Obama regime tries to stop courts from ruling on constitutionality of warrantless spying
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | December 24, 2013
Even after months of stories exposing the breadth and depth of National Security Agency (NSA) spying on Americans’ communications, the Obama administration insists federal courts should stop hearing cases challenging the agency’s warrantless surveillance on grounds that they might expose the existence of this spying.
Last week, federal lawyers asked a judge, Jeffrey S. White, in Northern California to dismiss cases that could lead to a ruling on the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance programs authorized during the George W. Bush administration.
The Obama administration contends the cases are just too dangerous to continue if they wind up jeopardizing state secrets.
“Disclosure of this still-classified information regarding the scope and operational details of N.S.A. intelligence activities implicated by plaintiffs’ allegations could be expected to cause extremely grave damage to the national security of the United States,” James Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, wrote in one of the filings. In June, Clapper was exposed for having lied to Congress about the existence of programs that spied on Americans.
Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the plaintiffs in the cases, told The New York Times that the government’s assertion was “very troubling.”
She added that despite the revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the administration was essentially saying, “We can’t say whether the American people have been spied on by their government.”
The lawsuits in question were brought by Carolyn Jewel and Virginia Shubert, who claim the NSA’s spying violated their constitutional rights.
Jewel is suing on behalf of all AT&T customers, and Shubert is suing on behalf of all Americans.
The NSA has refused to confirm or deny that either plaintiff’s communications were targeted.
“The American people know they’re being surveilled,” Cohn told The Washington Post. “The government is trying to reset the clock in order to avoid an open judicial determination about whether that surveillance is legal.”
To Learn More:
White House Tries to Prevent Judge From Ruling on Surveillance Efforts (by Charlie Savage and David Sanger, New York Times)
U.S. Government Moves To Block Further Litigation In NSA Surveillance Cases (by Marc Ferranti, IDG News Service)
U.S. Reasserts Need To Keep Domestic Surveillance Secret (by Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post)
Jewel v. NSA (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
NSA Phone Data Collection Made No Difference to National Security (by Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman, AllGov)
Obama Asks U.S. Supreme Court for Stamp of Approval on Warrantless Cell Phone Searches (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Should National Intelligence Director Clapper be Charged with a Felony for Lying in Sworn Senate Testimony? (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Canada’s intelligence service asked foreign agencies to spy on Canadians
RT | December 22, 2013
Canada’s intelligence agency deliberately kept the country’s Federal Court “in the dark” to bypass the law in order to outsource its spying on Canadian citizens abroad to foreign security agencies, a federal judge said.
Federal Court Judge, Richard Mosley, has slammed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for knowingly misleading him on numerous occasions.
Since 2009, Mosley has issued a large number of warrants to the CSIS, authorizing interception of electronic communications of unidentified Canadians abroad, who were investigated as threats to domestic security.
The spy agency assured the judge that the surveillance was to be carried out from inside Canada and controlled by and the Communication Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC), the country’s foreign signals intelligence service.
But, after the warrants were obtained, Canada’s foreign partners from the Five Eyes intelligence-gathering alliance (US, UK, Australia and New Zealand) were asked to perform the interceptions.
Canada’s Federal Court wasn’t notified of the foreign involvement and never approved it, Mosley wrote in a redacted version of a classified court decision which was made public on Friday.
“It is clear that the exercise of the court’s warrant issuing has been used as protective cover for activities that it has not authorized,” the document stressed. “The failure to disclose that information was the result of a deliberate decision to keep the court in the dark about the scope and extent of the foreign collection efforts that would flow from the court’s issuance of a warrant.”
Under Canada’s current legislation, the Federal Court has no authority to issue warrants that involve surveillance of Canadians by foreign intelligence agencies, he added.
The actions of CSIS and CSEC put the Canadian citizens abroad at risk as they “may be detained or otherwise harmed as a result of the use of the intercepted communications by the foreign agencies,” Mosley wrote.
“Given the unfortunate history of information sharing with foreign agencies over the past decade and the reviews conducted by several royal commissions, there can be no question that the Canadian agencies are aware of those hazards,” the document said. “It appears to me that they are using the warrants as authorization to assume those risks.”
Mosley demanded explanations from the security agencies after an annual report by CSEC commissioner, Robert Decary, this August.
The judge became suspicious after Decary suggested that CSIS should provide the Federal Court with “certain additional evidence about the nature and extent” of the help, it received from his agency.
The results of the Federal Court’s inquiry into the matter were made public on Friday.
By misleading him, the CSIS and CSEC have been in “breach of the duty of candor,” which resulted in misstatements on the public record about the scope of the authority granted to the service,” Mosley wrote.
Mosley, who used to be a former assistant deputy minister in the Justice Department, was intimately involved in the creation of the 2001 Anti-terrorism Act, which the CSIS and CSEC violated.
GCHQ, NSA Spied On Known Terrorist Haven… UNICEF
By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | December 20, 2013
The latest revelations from the Snowden documents, according to reports in both the NY Times and the Guardian is that the UK’s GCHQ, operating out of a site heavily funded by the NSA, targeted a variety of humanitarian and charitable groups, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, better known as UNICEF. Another target was Médecins du Monde, a well known medical relief group that delivers medicines and medical help to war-torn areas.
The reports also detail spying on various government officials, though, as I’ve said in the past, that kind of stuff isn’t particularly bothersome — as spying on leaders of other countries is typical and expected espionage activity, though it can certainly create some diplomatic awkwardness. Perhaps more interesting is that there’s much more evidence here of economic espionage activity. Among those “targeted” were Joaquin Almunia, the EU commission “competition” boss, who has been investigating anti-trust claims against American companies like Google and Microsoft. The NSA has insisted (and repeated in response to questions from reporters writing the two stories above) that it doesn’t engage in economic espionage — though GCHQ apparently doesn’t have any such restriction, suggesting that the NSA can just hand that kind of activity off to its UK friends, who it funds, and then reap the benefits.
Furthermore, the NSA seems to indicate in its response that while it may not engage in economic espionage in the form of spying on issues and handing that info directly to US companies, it does seem to open up the possibility of engaging in economic espionage to inform US policy makers — meaning it likely gets filtered back to those companies anyway:
“We do not use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to — U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line,” said Vanee Vines, an N.S.A. spokeswoman.
But she added that some economic spying was justified by national security needs. “The intelligence community’s efforts to understand economic systems and policies, and monitor anomalous economic activities, are critical to providing policy makers with the information they need to make informed decisions that are in the best interest of our national security,” Ms. Vines said.
There is some validity in the idea that if there’s going to be some sort of earth-shattering revelation that could have a wider impact on the whole economy, that there’s some value in having intelligence services aware of what’s going on — but it’s a pretty slippery slope from there to simply intercepting direct information that might be helpful for a particular company, and providing them an advantage.
But, going beyond that, targeting groups like UNICEF seems like going way too far. It’s hard to see any legitimate justification for this, unless someone’s going to argue that terrorist groups were somehow co-opting UNICEF, which seems like a huge stretch. To argue that there’s any national security reason to spy on UNICEF seems laughable. It really seems like the NSA and GCHQ were targeting organizations like that because they can.
Brazil ditches Boeing jets, grants $4.5 bln contract to Saab
‘NSA ruined it!’
RT | December 18, 2013
Brazil has rejected a contract for Boeing’s F/A-18 fighter jets in favor of the Swedish Saab’s JAS 39 Gripens. The unexpected move to reject the US bid comes amid the global scandal over the NSA’s involvement in economic espionage activities.
The announcement for the purchase of 36 fighters was made Wednesday by Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim and Air Force Commander Junti Saito. The jets will cost US$4.5 billion, well below the estimated market value of around US$7 billion.
Saito said the development of the fighters will occur in conjunction with Embraer and other unspecified companies.
The 12 Mirage aircraft currently in use by the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) will be retired at the end of this year. They were acquired by Brazil in 2005. As it waits for the new fighters, the FAB will use the F5 style, which will stay viable up to 2025.
During a visit in Brasilia last week, French President Francois Hollande was accompanied by an entourage that included the president of Dassault Group, stirring speculation that the French jet manufacturer had the edge over Saab and Boeing.
Competition over which company would win the right to supply Brazil with the fighter jets began in the late 1990s during Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s administration, continued during Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s time in office and into current President Rousseff’s term. A FAB report in 2010 indicated a preference in Saab, though then-President Lula leaned toward the cheaper Dassault jet, Rafale.
Boeing was considered to have the inside track to win the contract earlier this year, yet revelations of intrusive surveillance of global officials’ communications, including those of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, by the US government’s National Security Agency led to distrust of the American company.
“The NSA problem ruined it for the Americans,” a Brazilian government source told Reuters.
The Chicago-based Boeing’s bid was rejected because of Saab’s better performance and cost of its aircraft as well as “willingness to transfer technology,” defense minister Celso Amorim said, as cited by Bloomberg.
‘Economic espionage’ fallout
Brazil is currently probing reports released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the spy agency monitored the personal communications of President Rousseff and hacked into government ministries to gather information. Among the institutions targeted by NSA espionage were state oil giant Petrobras and the Ministry of Mines and Energy, contradicting claims by Washington that it did not engage in “economic espionage.”
Rousseff lambasted US spying on her country during the UN General Assembly in September, calling it a “breach of international law.” She further warned that the NSA surveillance, revealed since June, threatened freedom of speech and democracy.
“Meddling in such a manner in the lives and affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and as such it is an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations,” Rousseff said.
Just before her address at the UN summit, Rousseff canceled a state visit to Washington, scheduled to take place in October, because of indignation over spying revelations. Rousseff has stated she wants an apology from US President Barack Obama.
Snowden has promised to aid Brazil in a probe into the NSA’s spying program in the country.
“A lot of Brazilian senators have asked me to collaborate with their investigations into suspected crimes against Brazilian citizens,” said Snowden, in an open letter published by Brazilian paper Folha de S.Paulo. Snowden hinted in the letter that he may ask Brazil for asylum.
“The American government will continue to limit my ability to speak out until a country grants me permanent political asylum,” wrote Snowden.
The whistleblower is currently under temporary asylum in Russia. Brazil plans to host a global summit on internet governance in April 2014.
Brazil resident Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist renowned for publishing Snowden’s leaks, criticized on Wednesday European Union governments’ muted response to the revelations about the NSA’s mass surveillance apparatus. He also contradicted Washington’s claim that no economic espionage is involved amid NSA spying.
“What a lot of this spying is about has nothing to do with terrorism and national security. That is the pretext. It is about diplomatic manipulation and economic advantage.”
Related article
US-Israeli Security Company Selling Mobile Phone Surveillance Products To Agencies Around The World
By Tim Cushing | Techdirt | December 17, 2013
Privacy International, which has done a very thorough job digging into the backgrounds of the many private companies involved in the surveillance “industry” around the world, has just released a promotional document from the American-Israeli Verint, a security company that provides NSA-level cell phone surveillance power to entities around the world.
[A] scaled down version of this system is also being sold by private surveillance contractors to the highest bidder. The company behind it? Israeli-American company Verint. Their Skylock technology claims to have the ability to “Remotely locate GSM and UMTS targets located anywhere in the world at cell level precision”.
The brochure Privacy Int’l obtained doesn’t go into detail as to how it achieves this, but what is shown is both impressive and disturbing.
From a brochure collected this year we have discovered one of the newest additions to Verint’s product line: mobile phone tracking on an international scale. Previously, mobile phone tracking required presence in the particular areas of interest, focusing on the tracking of phones through monitoring Base Stations (Cell Towers) and local networks to pinpoint location. In the past, if a law enforcement agency wanted location data they requested information from the relevant telecommunication firm operating in that specific territory. By way of an example, this would result in the UK not being able to obtain a French mobile phone’s location without help from the French. Now it would appear that Verint have bypassed the territoriality requirement.With this latest news, we know that location tracking has become borderless in the same way as communications surveillance. The ability to do this has likely come from a focus on international phone systems rather than domestic or regional networks which would never reach the worldwide nature of location tracking Verint is advertising.
Some details on Verint’s SKYLOCK offering are available online (under the name ENGAGE). While the brochure seems to indicate this is solely a military product (the brochure cover only lists “Military, Special Forces, Navy, Search and Rescue, Border Control” and the photos contained show only military personnel), the inside notes make it clear these products are available to “law enforcement” as well.
As Privacy Int’l points out, Verint’s offering operates “independently of local service providers,” meaning pretty much every legal obstacle is demolished. What no one knows is going on won’t hurt them. One product is targeted at satellite communications, but even considering that limited scope, it’s still very powerful.
Here’s what ENGAGE/SKYLOCK can do:
– Intercept voice calls and text messages
– Decrypt A5/1 and A5/2 encryptions with an embedded decipher
– Operate undetected leaving no electromagnetic signature
– Selectively downgrade UMTS traffic to GSM
Other ENGAGE products target wireless communications. Verint’s intercept-in-a-box can do all of the following.
– Actively and passively intercept WiFi communications based on: 802.11 a/b/g/n, 2.4Ghz, and 5GHz
– Active interception of mobile handsets, even when not intentionally connected to a WiFi network
– Intercept target communication at a distance with zero packet loss
– Choose from multiple active interception methods to overcome encryption of private communication
– Identify access points and intercept MAC addresses in the area
Verint also gives its purchasers the power to target phones using 3G networks, remotely activate cell phone mics, and block cellular communication.
The capabilities that were presumed to only be in the hands of national intelligence agencies now can be had by nearly anyone who can come up with the money. Powerful cell phone surveillance products are a growth market. Anything that can increase data and communication harvesting while simultaneously eliminating a majority of legal restrictions and oversight practically sells itself.
We may feel this sort of power is OK in the “right hands,” but we don’t get to decide which hands this ends up in. We may believe the NSA should be able to do this sort of thing (overseas, preferably), but that local law enforcement agencies should be forced to jump through warrant and subpoena hoops before tracking locations and intercepting communications. But ultimately it doesn’t matter what we prefer. That call is made by Verint and it’s in the business of selling surveillance products, not protecting the privacy of the world’s citizens.
Related article
- Israeli company to win Indian mass electronic surveillance contract (altahrir.wordpress.com)
ACLU calls for Massachusetts moratorium on controversial license plate readers
ACLU – 12/14/2013
BOSTON — The ACLU of Massachusetts calls for a moratorium on the use of controversial and unregulated license plate scanner technology in all Massachusetts police departments, following a Boston Globe exposé of problems in the Boston Police Department’s program.
The story, published in today’s Globe, shows that contrary to officials’ claims about why departments need the technology, police routinely do not respond to live ‘hits’ alerting them to the location of stolen cars. This suggests that the program is, as the ACLU feared, largely oriented towards compiling vast databases enabling the warrantless tracking of millions of innocent motorists.
In response to these alarming findings, the Boston Police Department announced it would suspend the program, at least until proper oversight and procedures are put into place.
“The Globe’s investigation into the Boston Police Department’s license plate reader program, based largely on a series of public records requests initiated nearly a year ago, confirms that police departments need outside oversight and guidance in order to responsibly use this powerful technology. We applaud the Boston police decision to suspend the program,” said Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty project at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “In light of these disturbing revelations, no police department in the state should continue to use this technology until the legislature passes the License Plate Privacy Act. We need uniform statewide rules for departments’ use of plate readers.”
Currently the Massachusetts State Police and more than 50 cities and towns deploy license plate scanners, which snap photographs of each license plate they encounter, noting the time, date and location, and run the plate numbers against “hot lists” to identify stolen cars, outstanding warrants and other violations. Today, no license plate reader program in the state is subject to outside regulation.
“The License Plate Privacy Act will establish accountability and public transparency requirements to ensure that the kinds of abuses the Globe uncovered at the Boston Police Department are not happening in other cities and towns,” said Crockford. “Technologies that target ordinary Americans going about their everyday lives create tremendous opportunity for abuse, without keeping us safe. We must ensure that the law keeps pace with these new technologies.”
The License Plate Privacy Act allows departments to use license plate readers to identify cars associated with criminal suspects or crimes, while preventing the government from amassing databases containing the historical travel records of millions of innocent people.
“The Globe’s investigation makes crystal clear that departments cannot police their own use of this complex and powerful tool,” said Crockford. “The legislature must step in to provide some basic rules, as well as checks and balances to make sure license plate readers aren’t used for warrantless tracking of innocent drivers. The Joint Transportation Committee should recommend swift approval of the License Plate Privacy Act, the legislature should pass it, and the Governor should sign it into law.”
Advanced surveillance tools can work to promote public safety while simultaneously respecting the privacy and liberty interests that help our Commonwealth thrive, but in order for that to happen the law needs to catch up with the technology. The License Plate Privacy Act strikes the right balance. Police departments statewide should follow Boston’s lead and immediately halt their use of the technology until the legislature acts.
For more on the License Plate Privacy Act, go to:
https://aclum.org/privacy_agenda#LPA
To take action on this issue, go to:
https://ssl.capwiz.com/aclu/ma/issues/alert/?alertid=63008551&type=ML
For more information about automatic license plate readers, go to:
https://www.aclu.org/alpr
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European Court of Justice officer argues against EU Data Retention Directive
DW | December 12, 2013
An EU law requiring companies to log telecommunications data for law enforcement breaches rights, an advocate-general of Europe’s top court has said. Germany in particular had challenged the Data Retention Directive.
Thursday’s opinion at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg responds to challenges against the directive in Ireland and Austria. Adopted the by the EU in 2006 following attacks on the London tube and trains in Madrid , the Data Retention Directive specifies that firms must save telephone and Internet data – user, recipient and length of calls – for a period of up to two years.
“The directive constitutes a serious interference with the fundamental right of citizens to privacy,” Advocate-General Pedro Cruz Villalon said. “The use of those data may make it possible to create a both faithful and exhaustive map of a large portion of a person’s conduct strictly forming part of his private life, or even a complete and accurate picture of his private identity,” he added.
Cruz Villalon argued that the directive increased the risk that corporations and individuals could use the data for unlawful and possibly fraudulent or malicious purposes – even more so as private communication companies controlled the information rather than public authorities. Cruz Villalon also called the directive invalid because it failed to sufficiently specify the circumstances for data access, storage and use – leaving this for member states to define. In addition, Cruz Villalon called one year a disproportionately long time to hold so much information – let alone two.
Relevance, ‘even urgency’
The advocate-general did recognize the “relevance and even urgency” of data retention measures. Should the court decide to follow his opinion, Cruz Villalon suggested that it grant a grace period to change the directive, rather than taking immediate measures against it.
At any given time, the European Court of Justice has nine advocates general, who provide legal but nonbinding opinion ahead of deliberations and decisions by judges.
Germany does not currently comply with the Data Retention Directive, owing in large part to a Constitutional Court ban on the legislation in 2010. The forthcoming grand coalition government hopes to limit data storage in Europe to three months.
Mass Location Tracking: It’s Not Just For the NSA
By Catherine Crump | ACLU | December 12, 2013
Thanks to Edward Snowden we now understand that the NSA runs many dragnet surveillance programs, some of which target Americans. But a story today from Washington, D.C. public radio station WAMU is a reminder that dragnet surveillance is not just a tool of the NSA—the local police use mass surveillance as well.
DC’s Metropolitan Police Department uses cameras to scan vehicle license plates in huge numbers and saves all the data for two years, even though only a tiny fraction—0.01 %—turn out to be associated with any possible wrongdoing.
In 2012, the police in Washington scanned over 204 million license plates. But only 22,655 were associated with some possible wrongdoing (what the chart refers to as “hits”). And a hit isn’t evidence of guilt. It’s evidence your plate was in a database. And your plate may well be in a database because, as we’ve seen in other areas of the country (check out our report on the use of plate readers nationwide), these databases can include people who violated vehicle emissions programs or are driving on suspended or revoked licenses. These people shouldn’t be on the road, but they are also not major offenders.
The key point is this: 99.9 % of the data pertains to people not suspected of wrongdoing. Why should innocent drivers have their movements stored for two full years?
The new report echoes data first unearthed by the ACLU’s local office and revealed two years ago in testimony to local legislators.
This brings us back to the NSA program. What do the NSA and DC Metropolitan Police Department have in common? As we have discussed before, neither appears to be restrained by any sense of proportionality. The data collection is vast, and the gain is either uncertain or negligible. In the NSA’s case, it is storing records about every single phone call each of us makes and keeping it in a database for 5 years, even in the absence of any credible evidence that mass collection is needed to make us safer. (The MPD refused to comment on the plate reader program.)
When it comes to reforming surveillance, it is programs like these that are particularly good targets. While some may be willing to trade privacy for security, here we appear to be giving privacy away and the government either can’t or won’t make the case that we’re getting anything in exchange.
Related articles
Outdated Electronic Privacy Laws Allow Police to Access Sensitive Data Without a Warrant
ACLU | December 9, 2013
WASHINGTON – Law enforcement requests for a variety of cellphone users’ data continued to surge in 2012, according to responses from the nation’s major cellphone carriers prompted by inquiries from Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.).
Last year alone, AT&T and T-Mobile documented 600,000 requests for customer information made by local, state, and federal law enforcement. Verizon, in its response to Sen. Markey’s request, said that police requests for customers’ call records have approximately doubled over the last five years. Often, no warrant is required to compel cellphone carriers to turn over their customers’ information to police.
“Have no doubt, police see our mobile devices as the go-to source for information, likely in part because of the lack of privacy protections afforded by the law,” said Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “Our mobile devices quite literally store our most intimate thoughts as well as the details of our personal lives. The idea that police can obtain such a rich treasure trove of data about any one of us without appropriate judicial oversight should send shivers down our spines.”
The companies’ responses to Sen. Markey’s office also show that law enforcement conducts real-time surveillance of targets’ web browsing habits. According to AT&T’s letter, the company allows law enforcement to do “real time web browsing surveillance.” Police are also requesting “tower dumps,” whereby cellphone companies give law enforcement the records of all cellphone users who have connected to a particular cellphone tower in a given time range.
“There is an easy fix to part of this problem,” said Calabrese. “President Obama and members of Congress should pass legislation that updates our outdated privacy laws by requiring law enforcement to get a probable cause warrant before service providers disclose the contents of our electronic communications to the government. Anything less is unnecessarily invasive and un-American.”
Currently there are many proposals in Congress to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Passed in 1986 before widespread usage of email or the existence of Internet-connected mobile devices, ECPA allows law enforcement agencies to obtain electronic communications content older than 180 days—including text messages—without a warrant. The ACLU supports bipartisan ECPA reform legislation introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) in the Senate and Reps. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) in the House, which would require police obtain a warrant before compelling service providers to divulge the contents of their customers’ electronic communications.
Wireless carriers’ responses to Sen. Markey are available at:
markey.senate.gov/Markey_Receives_Responses_from_Wireless_Carriers_on_Law_Enforcement_Requests.cfm
More information on ECPA reform is available at:
aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/modernizing-electronic-communications-privacy-act-ecpa
Witness In No Fly List Trial, Who Was Blocked From Flying To The Trial, Shows That DOJ Flat Out Lied In Court
By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | December 9, 2013
On Friday the case against the US government, brought by Rahinah Ibrahim over her being placed on the “no fly list,” officially concluded with closing arguments, but that may have been the least interesting part of everything. Apparently, the day got off to a rocky start, after Ibrahim’s lawyers informed the DOJ that they intended to file bar complaints against some of the DOJ legal team for their actions in court, specifically concerning “misrepresentations” made to the court. It seems clear that this was mainly about the DOJ denying that the US government (mainly DHS) had done anything to prevent Ibrahim’s daughter, Raihan Mustafa Kamal, an American citizen, from coming to the US to be a witness in the trial. As you may recall, on Monday it had come out that she had been denied in her attempt to board her flight in Malaysia, and the DOJ claimed, flat out, that Kamal had merely missed her flight and rebooked on another flight.
It appears that none of that was true.
Instead, while Kamal had been rebooked by her travel agent earlier in the week to a different flight (because Expedia informed her that her original flight was full and she wouldn’t be able to travel on it), she arrived at the airport with nearly 3 hours to spare for her own flight, and was then denied the ability to board. There was a lot of back and forth, but eventually she obtained the email that had first been sent to Philippines Airlines (she was flying from Malaysia to the Philippines and then on to San Francisco), warning that Kamal was “a possible no board request.”
While that’s not a full on “denial” it was enough to have the airline deny her passage, and clearly shows that, contrary to the DOJ’s claims, DHS specifically had targeted Kamal and was hinting very strongly to airlines not to let her fly. It seems unlikely that they ever expected that email to get out. Either way, Kamal had spent nearly $2,000 of her own money on the original flight, and noted in her own deposition that she was unable to afford another immediate flight to the US (especially given that it’s holiday travel season).
Judge Alsup held a closed hearing about all of this, so it’s not entirely clear what he’s going to do, though from the public statements he has made to date, he did not appear to be happy about all of this. During the closing arguments — some of which involved kicking the public out — he even noted how ridiculous it was that they had to have a closed session since he didn’t think any of the “sensitive security information” was really that sensitive. He also challenged the government’s argument that they can properly review people who “appeal” their status without ever letting anyone know if or why they’re on the list. From Edward Hasbrouck’s transcript of the exchange:
JUDGE ALSUP: That’s just going back to the same sources that were wrong in the first place, and of course they are going to say, “We were right the first time.”
That troubles me.
Do you know what happened to Robert Oppenheimer?
He was denied his clearance. It was totally unjust. The information was bogus. They suspected him of being a Communist, but that was wrong.
It was a low point for America, to do that wrongly to an American hero.
You’re not seeing the other side of what can happen.
DEFENDANTS’ COUNSEL: TRIP is a continually improving process…
JUDGE ALSUP: We know that there’s going to be mistakes in your system, in any system, and people are going to get hurt.
What do we need? Should there be some sort of follow-up FBI interview to find out if there is contrary evidence?
DEFENDANTS’ COUNSEL: When a TRIP letter is sent, the recipient is offered the possibility of review by a Court of Appeals. Review by a Court of Appeals would reveal any improper basis for the decision.
JUDGE ALSUP: How could the Court of Appeals tell that from the file it is handed up by the agency?
Even if it includes the derogatory information, how is the Court of Appeals going to know from looking at the face of the document whether it’s true?
Couldn’t there be some process where you tell the person the nature of the allegations (”You contributed money to Al Qaeda”) without revealing the specific sources or methods for the information containing those allegations?
DEFENDANTS’ COUNSEL: We can say more in closed session, but we can’t do that.
The government also appeared to admit in its closing that the original no fly determination on Dr. Ibrahim was a mistake, but then seems to bend over backwards not to take responsibility for all the additional fallout from that incorrect designation — including the repeated denial of a visa to go back to the US (even for this very trial).
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Book Review
Shattered Dreams: The HPV Vaccine Exposed (2019)
By Christina England – 30 Q&As – Book Review & Summary
Lies are Unbekoming | September 4, 2026
… Gardasil received FDA fast-track approval in 2006, Cervarix followed in 2009, and Gardasil 9 was approved in December 2014 with more than double the aluminium adjuvant content of the original. The commercial context is specific. Merck was about to lose patent protection on Zocor and faced $18 billion in Vioxx injury claims from a cardiovascular drug the company had marketed while suppressing its own data showing a five-times increase in heart attacks. Analysts projected the global HPV vaccine market at $4 billion by 2011, contingent on government-funded national programs for teenage girls. The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act had already granted manufacturers complete liability immunity. By 2013, Japan had withdrawn its HPV vaccine recommendation after cataloguing severe adverse reactions in hundreds of girls. No Western government followed. The establishment position across the UK, US, Australia, and most of Europe held, and still holds, that the vaccines are safe and effective, that reported injuries are coincidental, and that cervical cancer prevention justifies the program. The book was published into this position, not against a vacuum.
Shattered Dreams sits alongside Mary Holland’s The HPV Vaccine On Trial and Viera Scheibner’s foundational vaccination work as part of the documented record on what has been done to a generation of teenage girls under the banner of cancer prevention. The full summary unpacks three specific findings: that Merck used the aluminium adjuvant itself as the “placebo” control in 92.5% of trial subjects, making it structurally impossible to detect excess reactions from the adjuvant; that Dr. Sin Hang Lee found HPV DNA fragments bound to aluminium in every one of sixteen Gardasil samples tested, and in the blood and spleen of a New Zealand girl six months after her third dose; and that in every country with high vaccination coverage, including Australia, the UK, Norway, and Sweden, cervical cancer rates have stopped declining and started rising specifically in the vaccinated cohort. Martínez-Lavín’s 2017 calculation puts the number needed to seriously harm with Gardasil 9 at 140, and the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one case at 1,757. Thirteen young women are seriously harmed for every one who benefits. The vaccine was approved on the basis of trials that could not detect what the trials were supposed to detect, and it is still being given to twelve-year-olds today. … Read full review
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The Maidan Killings and the False-Flag Case
- Georgia’s Largest Healthcare System Will Fire Employees Who Refuse Flu Vaccine
- The Five-Year Fuel Crisis: Why the World Economy Is Paying for a War It Thinks Is Ending
- Trump’s Big Bluff on Iran
- Swiss scammed out of millions by Ukraine-linked call centers – media
- Germany facing potential ‘violent conflict’ with Russia – spy chief
- Ukraine’s EU neighbors reject new plea from Kiev – Politico
- British Transport Police Facial Recognition Trial Scanned 926,912 People With Zero Arrests
- House Bill Would Ban Federal Use of Flock ALPR Data
- Can a Spice Rival a Drug? 10 Head-to-Head Trials Put It to the Test.
- If Americans Knew
- “We See Our Homes Now From A Satellite, Like Strangers”
- Watch “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack”, originally censored by BBC
- NAZA: Israeli embassies in UK and US promote rival documentary to challenge Gaza genocide allegations
- David Ellison appoints Israeli to lead merged Paramount-Warner studios
- Turkish Red Crescent helps elderly Gaza man walk again after Israel confiscates his prosthetic limb
- Four Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks in Gaza
- Two Palestinian youths killed and village razed as Israeli attacks on West Bank continue
- Two more Christian women victims of Israeli raids on Gaza
- Cruelty, Deprivation, Indignity: A Journalist’s 22 Months in Israeli Prison
- New IDF Website Frames Slain Gaza Journalists as Terrorists
- No Tricks Zone
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
