Government & Communications

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency charged with deportations, has confirmed in a new letter that it does not use cell-site simulators, also known as stingrays, to locate undocumented immigrants. In the August 16 letter, which was sent to Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR), acting Director Thomas Homan wrote that, since October 2015, ICE has followed similar guidelines put in place by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security a month earlier, which require a warrant before deploying a stingray. Sen Wyden has also recently sent a similar letter to the Department of Justice, which has not yet responded.

[Commentary] It took the death of a young woman at the hands of one of the neo-Nazis she was protesting to force the ever-expanding media universe to face a question it has been evading for years: Where’s the line?

Unlike the last big communications revolutions — brought about with radio and then television — this one came with no barrier to entry in terms of expensive equipment like towers and studios. There have been no governmental limits like broadcasting standards and licensing requirements. But as the downsides of informational democratization become more evident — the opening it has provided for nefarious state actors, terrorists and hate mongers — those who have some control over the web’s content stream have had a hard time figuring out where to build some much-needed dams. The trouble has come in finding the line between what some may find offensive and what is objectively dangerous speech. But at this point, if we can’t set a line at neo-Nazis and white nationalists inciting hatred and violence, can we set any line at all?

President Donald Trump has directed that Cyber Command — which is currently a part of the National Security Agency — will become its own unified military command in a move that is meant to strengthen cyberspace operations and bolster U.S. defenses. “The elevation of United States Cyber Command demonstrates our increased resolve against cyberspace threats and will help reassure our allies and partners and deter our adversaries,” President Trump said in a statement Aug 18. Cyber Command was formed in 2010 from two smaller organizations subordinate to Strategic Command, the same military body responsible for US missile defenses. Since its beginning, it has been led by the director of the NSA, which is currently Navy Adm. Michael Rogers. President Trump’s move means that Cyber Command will become the 10th unified command in the US military, putting it on par with the main combatant commands, such as Central Command.

Shortly after Ajit Pai was named chair of the Federal Communications Commission in February, he said he wanted the agency to be “as open and accessible as possible to the American people." Six months on, the agency is falling short of Pai’s lofty goal in some key areas.

Critics are especially concerned about the FCC’s handling of complaints from the public about internet providers and the causes of a May 7 outage of the public-comments section of the agency’s website. "Chairman Pai promised to make the FCC more transparent, but the early returns aren't looking good," said Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR). "The FCC seems more concerned with helping Big Cable than living up to his promise." Many complaints about a lack of transparency at the FCC relate to the commission’s plan to reverse some of its net-neutrality rules, which prohibit internet providers from favoring some forms of traffic over others. The FCC’s proceeding failed to mention that the agency has received more than 47,000 informal complaints about alleged net-neutrality violations since the rules took effect in 2015.

[Commentary] Several prominent Republicans took to Twitter on Aug 17 to denounce hatred and bigotry in the wake of President Donald Trump's shocking equivocations about the white-supremacist mayhem in Charlottesville (VA). Expressing disapproval in 140 characters or fewer is insufficient when the president angrily asserts that there were some "very fine people" among the bigots waving Confederate battle flags and swastika banners; when torch-bearing marchers chanted "Jews will not replace us"; and when police said one Nazi sympathizer rammed a sports car into a crowd, killing an innocent counterprotester. This is a moment of reckoning for members of the Party of Lincoln: Do they want to stand up for American values, or do they want to keep enabling a president whose understanding of right and wrong has slipped dangerously off the rails? If congressional Republicans choose the former — and history will be watching — they should join together with Democrats to censure President Trump.

Censure is not impeachment. Whether that's appropriate will likely depend on the outcome of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. But censure would constitute a forceful way of rebuking the White House and condemning the vile views of a bigoted fringe, even as those people's right to free speech and peaceful protest is protected under the First Amendment. The political chasm between Democrats and Republicans may be wider than ever. But when it comes to ideologies of hate and racism, the nation's leaders need to speak forcefully with one voice.

Commissioner Michael O'Rielly of the Federal Communications Commission says President Donald Trump was wrong to suggest there were some fine people amongst the racist and neo-Nazi protestors who sparked violence in Charlottesville (VA), and said he was "astounded" by the President's press conference on Aug 16.

"I was not available to comment previously," he said. "But I was just astounded when I got back to town to see what had happened and to see the [President's] press conference yesterday and the transcript from some of that." O'Rielly said he was troubled by the President's comment that there were fine people in both camps. "The President's point I think was wrong. I don't think there are fine people in some of these hateful groups. I don't think you can be a fine person in a hateful group. I don't think those things go together."

Democratic lawmakers are calling for an independent investigation into how the Federal Communications Commission responded to a reported cyberattack in May that crippled the agency’s comment filing system. Sen Brian Schatz (D-HI) and House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that cast doubt on the FCC’s version of the incident. “While the FCC and the FBI have responded to Congressional inquiries into these [distributed denial of service] attacks, they have not released any records or documentation that would allow for confirmation that an attack occurred, that it was effectively dealt with, and that the FCC has begun to institute measures to thwart future attacks and ensure the security of its systems,” the letter reads. "As a result, questions remain about the attack itself and more generally about the state of cybersecurity at the FCC — questions that warrant an independent review.”

Much of what President Donald Trump learns about the world is filtered through two lenses: what he watches on cable news (particularly Fox) and what he sees on Twitter. Users of Twitter will understand, however, that it can be tricky to know what someone else sees when he or she fires up the application. Everyone follows a different group of people, and that colors the information they receive. To that end, we’ve created @trumps_feed, an account that checks whom Trump follows every five minutes and then retweets any new tweets from them over that period. The net result is a replication of what Trump would see on those occasions that he switches over from the Mentions tab.

Governments increasingly rely on mathematical formulas to inform decisions about criminal justice, child welfare, education, and other arenas. Yet it’s often hard or impossible for citizens to see how these algorithms work and are being used.

San Francisco Superior Court began using PSA in 2016, after getting the tool for free from the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, a Texas nonprofit that works on criminal-justice reform. The initiative was intended to prevent poor people unable to afford bail from needlessly lingering in jail. But a memorandum of understanding with the foundation bars the court from disclosing “any information about the Tool, including any information about the development, operation and presentation of the Tool.” Many governments said they had no relevant records about the programs. Taken at face value, that would mean those agencies did not document how they chose, or how they use, the tools. Others said contracts prevented them from releasing some or all information. Goodman says this shows governments are neglecting to stand up for their own, and citizens’, interests. “You can really see who held the pen in the contracting process,” she says. The Arnold Foundation says it no longer requires confidentiality from municipal officials, and is happy to amend existing agreements, to allow officials to disclose information about PSA and how they use it. But a representative of San Francisco Superior Court said its contract with the foundation has not been updated to remove the gag clause.

AnonOps, a group affiliated with the online activist group known as Anonymous, posted what it says are the private cell phone numbers and email addresses for 22 Republican members of Congress in a bid to push for President Trump's impeachment, reigniting the use of hacked information in US political battles.

Rob Pfeiffer, chief editor of online publication The Anon Journal, said that the move was spurred by Trump's contentious reaction to violent clashes in Charlottesville. He did not know how the information was obtained, whether it was a leak or an online hack. He said some of the cell phone numbers, for example, had been verified as real. Among the politicians on the list were Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Charles Grassley of Iowa. The goal, said Pfeiffer, is for people to contact these members of Congress to more forcefully condemn the president and call for Trump's impeachment. Pfeiffer said more GOP lawmakers could see their personal contact information released soon.