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When Andreas Gal, CEO of Silk Labs and a US citizen, returned to the US from a business trip in Europe last year, he was detained by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) for secondary screening. He claims he was threatened with unwarranted charges, denied access to an attorney, and told he had to unlock his electronic devices before he would be allowed to leave.
[...] Despite being told he had no right to an attorney, he says he refused to answer questions and was eventually allowed to go without unlocking his devices, though his Global Entry card – a subscription-based biometric border entry program to facilitate travel – was taken from him.
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued CBP claiming that the agency maintains secretive units to "detain, search, question, and/or deny entry to people with valid travel documents who present no security risk."
The ACLU complaint, filed in the Eastern District of New York, seeks CBP documents under the Freedom of Information Act that the agency has refused to produce.
It contends that these Tactical Terrorism Response Teams (TTRTs) have operated for the past few years and target individuals, including US citizens, "who do not present a security risk but may hold information or have a connection to individuals of interest to the US government."
"The public has a right to know how these teams operate, how their officers are trained, and whether the guidelines that govern their activities contain civil liberties and privacy safeguards," the ACLU said in a statement announcing its lawsuit.
The complaint says TTRTs target people without valid cause, based on hunches and instinct, raising the likelihood that travelers are subject to profiling based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, or proxies for those attributes. As such, TTRTs may be violating protections guaranteed by the US Constitution.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 21 2019, @07:50PM (6 children)
The ACLU and even the EFF started out with good intent but now they, and pretty much every other organization like them, are pozzed with partisan leftist AIDS and Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Where's the defense for "it's okay to be White" flyers? Where's the pushback against the ADL arbitrarily labeling the "OK" hand sign as a racist symbol? The ACLU and EFF should be fighting for free speech rights and pushing back against tech censorship and other assaults on free speech -- they'd have plenty of work keeping them busy and would get a hell of a lot more donations and a better reputation.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 21 2019, @09:20PM (3 children)
They haven't given up completely, but they are definitely getting soft [aclu.org].
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 21 2019, @09:51PM (1 child)
Yeech, they really went full-rootless cosmopolitan NPR-style with that one. I wonder how those lawyers would feel when these "immigrant families" move next door to them and illegally vote for more in federal elections because "voting rights."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 21 2019, @11:09PM
Thank you for finding this. That was my point.
Fight for immigrants' lawful rights, yes. Fight to actively import more / let illegals stay, hell no.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NickM on Saturday December 21 2019, @10:51PM
I don't think there getting soft but I think that you misunderstand their purpose. They are not called the traditionalist constitution association nor the freedom of speech organization, they are called the American civil liberties union. It's right in the name they are an union so they are to the left of the political spectrum. And they work to defend civil liberties : rights that the government commit not to infringe either via positives (granting a new right) or negatives (limiting an existing right to avoid infringement on a more fundamental right) legislation. But rights are sometimes conflicting, from your link
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Saturday December 21 2019, @10:51PM
Those things already have their defenders, and unfortunately they are mostly white supremacists. The ACLU would probably join the defense if it didn't also help people who are normally 100% opposed to their mission and ideology.
I hate that it forces self-interested white people to buddy up with white supremacists. But it's not something the ACLU can really deal with. I'm not sure how to fix it, really. We might just have to wait for the right politics to bring all poor people together to really solve the problems that affect us all instead of trying to get one up on each other.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 5, Informative) by helel on Saturday December 21 2019, @10:52PM
The ACLU and EFF tend to operate in the courts. Has someone been arrested or harassed by the government or other large institution for distributing "It's ok to be White" flyers? Has anyone been charged with a hate crime for using the OK hand sign? If somebody has been and the ACLU has failed to act then you might have a point but as long as those activities are merely socially taboo and not criminal it seems the ACLU is doing its job in protecting free speech.
But this isn't theoretical. When the city fo Charlottesville tried to revoke the protest permit of white nationalists defending the Robert E. Lee statue the ACLU stepped in [vox.com] defending their right to free speech in court. This is hardly an isolated incident. The ACLU routinely defends conservatives who's rights are being threatened. The fact that you see them as partisan says far more about your world view then it does theirs.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]