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The telephone metadata program the NSA finally put out to pasture in 2019 was apparently well past its expiration date. Since the initial Snowden leak in 2013, critics have argued the program needed to die since it was obviously the sort of general warrant rummaging (only without the warrant!) the founding fathers headed off with the Fourth Amendment.

The program wasn't remade/remodeled until the passage of the USA Freedom Act in 2015. That took the phone records away from the NSA and left them at their place of origin -- the databases maintained by telcos and other service providers. The government was also required to put forward some sort of articulable suspicion before asking for phone records from telcos.

The NSA was uniquely unprepared to handle these sorts of transactions, having been built from the ground up to collect everything and sort through it later. Now that its searches were more confined, it frequently found itself obtaining more records than it could legally justify having. The cost of compliance managed to outweigh the benefits of the program and the NSA just kind of stopped approaching the FISA court with requests for communications metadata.

Still, proponents argued the program had value -- possibly unrealized -- and that it should not be written out of existence by the periodic surveillance powers renewal process. I have no idea what they planned to use as evidence for these claims. A new report by Charlie Savage for the New York Times makes it clear even the most obligatory cost-benefit analysis should lead Congressional oversight to question why it allowed the modified Section 215 collection to limp along for another five years.

A National Security Agency system that analyzed logs of Americans domestic phone calls and text messages cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019, but yielded only a single significant investigation, according to a newly declassified study.

$100 million for a single investigation lead. How's that for ROI? It actually produced two leads, but the other lead was a dead end that terminated an investigation before it could get past its initial stages.

Not only was the program useless, it was also redundant.

It also disclosed that in the four years the Freedom Act system was operational, the National Security Agency produced 15 intelligence reports derived from it. The other 13, however, contained information the F.B.I. had already collected through other means, like ordinary subpoenas to telephone companies.

Killing the program just makes sense. And Congress can do it with during the renewal process for the USA Freedom Act, which expires in March of this year. With this information in the public domain, no one can seriously argue the program should continue to consume tax dollars and provide almost zero usable intel for another five years. Given the fact these agencies can still use subpoenas to target phone records, it would seem far more beneficial for everyone if the NSA and FBI did a bit more targeted snooping, rather than use the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to sweep up Americans' phone records.

Filed Under: mass surveillance, metadata, nsa, phone metadata, section 215, surveillance, usa freedom act

Read more here:
NSA Blew $100 Million On Phone Records Over Five Years, Generated Exactly One Usable Lead - Techdirt

Socialist Bernie Sanders, the front runner in the race for the Democratic nomination for president, said on Tuesday night that he wants to help minorities start businesses to sell drugs.

And Ill tell you what else were going to do, were going to provide help to the African-American, Latino, Native American community to start businesses to sell legal marijuana rather than let a few corporations control the legalized marijuana market, Sanders said.

WATCH:

The Daily Wire highlighted Bernie Sanders stances on key policy issues in an in-depth profile piece last year:

On The Issues: Sanders calls himself ademocratic socialistwho, whiledisavowingwhole-hearted socialist theory with respect to government ownership of the means of production, nonetheless has consistently advocated for economic class warfare that pits the lower and middle classes against the wealthy. He has routinely supported anti-capitalistic and anti-growth economic policies, heavy-handed government regulation over the private economy, robust labor unions, and the Nordic model of a sprawling welfare state. On foreign policy, he has frequently mollycoddled communist dictatorships and has often been hostile toward Americas closest geopolitical allies. Overall, he is a far-left progressive who has long defined the leftward flank of what it means to be a progressive in America.

Constitution: Sanders supports a living Constitution interpretive methodology that effectively empowers unelected federal judges to determine large swaths of the laws that govern Americans lives. He is hostile to the First Amendments protection of free speech and has supported a constitutional amendment to overturn the political speech-affirming 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision ofCitizens United v. F.E.C.He has generally supported a more robust role for Congress and a more diminished role for the presidency in the context of foreign policy and the conduct of overseas military operations. He takes an expansive view of the Fourth Amendment and has even praised disgruntled NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Economy: Sanders holds far-left views on economics that place him barely, if at all, to the right of an authentic European-style socialist. He supports punitive taxation and massive redistribution to mollify the purported scourge of wealth and income inequality in America. He has consistently supported substantial tax hikes on income, capital gains, and estates alike. Sanders supports substantial regulation of the financial services sector and large-scale government spending on infrastructure programs. He has generally opposed free trade due to reasons of labor protectionism. He has been critical of the Federal Reserve for allegedly empowering the wealthy. Sanders supports increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15. He has taken a heavy-handed view of antitrust enforcement.

Health Care: Sanders is a longtime support of single-payer socialized medicine, and in many ways is the intellectual progenitor for the current Democratic Party candidate trend of favoring Medicare for All. He has often been critical of Obamacare for not going far enough with respect to health care coverage for all uncovered Americans. Sanders has never indicated any willingness to structurally reform fiscally ruinous health care-related entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Immigration: Although Sanders once was sympathetic to restrictive immigration measures due to reasons of labor protectionism, he has emerged over the past decade as a reliable vote in favor of pro-amnesty, pro-illegal immigration policies. He supports a pathway to citizenship for large swaths of illegal aliens. He has often been very critical of the Trump administrations efforts at border security and immigration law enforcement.

Foreign Policy: Sanders has consistently opposed an aggressive overseas posture for U.S. foreign policy, and has routinely opposed large-scale U.S. military deployments overseas. He has been skeptical of or outright opposed to U.S. foreign policy missions against a wide variety of hostile actors both state and non-state actors across the Middle East. Sanders has long been deeply sympathetic toward communist Cuba including the openpraising of Fidel Castro and applauded the Obama administrations efforts at dtente with Cuba. He supported President Obamas Iran nuclear deal and has usually been more sympathetic to the Iranians and the Palestinian-Arabs than he has been to the Saudis and Israelis, respectively. He supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has often been very hostile to Israels defensive measures against the radical Islamic terrorism that engulfs the Jewish state on all sides. While running for president in 2016, Sanderscited a blatantly false numberof Palestinian-Arab deaths that had allegedly resulted from the 2014 Gaza Strip war between the two sides.

Abortion: Sanders is fully pro-abortion, has never voted in favor of any piece of legislation that would restrict abortion, and has recently refused to identify any piece of legislation that he might support that would restrict abortion in any conceivable way. He supportsending the Hyde Amendment, which has historically banned taxpayer funding of abortion, and has vowed to never nominate anyone to the U.S. Supreme Court who is not adamantly in favor ofRoe v. Wade.

Guns: Although Sanders tenure in the House was marked by his opposition to various gun control measures, his tenure in the Senate has been marked by consistent support for gun control policies. Sanders supports a federal ban on assault weapons, supports universal background checks (i.e., background checks even for private firearms transfers), and has often criticized Republicans purported fealty to the National Rifle Association. Sanders supports a ban on the undefinable sub-class of firearms referred to as so-called assault weapons a line of thought that, if taken to its logical conclusion, couldlead to the banning of all semi-automatic firearms in America.

Continued here:
Bernie: We're Going To Help Minorities Start Businesses To Sell Drugs - The Daily Wire

Many Democrats are still acquiescing to a George W. Bush-era policy that has been in place for nearly 20 years.

There is still broad bipartisan support for the CDR program, bringing significant risk that Democrats could cut a deal for reforms with significantly less teethand more loopholesthan SAPRA.

Three key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which give the Trump administration broad surveillance powers, are set to expire on March 15 unless Congress votes to reauthorize them. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the only leading democratic presidential candidate in Congress who is publicly opposing them.

I voted against the Patriot Act in 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2015. I strongly oppose its reauthorization next month, he tweeted on February 11. I believe that in a democratic and constitutional form of government, we cannot sacrifice the civil liberties that make us a free country.

One provision is section 215, the bulk metadata collection program exposed by Edward Snowden. This provision underwent modest post-Snowden reforms in 2015, but its essence remains largely intact in the call detail records (CDR) program. The program authorizes the NSA to seize call records of people deemed a targetand the people those targets communicate with. In 2017 and 2018, this provision allowed the government to collect more than 968 million records. The government recently shut down the CDR program, admitting to its overreach, but the legal authority to reinstate it at any time remains.

This CDR program was shuttered by the government because of massive over-collection of millions of Americans records, Sandra Fulton, government relations director for Free Press, tellsIn These Times. At this point, eliminating the CDR program is low-hanging fruit for any reform that is at all acceptable. According to Fulton, even if the CDR program is currently shuttered, keeping it on the books is a problem, because the government could reactivate it at any time. If we find a program that's being an abuse, the government doesn't just get to keep it, she says.

The other two senators among the leading Demoratic candidates, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), have not made similar statements publicly opposing the reauthorization, and neither returned In These Times request for comment.

Sen. Klobuchar voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in 2011, while Sanders did not (Warren was not yet in the Senate). Both Klobuchar and Warren voted in favor of the USA Freedom Act in 2015, which imposed limited reforms on the Patriot Act; Sanders voted no, citing the inadequacy of the reforms. Warren did, however, vote no on2018 on a bill to extend the NSAs powers to carry out warrantless surveillance for another six years, as did Sanders. Klobuchar voted yes.

Speaking publicly against the Patriot Act could have a significant impact at a time Democrats are still acquiescing to a George W. Bush-era policy that has been in place for nearly 20 years. Last November, Democrats voted overwhelmingly for a measure granting a three-month extension of the three Patriot Act provisions, included in a House resolution to prevent a government shutdown, infuriating civil rights activists. Only 10 Democrats in the House voted against the reauthorization, among them Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), known as the squad. But Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) co-chairs Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), and vice chairs, Reps. Ro Khanna (Calif.) and Barbara Lee (Calif.),all voted for it. (Neither Sanders, Warren nor Klobuchar were present for the Senate vote.)

As Sam Adler-Bell previously reported, the CPC said the extension was necessary to negotiate for better reforms, butthose progressives who voted yes caught considerable heat from activists. While we would oppose these authorities under any administration, history demonstrates that mass surveillance disproportionately impacts communities of color, immigrants, and other marginalized groups that Donald Trump is actively targeting, the activist organization Demand Progress said in a statement.

Likely in response to criticism, the CPC now says it doesnt plan to acquiesce to Bush-era spy powers so easily in mid-March.

For far too long, Congress has permitted blatant, unconstitutional violations of Americans Fourth Amendment rights under the PATRIOT Act, co-chairs Jayapal and Pocan told In These Times via email. Any long-term reauthorization of this legislation must contain meaningful and substantial reforms to these legal authorities, as proposed in the Safeguarding Americans Private Records Act (SAPRA), in order to secure our support.

Introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden (DOre.) and Steve Daines (RMont.) and Reps. Zoe Lofgren (DCalif.), Warren Davidson (ROhio), and Pramila Jayapal (DWash.),SAPRA, introduced in the House by on January 24 by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), would rescind authority for the CDR program. It has attracted support from a coalition of civil rights and privacy organizations, among them Color Of Change, Committee of Concerned Scientists and Indivisible.

However, the organizations note that the reform has shortcomings. In a letter, the coalition said that SAPRA does not, for instance, prohibit backdoor searches under Section 702, a loophole that poses a dangerous threat to Americans privacy by allowing the government to search through communications collected under Section 702 of FISA seeking information about Americans without a warrant. Further, it reauthorizes the so-called lone wolf authority, which has never been used and should be repealed just like the Section 215 CDR program. This lone wolf authority allowsthe government to wiretap someone who is not a U.S. personand not a part of a terrorist organizationbut deemed by the United States to be helping international terrorism (it is believedthat this provision has never been used).

Nonetheless, David Segal, the executive director of Demand Progress, tells In These Timesthat SAPRA is the only genuine reform bill in play.

Whatever this bills shortcomings, its almost certain to face opposition not only from the Trump administration, but from the Democratic Party leadership. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) played a significant role in November in pushing Democrats to endorse a reauthorization of the Patriot Actwith no reformsby slipping it into the funding bill. And impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who boosted his public profile by emphatically declaring that President Trump is dangerous to this country, was among the yes votes for full reauthorization of that presidents spy powers.

There is still significantbipartisan support for the CDR program, bringing significant risk that Democrats could cut a deal for reforms with less teethand more loopholesthan SAPRA.

A Sanders spokesperson noted to In These Times that the senator has been a supporter of Wyden's efforts to reform the Patriot Act and cosponsored his bipartisan USA RIGHTS Act. The spokespersonindicated that Sanders opposes the current iteration of the Patriot Act but would likely support Wyden's SAPRA legislation in the Senate, as it goes much further to protect privacy and civil liberties than a sunset of Section 215.

By coming out now against the mass surveillance powers, Sanders appears to besignaling to the CPC that it should find its backbone on this issue. And those who stay silent are implicitly encouraging the opposite.

This piece has beenupdated to include remarks from a spokesperson for Sanders that was sent following publication.

More:
Bernie Sanders Is the Only Leading Presidential Candidate Publicly Opposing the Patriot Act - In These Times

The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that the Fourth Amendment right to be free from "unreasonableseizure" includes the right to be free from unreasonable "seizure of the person," meaning detainment or arrest. What is more, as the Court held in California v. Hodari D. (1991), "the mere grasping or application of physical force with lawful authority, whether or not it succeeded in subduing the arrestee," qualifies as a seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, however, apparently never got the memo. In Torres v. Madrid (2019), that court held that no seizure occurred when officers with the New Mexico State Police shot Roxanne Torres twice in the back, because their bullets did not actually stop her from getting away. According to the 10th Circuit, "an officer's intentional shooting of a suspect does not effect a seizure unless the 'gunshotterminate[s] [the suspect's] movement or otherwise cause[s] the government to have physical control over him.'"

It gets worse. The police shot Torres while she was in her car in the parking lot of her apartment building. The officers were there to arrest somebody else but claimed that they saw Torres acting in a suspicious manner. Torres thought she was being carjacked, later testifying that the officers, who were wearing tactical vests, never identified themselves when they approached her. What she saw were threatening figures standing at her car windows. So she drove away and was shot twice while fleeing for her life. Torres only learned that she had been shot by the cops when she was arrested a day later at the hospital. The excessive force complaint that Torres filed against those officers was killed off by the 10th Circuit's ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Torres's case on March 30. She deserves to prevail. There is no question that the officers engaged in the "application of physical forcewhether or not it succeeded in subduing the arrestee." As Torres and her lawyers point out in their brief, when the officers "shot at Ms. Torres with the intent to stop her from leaving and two of the bullets struck her body, she was in that moment seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, regardless of what happened next."

Precisely. The 10th Circuit's decision should be overruled.

Original post:
The Supreme Court Tackles Police Shootings, Excessive Force, and the Fourth Amendment - Reason

Attorneys for a woman charged with murder in a 1981 former cold case involving the death of a babywant to suppress DNA evidence police obtained from her trash, saying doing so violated her rights.

Theresa Rose Bentaas, 58,was chargedwith first- and second-degreemurder in March 2019 after DNA evidence matched her to a baby who in 1981 was foundwrapped in blankets.

Baby John Doe, named Baby Andrew by the anonymous donor who paid for his funeral, was found in what is now 33rd Street and Sycamore Avenue, with the umbilical cord still attached.

Bentaas' privately retainedattorney, Clint Sargent, on Friday filed a motion to suppress DNA extraction, testing, sequencing and profile evidence. He also filed more than 30 pages in briefs supporting the motion.

Theresa Bentaas(Photo: Minnehaha County jail)

Sargent and co-counsel Raleigh Hansman requested the following evidence be excluded from trial, saying it violated her Fourth Amendment rights:

Laboratory reports, interviews of Theresa and her husband Dirk Bentaas andbuccal swabs of Theresa and Dirk Bentaas.

"As a free member of the general public, law enforcement's extraction of Bentaas' DNA from the items pulled from the trash and the subsequent creation of her DNA profile for the testing of Baby Doe case constitutes an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment," Bentaas' attorneys wrote in the brief.

More: Theresa Bentaas posts bond, released from jail

Pulling the trash was lawful under both South Dakota and federal law, but extracting the DNA from the items from that trash pull is a "separate invasion of privacy...that must be considered a separate search under the Fourth Amendment,"the brief states.

If a Fourth Amendment violation is brought up in a case, the defendant must establish a factual connection between the alleged constitutional violation and the challenged evidence.

If Bentaas were to prove the evidence is "fruit of the poisonous tree,"the burden would shift back to the government to show that evidence is untainted.

The brief also states if there wouldn't have been an "illegal search and seizure of Bentaas' DNA," a warrant allowing law enforcement to get swabs from Bentaas or her husband wouldn't have been issued.

The brief goes on to say thatan affidavit in support of a search warrant for Bentaas' buccal swabs didn't showa "fair probability" that evidence of a crime would have been found from Bentaas' buccal swab.

"The decision to seek a search warrant for Bentaas' DNA only after receiving the DNA results from the trash pull items speaks for itself," Sargent writes.

The grave of Baby Andrew John Doe, an infant who was found dead in a ditch in 1981, is shown. Police arrested Theresa Rose Bentaas decades later on Friday, March 8, 2019 after determining through DNA that she was the mother.(Photo: Loren Townsley / Argus Leader)

The brief accuses law enforcement of exaggerating lab results. In January 2019, when Parabon Labs got a DNA match that was possibly "up to a third cousin" in the family tree for Baby Andrew, a detective took the information to put together a basic family tree, according to the brief. The family tree was shared with a Parabon genealogist, who recommended getting follow-up DNA.

Baby Andrew: Theresa Bentaas appears in court, trial date set

"Under the guise of the trash pull, Detective Mertes circumvented the search warrant requirement for DNA and deprived Bentaas of her Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure," Bentaas' attorneys wrote in the brief.

The state's "failure to obtain a search warrant to extract, test and sequence the DNA on the items submitted to the SD Forensic Lab violated Bentaas' Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure," the brief states.

The state had not filed a response as of Friday.

Up until March 8, 2019, Bentaas was a member of the general public, the brief goes on to say, which gives her greater privacy interest in her DNA.

Baby Andrew's body was exhumed in 2009and sent via FedEx to the University of North Texas, were DNA was extracted. The body was returned to Sioux Falls, where it was buried at St. Michael's Cemetery on Cliff Avenue.

From 2010 to 2018, the DNA profile of Baby Andrew was run through the South Dakota DNA database once per year. No matches were found.

On Jan. 24, 2019,Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. a Virginia company to which Sioux Falls police had sent Baby Andrew's DNA completed a "Genetic Genealogy Report," a lead-generation tool to identify remains by making connections through DNA and genealogy.

A DNA profile found possible family trees, include "what they had found so far was approximately a third cousin which was fairly far out from the direct DNA of this baby," according to the brief.

That report led police to a Sioux Falls couple, Theresa Rose (Josten) Bentaas and Dirk Bentaas.

Police on Feb. 11, 2019, did a trash pull at Bentaas' home. They seized cigarettes and cigarette butts, cotton swabs, Kleenex with hair, hair with yellow cardboard, ear plugs, water bottles, glass bottles, beer cans, beer bottles and dental floss.

Theresa Rose Bentaas, 57, was arrested Friday morning after police determined through DNA that she was the mother of Baby Andrew. Argus Leader

Police obtained a search warrant for buccal swabs from Theresa and Dirk Bentaas.

Female DNAfound on a water bottle, Coors Light can and cigarette butts from the trash pull "could not be excluded as being from the biological mother of Baby (Andrew) Doe." DNA from two different men was also linked to Baby Andrew.

Police interviewed Dirk and Theresa Bentaas later in February 2019. Police did a cheek swab on both. In that interview, Theresa Bentaas said she was "young and stupid" and admitted to being pregnant in 1980-1981.

Test results from the cheek swabs showed "extremely strong evidence" to support the biological relationship between Theresa Bentaas, Dirk Bentaas and Baby Andrew.

Theresa Bentaas was arrested in March 2019. She posted bond and has been out of custody sinceMay 2019. Bond conditions included that she be required to wear a GPS ankle monitor, hand over her passport, check in at her attorney's office once a week and live with a family member.

Bentaas' trial is scheduled for April. Her next court appearance is scheduled in March.

Email reporter Danielle Ferguson at dbferguson@argusleader.com, or follow on Twitter at @DaniFergs.

Read or Share this story: https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2020/02/14/attorneys-theresa-bentaas-look-suppress-dna-evidence-baby-andrew-case/4765639002/

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Attorneys for Theresa Bentaas look to suppress DNA evidence in Baby Andrew case - Argus Leader