Civil liberties advocates question government-spying bill
Friday, March 20, 2009 at 4:02 pm
- 8 Comments
Is law enforcement trying to vastly expand its ability to spy on citizens? That’s was the fear expressed at a hearing at the state Capitol this morning.
The occasion: a bill designed to overhaul policies for handling criminal intelligence information by making it easier for law enforcement agencies to keep and share information about citizens.
Under the proposed legislation, intelligence data collected on individuals by law enforcement officers could be kept secret for a year. The information would then be made available to the target of the probe unless it meets a series of criteria related to the prosecution of potential crimes.
The legislation would also authorize law enforcement agencies to share intelligence data with other government officials — not limited to police officers — when necessary to protect the public.
The bill was drafted by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and is sponsored by St. Paul DFLer Rep. John Lesch (pictured). (A companion bill has been introduced by Sen. Don Betzold, DFL-Fridley.)
In introducing the measure, Lesch acknowledged concerns about civil liberties but argued that some form of legislation is necessary to regulate the sharing of such data.
“A version of this will happen in future years, if not this year,” he said. “I think it’s important that this discussion be had.”
But the proposed legislation has raised alarm bells among peace activists and civil liberties advocates. They fear that the bill is overly broad and would lead to widespread spying on law-abiding citizens.
Teresa Nelson, an attorney with the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the legislation would allow law enforcement agencies to keep “political dossiers” on citizens, while only creating an “illusion of security.”
Bernie Hesse, an organizer with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789, expressed a concern that labor unions would be targeted for engaging in nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, like walking picket lines.
“We’re afraid that we might be labeled as a criminal organization,” he said. “We’re very conscious of and appreciate the work that law enforcement agencies do, but we also don’t want to be restricted in some of the things that we have to do to bring about economic justice for workers.”
Retired FBI agent and veteran peace activist Coleen Rowley said that since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government has been obsessed with collecting intelligence data.
“One of the false notions since 9/11 that leads to this massive intelligence collection has been the idea that we did not have enough dots,” she said. “The failure to connect the dots was the problem, not that there was not enough dots.”
The concerns are exacerbated because of prosecutions stemming from Republican National Convention, which was held in September. Law enforcement relied extensively on undercover informants to infiltrate activist groups and build criminal cases. The most notorious example is the case of the RNC Eight, who are charged with criminally conspiring to disrupt the four-day gathering.
For now the legislation isn’t going anywhere. Lesch acknowledged the concerns about the bill, and moved that it be laid over for further consideration. That motion was adopted unanimously.
8 Comments
Comment posted March 20, 2009 @ 6:42 pm
Actually the bill allows data collected by law enforcement about Minnesotans to be shared with a “person” deemed to “protect the infrastructure”. In all probability this refers to the FBI’s “InfraGard” (comprised of corporations and business association members) program, the Homeland Security’s “Highway Watch” (which includes the Highway Trucking Association) and other newly-formed and forming corporate-government information sharing programs. So if the Minnesota BCA’s proposal was enacted in its unfettered current form, it could also result in blacklisting people–preventing persons who the information tarnishes from getting jobs due to the secret intelligence that these corporations would have on file about you. The key here is this has nothing to do with criminal investigative data. The Minnesota law already protects investigative data, informants and police sources.
They are attempting to carve out new secrecy for data not contained in their investigations.
The best statement I’ve ever seen on this topic–that such “intelligence” is not really intelligent–was serendipitously just made on March 18th by the ACLU’s Caroline Frederickson to the House Homeland Security: http://fas.org/sgp/congress/2008/061108fredrickson.pdf (It’s required reading for anyone who cares about the future of security, privacy and democracy in America.)
Comment posted March 20, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
Shame on these MN Representatives for trying to erode more of our Civil Liberties.
I emailed my State Sen and my State Rep right away and told they why I urge them to oppose this bill. It is an embarassment to see it brought up in MN, especially with MN’s history of civil rights.
Because of the Patriot Act i have had info collected about me. What is my crime ? Being active in two different non-violent Peace groups.
The 1st was in 2003 when I was with Peace Fresno in Fresno, CA; and then most recently in WAMM (Woman Against Military Madness) in which infor was gather for our group under the “Highway Watch”. I joined Peace Fresno in 2002 because I had worked with Veterans who suffered from severe depression, and/or substance abuse due to the horrors of war. And because I chose to speak out, help organize others to speak out against our government’s foreign policy and illegal action I was spied on, and my info was shared with others… this was done to 100′s of us. I hope both the Representative and the Senator who brought this bill to committee both lose their seats in the next election.
Pingback posted March 22, 2009 @ 6:34 pm
[...] The Minnesota Independent: Civil liberties advocates question government-spying bill [...]
Pingback posted March 22, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
[...] Government spy bill on hold for now After encountering a storm of opposition, DFL Rep. John Lesch withdrew is bill on secret government spying from consideration. The Lesch bill, and a companion bill sponsored by Sen. Don Betzold, provide that intelligence data collected on individuals by law enforcement officers could be kept secret for a year, according to the Minnesota Independent. [...]
Comment posted March 23, 2009 @ 10:38 am
Some earlier info from Politics in Minnesota: http://tinyurl.com/sf1103 – check it out. I was able to get some angles on the fusion center and RNC aspects of this (and Paul Demko, thanks for covering this!!!)
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
Officials all across the country think they can get away with increased spying on citizens. Now that our Democrats have refused to impeach or prosecute Bush, Cheney or their spying, torturing lawyers, all other officials think they are entitled as well.
The only way to stop this attitude is to make example of some of the Bush criminals.
Unless Obama’s statement that “no one is above the law” is a lie,
Obama must appoint a Special Prosecutor
Sign The Petition To Prosecute
.
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
Mike McIntee of The Uptake and now on 950am from 5:00pm to 5:30pm weekdays, had this on his show for about 15 minutes. I wish he could have had a whole 1hour. He did a great interview and brought up some points I didn’t even thing of. I hope he has more time next time to calls.
Comment posted March 26, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
The next time there’s a hearing on this, be sure to invite Bruce Schneier. He’s one of the top computer security experts in the country, lives locally, and is very outspoken on the topic of data mining. The man personally wrote one of the top three finalist entries intended to become the new Advanced Encrypion Standard. Basically, his argument boils down to one of the oldest and most-proven concepts in the computer world, “Garbage in, garbage out.” If you can’t trust the veracity of the data going into a database, then you can trust the data mining output even less. Allowing ridiculous rumors produced by paid informants into a data mining system will only produce a new class of innocent outlaws to be investigated over more credible threats.
Here’s one of many articles he’s written on the topic:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_for.html
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