Senators Push Trump Administration For Clarity On Privacy Act Exclusions (onthewire.io)

Trailrunner7 quotes a report from On the Wire: A group of influential lawmakers, including Sen. Ed Markey and Sen. Ron Wyden, are pressing the Trump administration for answers about how an executive order that includes changes to the Privacy Act will affect non-U.S. persons and whether the administration plans to release immigrants' private data. The letter comes from six senators who are concerned about the executive order that President Trump issued two weeks ago that excludes from privacy protections people who aren't U.S. citizens or permanent residents. The order is mostly about changes to immigration policy, but Trump also included a small section that requires federal government agencies to exclude immigrants from Privacy Act protections. On Thursday, Markey, Wyden, and four other senators sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Jon Kelly, asking a series of 10 questions about how the exclusion would be implemented, what it would cost, and whether the government plans to release the private data of people affected by the order. "These Privacy Act exclusions could have a devastating impact on immigrant communities, and would be inconsistent with the commitments made when the government collected much of this information," the senators said in the letter to Kelly. In the letter, the lawmakers ask Kelly whether people affected by the order will be allowed full access to their own private data that has been collected by the government. They also ask how the government plans to identify U.S. persons in their databases and what policies DHS will apply to separate them from non-U.S persons. The letter also asks for clarification on how the executive order will affect the Privacy Shield pact between the U.S and the European Union. That agreement enables companies to move private data between countries under certain data protection laws.

Comments

There will be no privacy under the ruling party

[Anonymous Coward]

Until we reduce the reelection rates in congress you can forget about it.

Flynn is a Russian spy

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile CIA and FBI staff have confirmed Flynn's discussions with the Russian Ambassador about lifting sanctions, as described in the pee memo. BEFORE the election.

"A US official confirmed to CNN late Friday afternoon that Flynn and the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, did speak about sanctions, among other matters, during the call....Flynn cannot rule out that he spoke to Kislyak about sanctions, an aide close to the national security adviser said earlier Friday. Flynn, the aide said, has "no recollection of discussing sanctions," but added that the national security adviser "couldn't be certain that the topic never came up."

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politics/flynn-russia-us-sanctions-reports/index.html

Keep in mind Flynn was a nobody, back in August, when the memo says Putin was grooming him. Which means Putin knew before America that Trump would pluck this nobody for his security advisor, and it confirms Trump conspired with Putin to select people. The Russian Ambassador knew too, before the election that Flynn was to be appointed, again before Trump actually chose him. Proving the two conspired.

At this point Republicans need to get their shit together, prosecute Trump for treason, put Pence in, get the cyber security bill signed, the one Trump is blocking. Get the generals put back onto the National Security council, after Trump demoted them to occasional consultants... they are Congretional Appointees assigned to the National Security Council FFS, America is vulnerable if the military is removed from those meetings, and only Putin's agents are present.

The two spies Putin arrested, they fit the profile of the two known agents in the pee memos. These agents were known and considered reliable by NSA, CIA, MI6 etc. Yet they were arrested just after Trump's men entered the CIA. If they are US spies in Russia, then Trump needs to face espionage charges for passing their names across.

Kick this whiney buttercup out of office and put a Republican in.

Re:Flynn is a Russian spy

[JoshuaZ]

Is there a specific aspect of the above comment that you consider inaccurate? If so, can you explain why?

Less secure

[AmiMoJo]

No one is going to share data with the US if it goes ahead with this. The EU is already reluctant.

Re: Less secure

[mmell]

It seems more likely to me that this will create opportunities for European companies to clone US based services (including everything down to the business model). What person in Europe would choose a Gmail account when they could get a Euromail account which works just well and includes European-style privacy guarantees? You know, Protonmail suddenly comes screaming to mind.

Re: Less secure

[mmell]

Are you really so blind that you believe it'll end there? If the US government can abuse one set of people, it can abuse anybody. This is why pro-Trump forces are so interested in assuring that Constitutional protections are interpreted as only applying to US citizens. Once you accept that falsehood, it becomes a simple matter to begin defining certain citizens (e.g., convicted felons, individuals on the terrorist watch list) as also not being entitled to Constitutional protections.

A very few Constitutional protections are indeed reserved only for US citizens, and these are explicitly spelled out in the Constitution. The Constitution itself was written to be the rules by which we govern, not the rules by which we govern ourselves. That's why certain rights (such as eligiblity to serve as POTUS) are specifically reserved for US citizens. If a protection is not specifically reserved for US citizens only, it must be extended to all - otherwise, what's the point?

Re: Less secure

[ooloorie]

Forget about the constitutionality for a second, do you not think that it's a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention to ban people from entering this country on the basis that they live in the kind of country that people would need to flee from?

No. Most of the people fleeing those countries don't even seem to meet the definition of "refugee" under the convention. Refugee status is for persecuted minorities, not merely people who leave their countries because they are violent shitholes. Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany were refugees; regular Germans fleeing from Nazi Germany were not. I also see no obligation under the Convention to actively transport refugees to the US.

The US currently has about 20 million people illegally present in the country, many of whom fled poverty and violence in Mexico, plus at least another 20 million legal immigrants and about 3 million refugees (since 1980). I think we are pulling our weight when it comes to helping the downtrodden masses. There is a practical limit to how many people voters are willing to let into the country, treaty or not.

Finally, if push comes to shove, the president can likely simply suspend or abrogate the treaty; it is poorly written, ambiguous, and ultimately unworkable.

This is not news for nerds.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is political crap.

"devastating impact"

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

That's the entire point of Steve Bannon, the "President behind the curtain". He wants to destabilize the entire planet and destroy civilization as we know it. This is an exact quote from him:

“Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

He's the one who's really writing many of these Executive Orders. He wants to burn it all down, and rebuild it in his own twisted image that fits his into his alt-right image. He knows that our society is held together by very fragile bonds formed through trust, past promises, monetary policy; attack these pillars and the whole thing will collapse.

Re:"devastating impact"

[PolygamousRanchKid]

"It's easy to burn down the outhouse; the hard part is putting in new plumbing.”

Re:"devastating impact"

[Gr8Apes]

Maybe look at Sudan, Syria, or Somalia?

Re:*Senators *Privacy Act

[gtall]

You give Trump too much credit, there was no clarity because there can be no clarity from someone of such limited intellectual prowess. You can see that in his nominees for cabinet positions. They are not the A-Team, they are a reflection of Trump's idea of how to run an organization. There is no consistent ethos among the lot of them except hating the very agencies they are to lead. And Trump doesn't even trust them, he's got minders for each of the agency heads and those minders report to Trump and Bannon.

You can also see the effect of his lack of intellectual depth when he's admitted signing orders that he never read. Bannon shoved them in front of him and he signed because Bannon told him to. When the shit hit the fan on the immigration order, he went nuts trying assign blame to everyone but himself. He is without honor.

Re:Still much more secure

[gorbachev]

According to the US Government roughly 35% of all tourists to the country come from Western European countries. I'm pretty sure your idea will work real well.

It'll never happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Until we reduce the reelection rates in congress you can forget about it.

We have become so partisan in this country - which the ruling class LOVES - that we'll never see that happen.

My state keeps sending the same old people back every year. Why? because it means voting for a Democrat.

And that will never happen. In my state, all a Republican needs to do is say "Pro-Life" and "Roe vs Wade has to go" and "Democrats gonna take yer guns!" he's in. And here, Democrats are socialists!

Privacy and the finer points of civil liberties goes right over their heads. And how those "Conservatives" have gamed the system against them: how their retirement plans are being gouged by financial firms' fees; how they are being gouged by their ISP and cable TV company; why the business up the road can dump just about anything it wants into the ground; just flies through their ears.

As long as they have their bibles, guns, football on ESPN and F-150, they're happier than the pigs on the McCully farm. You can do anything you want to them politically.

I really hope my disgust for the American electorate shows.

Re:It'll never happen

[WheezyJoe]

You're better off in a swing state. Any state or district where one party has a "lock" is guaranteed to be corrupt... and that goes for Republicans (the Old South) and Democrats (looking at you, Massachusetts). It's just the way it is, no different from the way monopolies in business can't help but screw their customers... there's nothing stopping them, and the temptation is too great.

The fix? Term limits. At least it's a start. But the sad thing is the Republicans actually PROMOTED term limits as part of their Contract with America. The Contract helped the Republicans capture the House back in the Clinton years. My faith in Republicans evaporated when their commitment to term limits did the same pretty much as soon as they took office (thanks, Newt... I haven't forgotten).

But voters can do their own term limits. If Americans were really serious about their low approval of Congress, they would vote out whoever is the incumbent. Keep that up for a couple of terms, and the Parties would get the message, because they keep losing. Would force Congresspeople, particularly members of the House with their 2-year terms, to work a lot harder to keep their jobs or else resign themselves to a single term. But Americans have short memories, and often don't know who their Representative or even Senators are. Worse, the Parties often don't even try in Districts they don't feel safe in (looking at you, Democrats). That's why things don't change.

Re:It'll never happen

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

The fix? Term limits. At least it's a start. But the sad thing is the Republicans actually PROMOTED term limits as part of their Contract with America. The Contract helped the Republicans capture the House back in the Clinton years. My faith in Republicans evaporated when their commitment to term limits did the same pretty much as soon as they took office (thanks, Newt... I haven't forgotten).

Do you also remember that SCOTUS shot down term limits as unconstitutional?

Re:It'll never happen

[kevmeister]

My state (California) voted in term limits many years ago and we have come to regret the unintended consequences. The problem is that 4-6 years is not long enough ot learn to deal with the entrenched interests. The result was that lobbyists, who are around much longer, became invaluable "helpers" to the large number of newly elected and inexperienced legislators and ended up effectively running the legislature. Their influence, always a concern, grew tremendously.

Now the term limits have been eased (also by popular vote) and it is hoped that this will help. We'll see in 5 or 6 years

Re:It'll never happen

[jandersen]

You're better off in a swing state. Any state or district where one party has a "lock" is guaranteed to be corrupt...

That is probably why people in many European countries (especially in Scandinavia) have much more faith in their governments and parliaments: the voting system and the political process means that they have many parties in parliament, so no government rules from majority and no politician is safe in his seat. Just have a look at the Danish Folketing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... 179 seats - and 13 parties. It means the politicians are much more likely to represent the voters, and they are good at cooperating and finding compromises because they have to.

Systems like the american and the British are rigged against ordinary people; Trump was right in that, at least, although I doubt he actually means in this way. What he complains about is that reality is rigged against him, personally.

Re:It'll never happen

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995). Argued November 29, 1994; decided May 22, 1995.

The exercise by Congress of its power to judge the qualifications of its Members further confirmed this understanding. We concluded that, during the first 100 years of its existence, "Congress strictly limited its power to judge the qualifications of its members to those enumerated in the Constitution." 395 U. S., at 542.

"It would seem but fair reasoning upon the plainest principles of interpretation, that when the constitution established certain qualifications, as necessary for office, it meant to exclude all others, as prerequisites. From the very nature of such a provision, the affirmation of these qualifications would seem to imply a negative of all others." 1 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 625 (3d ed. 1858) (hereinafter Story). See also Warren 421 ("As the Constitution ... expressly set forth the qualifications of age, citizenship, and residence, and as the Convention refused to grant to Congress power to establish qualifications in general, the maxim expressio unius exclusio alterius would seem to apply").

Unsurprisingly, the state courts and lower federal courts have similarly concluded that Powell conclusively resolved the issue whether Congress has the power to impose additional qualifications. See, e. g., Joyner v. Mofford, 706 F.2d 1523, 1528 (CA9 1983) ("In Powell ... , the Supreme Court accepted this restrictive view of the Qualifications Clauseat least as applied to Congress"); Michel v. Anderson, 14 F.3d 623 (CADC 1994) (citing Nixon's description of Powell's holding); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev. 826, 830, 839 P. 2d 120, 122 (1992) (citing Powell for the proposition that "[n]ot even Congress has the power to alter qualifications for these constitutional federal officers").13

Petitioners argue that the Constitution contains no express prohibition against state-added qualifications, and that Amendment 73 is therefore an appropriate exercise of a State's reserved power to place additional restrictions on the choices that its own voters may make. We disagree for two independent reasons. First, we conclude that the power to add qualifications is not within the "original powers" of the States, and thus is not reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment. Second, even if States possessed some original power in this area, we conclude that the Framers intended the Constitution to be the exclusive source of qualifications for Members of Congress, and that the Framers thereby "divested" States of any power to add qualifications.

Re:Still much more secure

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who lives in Western Europe and has been travelling to the USA since 1975 I can safely say that I really have no inclination to want to visit while you current TWIC (Tweeter in Charge) is running the show.
Sorry guys but my tourist dollar will be going elsewhere for the forseeable future.
Last year I spent close on $3,000 in the USA. This year, I'm going to Sri Lanka.

no "changes to the Privacy Act"

[ooloorie]

Trump didn't make any "changes to the privacy act", nor could he if he wanted to.

What they are saying is clear from these paragraphs:

about the executive order that President Trump issues two weeks ago that excludes from privacy protections people who aren’t U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

So, citizens and immigrants are excluded.

Next:

“These Privacy Act exclusions could have a devastating impact on immigrant communities [=people illegally present in the US], and would be inconsistent with the commitments made when the government collected much of this information,” the senators say

I.e., the Obama administration made promises to people illegally present in the US that are not backed by law. And the Trump administration is saying that it does not intend to keep those promises, for the simple reason that they are planning on using information collected from illegals in order to prioritize and deport them.

“This should be considered by Europeans a slap in the face for the Privacy Shield agreement that we entered into last year. This creates a new challenge,” Amie Stepanovich,U.S. policy manager at Access Now, said when the order was announced.

That's a red herring; Privacy Shield is backed by law and an entirely separate issue. Trump isn't trying to go after EU citizens who have shared their information with Google or Microsoft, he is trying to go after people illegally present in the US. If Trump wanted to exclude EU citizens from privacy protections or even visa free travel, he could do that easily, but this EO doesn't do it. In fact, generally speaking, the Trump administration wants more immigration from democratic Western nations and less immigration from other parts of the world, so Europe is pretty much the last place on earth they want to make it hard to immigrate or travel from.

In the letter, the lawmakers ask Kelly whether people...

It's, of course, perfectly legitimate for senators to ask questions of the current administration. But let's not kid ourselves, this inquiry is political posturing, not a serious attempt at clarification, from senators that have little political power left; they are looking for ammunition against Trump. It will be interesting to see how Trump responds. I suspect, as he has done before, Trump will manage to turn these senators into unwitting allies in spreading his message.

Re: no "changes to the Privacy Act"

[ooloorie]

The solution is obvious - make all the US look like Gitmo.

No, the solution is obvious: deport people illegally present in our country. You know, just like other civilized countries do.

Re:Still much more secure

[thsths]

Nice try, anonymous troll. By most measures, Europe is a much safer place than the US. You are unlikely for example to be shot for honking at someone cutting in front of you. You are also safe from civil forfeiture. And you have the right to criticise the president - any president.

But as the OP said, civil liberties are not appreciated anymore.

Re:Context is everything

[cryptizard]

I'm sure he's going to get right on that mission of removing the political class from power now that he is part of it. Literally lol.

So we shouldn't be too concerned about privacy?

[mmell]

I agree with the current administration that privacy is counter to keeping us safe and making America great again. Let's start with this document.

Re:Flynn's role

[JoshuaZ]

So, normally such meetings start *later*. Moreover, your argument is hard to reconcile with Flynn explicitly denying that he made the phone calls.

Re:Still much more secure

[ColdWetDog]

How can you possibly say that.? In Europe, you can't carry your 14 round Glock pistol or your M-16 derived 'hunting rifle' into the grocery store. You never know what lurks behind the shelves.

You're never safe over there.

Never.

USA! USA!

Re:Meanwhile, at Trump Tower...

[ColdWetDog]

So, the Constitution isn't something Federal judges are supposed to cite.

Interesting outlook on the state of the country there.

Re:Still much more secure

[david_thornley]

One single incident doesn't affect crime statistics much. Europe with Muslim violence can still be safer than the US. Humans are poor at judging such dangers, and it's getting worse.

There's reasons why I don't want to visit Iraq, and some of those reasons are why we're getting lots of refugees from there, and why it's important to have a compassionate policy towards refugees (which doesn't preclude the sort of rigorous vetting the US does).