawmakers, and civil liberties groups alike expressed horror at the prospect of a former president who has openly threatened to target his political opponents taking office with king-like powers bestowed by the Supreme Court's conservative majority—half of which Trump appointed.
"Former President Trump's handpicked justices have cast aside our nation's bedrock principle of the rule of law, afforded future presidents carte blanche to abuse the powers of their office for political and personal gain, and laid the foundation for Donald Trump to have absolute authority in a potential second term," Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said Monday.
"If brazenly attempting to overturn a democratic election by claiming the powers of the presidency can be a so-called 'official' act of the president, then where does it end? If a former president who has fomented an insurrection at our Capitol and who now promises to serve as a dictator on day one back in office can avoid accountability in a court of law, then as Justice Sotomayor stated, I too 'fear for our democracy.'"
ACLU national legal director David Cole warned that the Supreme Court supermajority's opinion "sits like a loaded weapon for Trump to abuse in the pursuit of criminal ends if he is reelected."
In a column headlined "The President Can Now Assassinate You, Officially," The Nation's Elie Mystal wrote that he "cannot even imagine what [Trump will] try if he is actually given power again, knowing full well that he will never be held accountable for literal crimes."
"Under this new standard, a president can go on a four-to-eight-year crime spree, steal all the money and murder all the people they can get their hands on, all under the guise of presumptive 'official' behavior, and then retire from public life, never to be held accountable for their crimes while in office," Mystal noted. "That, according to the court, is what the Constitution requires."
"While the Supreme Court says 'unofficial' acts are still prosecutable, the court has left nearly no sphere in which the president can be said to be acting 'unofficially,'" he added. "And more importantly, the court has left virtually no vector of evidence that can be deployed against a president to prove that their acts were 'unofficial.'"
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'Apocalyptic Scenes': Hurricane Beryl Leaves 'Complete Devastation' in Its Wake
"What we see here are the consequences of a rampaging climate change," the prime minister of one impacted country said, as the storm now bears down on Jamaica.
Jul 03, 2024
Hurricane Beryl—the earliest Category 4 and Category 5 storm to ever form in the Atlantic Basin—killed at least seven people as it tore through the southeastern Caribbean nations of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada on Monday, leaving behind devastation that the leaders of both countries compared to "Armageddon."
Scientists say that the record-breaking storm intensified so rapidly and so early in the season due to above-average ocean temperatures heated primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
"What we see here are the consequences of a rampaging climate change," Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves toldDemocracy Now! on Wednesday morning. "We are in the era of the Anthropocene, and the developed countries—the major emitters—are not taking this matter seriously."
"Big Oil must be held to account for worsening extreme weather disasters."
Beryl made landfall on Carriacou Island in Grenada at around 11:00 am EDT on Monday as a Category 4 storm before strengthening to a Category 5 later in the day. With winds blowing as high as 150 miles per hour, it was the strongest hurricane to hit the Grenadines since at least 1851.
The storm flattened Carriacou in half an hour, Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said in a press briefing late Monday.
"Having seen it myself, there is really nothing that could prepare you to see this level of destruction," Mitchell told reporters. "It is almost Armageddon-like. Almost total damage or destruction of all buildings, whether they be public buildings, homes, or private facilities. Complete devastation and destruction of agriculture, complete and total destruction of the natural environment. There is literally no vegetation left anywhere on the island of Carriacou."
The hurricane also pummeled the Grenadian island of Martinique. On the two islands, which are home to around 6,000 people, the storm damaged or destroyed 98% of structures, including Carriacou's marinas, airport, and main hospital, The New York Times reported. It also wiped out electricity and communications on the two islands, damaged crops, downed trees and power lines, and flattened Carriacou's mangroves.
In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the hardest-hit islands were Canouan, Mayreau, and Union Island, where 90% of homes were flattened or seriously damaged, according toThe Guardian. The outlet said social media footage of the damage showed "apocalyptic scenes."
Speaking on Democracy Now!, Gonsalves compared conditions in the south of the country to "Armageddon."
"Union Island is flattened," he said, adding that everyone on Union and Mayreau were homeless.
One woman who survived the storm described the experience to Vincentian journalist Demion McTair, saying, "Just imagine stoves flying in the air, house flying, lifting up, tearing apart, and just going in the wind. Just like that… Just imagine."
Despite the devastation, the death toll has remained low for now, with three reported dead in Grenada, one in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and three in Venezuela, according to The New York Times.
However, the task of rebuilding from the storm will be "Herculean," Gonsalves told Democracy Now!, adding that he estimated the damage was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
"We are in a sense going up a down escalator," he said. "Every time we make some progress, we get hit by these natural disasters and we have to start afresh."
Yet, given the role that the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis plays in supercharging storms and hurricanes, these disasters expose the deep guilt of powerful corporations who have profited from the continued consumption of coal, oil, and gas.
"Seriously, at what point do we get crimes against humanity trials for the fossil fuel execs and economists, like Nobel winner William Nordhaus, who minimized climate impacts for decades?" climate advocate Julia Steinberger wrote on social media in response to the storm's devastation.
Greenpeace International agreed.
"Big Oil must be held to account for worsening extreme weather disasters," the group wrote on social media.
Both Gonsalves and Mitchell criticized wealthier nations for leaving Caribbean countries to bear the brunt of a crisis they did little to cause.
In Monday's press briefing, Mitchell said he expected recovery to cost tens of billions of dollars and called for climate justice:
We are no longer prepared to accept that it's OK for us to constantly suffer significant, clearly demonstrated loss and damage arising from climatic events and be expected to rebuild year after year while the countries that are responsible for creating this situation—and exacerbating this situation—sit idly by with platitudes and tokenism.
Grenada's economy, Grenada's environment, both physically built and natural, has taken an enormous hit from this hurricane.
It has put the people of Carriacou and Petit Martinique light years behind, and they are required to pull themselves by the boot strap, on their own.
This is not right, it is not fair, and it not just.
Mitchell promised to establish a task force to address the issue involving other small island developing states and the international community.
Gonsalves, speaking from his residence late on Monday, said that developed countries who have contributed the most to the crisis were "getting a lot of talking, but you are not seeing a lot of action—as in making money available to small-island developing states and other vulnerable countries."
He also referred to the United Nations climate negotiations, or COPs, as "largely a talkshop."
He expressed hope that seeing such a strong hurricane form so early in the season "will alert them to our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses and encourage them to honor the commitments they have made on a range of issues, from the Paris accord to the current time."
However, he also expressed concern that the climate crisis was not a larger point of discussion in the upcoming U.K. elections, or in other elections worldwide this year.
"The same thing is happening in other parts of the election in Western Europe and the United States as countries move to the right," Gonsalves said. "It's a terrible time for small-island developing states and vulnerable countries."
Meanwhile, Beryl's potential path of destruction is not over, as it approaches Jamaica as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of up to 140 miles per hour, the National Weather Service (NWS) wrote at 2:00 pm EDT Wednesday.
"We are very concerned about a wide variety of life-threatening impacts in Jamaica."
"On the forecast track, the center of Beryl will pass near or over Jamaica during the next several hours. After that, the center is expected to pass near or over the Cayman Islands tonight or early Thursday and move over the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico Thursday night or early Friday," NWS said.
While the agency predicted the storm would weaken somewhat over the next two days, it "is forecast to be at or near major hurricane intensity while it passes near Jamaica during the next several hours and the Cayman Islands tonight or early Thursday."
"We are very concerned about a wide variety of life-threatening impacts in Jamaica," AccuWeather's chief meteorologist Jon Porter said, adding that Beryl was "the strongest and most dangerous hurricane threat that Jamaica has faced, probably, in decades."
Oliver Mair, Jamaica's consul general in Miami, toldThe Washington Post that the hurricane was "almost like a game-changer."
"To have this size hurricane so early in the season, it's frightening," Mair said.
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'The Land Theft Continues': Israel Announces Biggest West Bank Seizure in Over 30 Years
The Israel-based activist group Peace Now says "2024 is by far the peak year for Israeli land seizure in the occupied West Bank."
Jul 03, 2024
Human rights defenders on Wednesday condemned the far-right Israeli government's announcement of the largest seizure of Palestinian land—many critics bluntly called it "land theft"—in the illegally occupied West Bank in over 30 years.
On June 25, Israeli occupation authorities unilaterally declared 12,700 dunams, or 4.9 square miles, of land in the Jordan Valley "state lands." Israel's Custodian of the State's Property in the Civil Administration published the declaration on Wednesday. The move supplements previous Israeli land grabs totaling nearly 11,000 dunams (4.2 square miles) in February and March.
Combined, these are the biggest seizures of Palestinian land since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
"Land theft is a component part of colonial genocide as a social process," noted Heidi Matthews, an assistant professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Toronto.
Muther Isaac, academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College in Jerusalem, lamented that "the land theft continues in the West Bank!"
Israel's goal, according to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, is to "establish facts on the ground" in service of annexing the Palestinian lands and establishing or expanding overwhelmingly Jewish colonies there. The push comes as more and more countries—nearly 150, according to Palestinian officials—officially recognize the state of Palestine and as Israeli forces continue an assault on Gaza that has been widely condemned as genocidal.
"We will establish sovereignty... first on the ground and then through legislation. I intend to legalize the young settlements," Smotrich said last month, referring to illegal outposts that are newer and smaller than established Jewish settler colonies.
"My life's mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state," he added.
Under international law, all of the settlements are illegal. Most were built on land seized from Palestinians through terrorism and ethnic cleansing during the Nakba, or catastrophe, when more than 700,000 Arabs were expelled during the establishment and consolidation of modern Israel in the late 1940s, and during the conquest of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967.
Smotrich and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "are determined to fight against the entire world and against the interests of the people of Israel for the benefit of a handful of settlers who receive thousands of dunams as if there were no political conflict to resolve or war to end," the Tel Aviv-based activist group Peace Now said in a statement Wednesday.
"Today, it is clear to everyone that this conflict cannot be resolved without a political settlement that establishes a Palestinian state alongside Israel," the group added. "Still, the Israeli government chooses to actually make it difficult and distance us from the possibility of peace and stopping the bloodshed."
That bloodshed includes a surge in settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since last October. More than 500 Palestinians—around a quarter of them children—have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers there over the past nine months, according to Palestinian and international agencies.
Protected and sometimes aided by Israeli troops, Israeli settlers have launched multiple deadly pogroms targeting Palestinian people and property in the occupied territories since last year.
These and other previous attacks prompted the Biden administration to impose sanctions on a handful of the most extremist Israeli settlers. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also reverted to classifying Israeli settlements as unlawful, which was the State Department's position from 1978 until the Trump administration reversed it in 2019.
However, the U.S. remains Israel's staunchest international supporter, providing billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover for Israeli policies and actions that, in addition to occupation and colonization, critics say amount to apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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