Robert Torricelli, Opinion contributor Published 7:00 a.m. ET Feb. 21, 2020

We can't continue to give a rubber stamp to policies that endanger Americans' civil liberties. In this small window to make reform, Congress must act.

We will never forget the searing images from September 11, 2001, that played out across our television screens and in front of our eyes. The image that sticks most with me was the sight of hundreds of abandoned cars belonging to World Trade Center workers parked at a New Jersey commuter lot, each vehicle representing someone who would never come home from work.

At the time I represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate. Working with my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, we debated how to thwart the next terrorist attack. Many of our ideas were incorporated into the Bush-era USA Patriot Act. While not billed as emergency powers, it was clear to us that the raft of legislation that followed 9/11 was in response to an emergency. What we viewed as immediate measures to protect American lives became a permanent framework that has governed American counterterrorism and counterintelligence for decades.

In the years since we passed the Patriot Act, many of my former colleagues and I, while remaining firm on the need to protect national security, have become increasingly skeptical even concerned those powers have been abusedand contain potential for even greater abuse.

These laws have been reauthorized with curtailed debate, over the objections of civil liberties advocates. In 2013, we were shocked to see the extent of mass warrantless surveillance after revelations by leaker Edward Snowden.A modified version of the Patriot Act, the USA Freedom Act, passed in 2015 to correct the lawless practices Snowden revealed.And yet it appears that shortcomings with the surveillance of Americans remains entrenched.

National Security Agency office in Fort Meade, Maryland.(Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP)

This became clear with the recent release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitzs report on the origins of the FBIs investigation into potential ties between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia. While stating clearly that there was no sign of bias in the FBIs decision to open the investigation, Horowitz laid out a string of errors and violations of Americans rights. One wonders, if this is how the FBI operates in a case bound to end up under a microscope, how fairly do they treat Americans involved in less prominent cases?

Two practices are of particular concern. Measures intended to fight international terrorism might now be used for backdoor surveillance of Americans at home. Parallel construction is another problematic practice, allowing law enforcement to make a case against Americans having nothing to do with terrorism.

The latter is a particular peril of programs under Section 215 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which holds that any information you give to a third party such as Google, Amazons Alexa, a doorbell video cameraor any other commercial entity, is fair game for surveillance.While the law does limit access to such business records information to cases relevant to national security, that term is elastic enough to include almost anything the government wants to see.

Inspector General report on FBI's FISA abuse tells us one thing: We need radical reform.

Key components of Section 215 are set to expire on March 15. Word from the hill is that there is strong, bipartisan support for reform from many members of the House Judiciary Committee, as well as from civil liberties stalwarts like Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Members of the liberal Progressive Caucus and conservative Freedom Caucus are circulating ideas for reform with backing from groups across the ideological spectrum, from the ACLUto FreedomWorks.

These reformers, however, face intense pressure from surveillance hawks to pass a clean reauthorization that includes no reforms.Congress should instead use the next two months to craft changes that will bring surveillance law in line with the U.S. Constitution.

One needed reform is to protect the First Amendment. Current law holds that investigations can be based on speech or religion, so long as they are not based solely on how one exercises ones First Amendment rights.Congress should tighten this elastic standard to disallow possible political surveillance of journalists, religious groups and campaigns.

Congress should also bring Section 215 business records provision into line with the Fourth Amendment requirement of probable cause whenever this information is used in a criminal proceeding against a U.S. person.

Former FBI agent: Justice Department investigation finds Trump's FBI conspiracy is false

The current system commendably allows for outside legal experts to critique surveillance requests before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.But this resource has been used sparingly.Congress should expand that program whenever an important constitutional issue is at stake.

We will never forget those empty cars and the need for surveillance measures to keep another attack from happening again. But Congress should take this opportunity to bring surveillance practices more in line with the Constitution. And law enforcement and intelligence agencies would be well advised to respect the intent of those who write surveillance legislation.

Robert Torricelli served from 1983 to 2003 as a U.S. representative forNew Jerseys 9th district and as a U.S. senator. Follow him on Twitter:@bobtorricelli

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Congress has the chance to reform the Patriot Act. They should take it. - USA TODAY

A verdict is expected tomorrow in the cases of 11 human rights defenders, including the former leadership and several members of Amnesty Turkey, who have spent more than two-and-a-half years fighting trumped-up charges and could face up to 15 years behind bars if found guilty.

Ahead of the hearing, which resumes tomorrow in Istanbul, Amnesty International said only acquittal of all could deliver justice for the 11 activists arrested in the summer of 2017 on baseless terrorism charges. Amnesty Turkeys former Chair, Taner Kl, former Director, Idil Eser, and several other members of Amnesty Turkey are among the human rights defenders on trial.

The plight of these activists shows that Turkey has become a country where defending other peoples freedoms can cost you your own, and where standing up for human rights is being criminalized. This verdict is an acid test for Turkeys justice system - we demand anend this prolonged saga of injustice now, said Marie Struthers, Amnesty Internationals Europe Director.

From the moment they were arrested, it was clear this was a politically motivated prosecution aimed at silencing independent civil society within Turkey. After months in jail and years before the courts, and with no credible evidence presented to substantiate the charges made against them, any verdict other than a full acquittal for all 11 activists would be an outrage.

Over the course of ten hearings, the terrorism allegations made against all 11 defendants have been repeatedly and categorically disproven, including by the states own evidence. The prosecutions attempt to present legitimate human rights activities as unlawful acts has comprehensively failed. The verdict must reflect that reality.

Since 2017, more than two million people from around the world have joined the call for justice for the 11, including scores of renowned figures from the arts world, among them Ben Stiller, Whoopi Goldberg, Edward Snowden, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Ai Weiwei, Anish Kapoor, Catherine Deneuve and Anglique Kidjo.

Writing in an open letter in 2017 when the 11 were still behind bars, dozens of high-profile figures stated: When human rights defenders are silenced, all our rights are put at risk. They are the ones that stand up for us. Now we must stand up for them.

After more than 14 months in prison, Taner Kl was released on bail in August 2018. Eight of the others spent almost four months each behind bars before they were released in October 2017. But thousands of others caught up in Turkeys deep and far reaching crackdown on dissent remain in jail.

The targeting of human rights defenders has escalated during the wave of repression that has gripped Turkey since the 2016 coup attempt. The post-coup crackdown by the government has seen an ongoing assault on civil society which has resulted in the closing of more than 1,300 NGOs and 180 media organizations, and the arbitrary dismissal of almost 130,000 public service workers.

The significance of the verdict will reach far beyond this courtroom. The acquittal of these 11 human rights defenders should herald the beginning of the end of the crackdown on civil society and a restoration of respect for human rights in Turkey, said Marie Struthers.

The eyes of the world will be on the courtroom. Any verdict other that acquittal will be a chilling reminder that truth and justice have become strangers in Turkey.

The hearing will begin at 07.00am GMT, on 19 February, 10.00am local time, at Istanbul Heavy Penal Court, No 35.

There will be a press conference at 6.30am GMT (9.30 local time), outside the courtroom.

An international delegation of senior Amnesty International representatives from around the world are attending the hearing in Istanbul including: Kate Allen, Director of AI UK; John Peder Egenaes, Director of AI Norway; Anna Lindenfors, Director of AI Sweden; Gabriele Stein, Chair Amnesty International Germany, Stefanie Rinaldi, Chair of Amnesty Switzerland and Yolanda Vega, Turkey Co-ordinator for AI Spain.

BACKGROUND

At the most recent hearing in November 2019, the state prosecutor presented his final opinion requesting convictions against Taner Kl for membership of a terrorist organization, Idil Eser, zlem Dalkran, Gnal Kurun, Veli Acu and Nejat Tatan for knowingly and willingly assisting a terrorist organization. He requested that the court acquits Nalan Erkem, lknur stn, eyhmus zbekli, Ali Gharavi and Peter Steudtner.

For more information about the case visit https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/01/turkey-istanbul-human-rights-activists-justice/

For an analysis of the case against Taner Kl visit: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/7331/2017/en/

For details of the November 2019 hearing visit https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/turkey-amnestys-exdirector-and-honorary-chair-must-be-acquitted-in-absurd-terror-trial/

Over the past two-and-a-half years more than 2 million people spoke out to call for justice for the 11. Well-known figures who signed open letters (in 2017) include:

Edward Snowden, Catherine Deneuve, Ai Weiwei, Anglique Kidjo, Anish Kapoor, Peter Gabriel, Zo Kravitz, Nazanin Boniadi, Don Cheadle, Marisa Tomei, Adam McKay, Paul Haggis, Joshua Malina, Fisher Stevens, Claire Danes, Ben Stiller, Whoopi Goldberg, Mike Farrell, Eva Orner, Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Roth, Kathy Najimy, Mark Ruffalo, Zach Galifianakis, Bruce Cohen, Shira Piven, Mike White, Tim Kring, James McAvoy, Francois Morel, Elif Shafak, Bianca Jagger, Juliet Stevenson, Juliette Binoche, Jane Birkin, Isabelle Huppert and Tanita Tikaram.

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Turkey: Human rights activists face up to 15 years in jail as verdict expected in baseless trial - Amnesty International

Joanne McNeil. Photo: Lift Conference Photos

You dont usually hear much about lurkers. Usually, the story of the contemporary internet is told from the point of view of its architects, in airport-bookstore best sellers about thedevelopers and entrepreneurs who built powerful, wealthy megaplatforms. Sometimes, youll get sensational articles about the posters, creators, and influencers whove rocketed to fame on those architects creations. But rarely do you read about everyone else: the vast majority of people, who quietly consume content online without creating much of it. A well-worn principle of internet communities called the one percent rule holds that only one percent of users in a given community create new content. The other 99 percent lurk, clicking links, reading posts, and unassumingly powering the multitrillion-dollar digital economy. Whos telling their story?

Over the last year or so, a parallel history of the internet told from the point of view of the average person,the lurker, the subscriber, the entry-level tech worker, the Monthly Active User has begun to emerge, across a number of excellent new books. In Joanne McNeils new book Lurking: How a Person Became a User, the latest addition to this library of counter-histories and revived accounts, the internets 99 percent is the focus. For McNeil, lurking isnt simply the passive activity of silently browsing the web, but an act of bearing witness, in this case to the shifts that took us from the small, rickety clubhouse internet of the 1990s to the bustling, terrifying casino internet of the 2010s and beyond. Shes interested in tracing this history not through dramatic stories of dorm-room creation and boardroom betrayal, but through the familiar, everyday experience of the lurker. How did communication habits change? How did culture shift?

Thats not to say its an anthropological text, either. Lurking is an impressionistic chronicle of the last 25 years online, divided into chapters based on themes and concepts like sharing and anonymity. The result is a history that illuminates ongoing debates and opens up interesting new questions about how we understand the industry and the technologies that have taken over the world. In a chapter called Visibility, she writes about the culture of fakesters people with fake accounts on the early social network Friendster, explaining the still-muddled distinction between credibility and visibility online. In the chapter on search, McNeil explores how the rise of search engines, and specifically Google, changed the not just the structure of the internet from a warren of hyperlinks to a database to be cross-referenced but the terms we use to discuss it. People used to talk about the internet as a place, she writes. Now people talk about the internet as something to talk to; it is a someone the Voltron of all the family photos, diary entries, jokes, hotel reviews, support-group message boards, and VHS-ripped detritus of everyone who ever lived a digital life.

In its exploration of the history and experience of the internet from a less well-attended vantage point, McNeils book made me think of a handful of other recent books about the internet, in particular Claire Evanss Broad Band, Anna Wieners Uncanny Valley, and Jenny Odells How to Do Nothing. All of these books are formally and substantively very different from Lurking, but I think they all are participating in a version of McNeils project a kind of Lurkers History of the Internet.

Broad Band, which came out in 2018, is straightforwardly a history:a collection of biographical sketches and historical accounts of the women mathematicians, computer scientists, developers, and administrators who (in the words of its subtitle) made the internet. Many of Evanss subjects are geniuses and pioneers, its true, but many of them are more or less normal people not quite lurkers, but something close who happen to have lived through a particularly interesting moment in the history of computing or the internet. (A handful of characters, like Stacy Horn, the founder of influential early message board ECHO, are featured in both Broad Band and Lurkers.) By illuminating their lives, Evans is able to flesh out the history of the internet beyond the myths and stereotypes we already know and rescue old and forgotten visions of how the internet might be.

Odells How to Do Nothing, by contrast, is less a history or a narrative at all than a strange and compelling amalgamation of polemic and self-help. Odell is able to articulate the affective experience of being online (and of logging off) particularly well, and her exploration of how the internet makes us feel is fascinating. But How to Do Nothing is also not a slick tome about digital detoxification. Where it shines in particular is when Odell excavates overlooked and forgotten previous versions of the internet (like the Community Memory kiosk, a physical box housing an electronic bulletin board, built in a Berkeley record store in 1972), contrasting them with their crassly monetized descendents (like the local social network Nextdoor, which Odells boyfriend pegs as for uppity property owners) and exploring the ways in which we could recover some of the more utopian visions of the internet.

Finally, Wieners memoir, published earlier this year, explores the recent internet from within the tech industry. Silicon Valley documents the authors life working for various tech businesses in New York City and the Bay Area, and as such, is less concerned with specific experiences of the changing internet than with chronicling the cultural milieu from which the tech industry operates. Importantly, though, its not a story of well-remunerated boy kings or swashbuckling venture capitalists, but of the low- and mid-level employees who cycle in and out of various tech start-ups implementing, with varying levels of awareness, the changes that McNeils book is concerned with. Wieners co-workers at an unnamed analytics start-up are neither daring geniuses nor grand villains: We didnt think of ourselves as participating in the surveillance economy, she writes in a section set after the Edward Snowden revelations. We were just allowing product managers to run better A/B tests.

I thought of Wieners account often while reading Lurking. If theres a through line in McNeils book, its ironically that lurking that fundamental online activity is no longer really possible. Where once you might have been able to browse online privately and unobtrusively, now you leave traces everywhere you go. McNeil documents the way Googles autocomplete function collects and suggests the theoretically private searches of billions of lurkers, and describes efforts by MySpace and Facebook users to jury-rig or reverse engineer tracking systems to tell who was looking at each profile. Anonymity is fraught and harder to come by; everyone is now obligated, by social custom or through the inveiglement of advertising profiles, to have an online presence, and that presence is increasingly connected to your life and identity off-line. Lurkers have become identifiable, trackable users to be exploited, as McNeil writes, as scrap metal, as data in a data set, as something less than human.

I dont put a lot of stock in the idea that reading a particular book or taking a particular humanities class could help transform Silicon Valley. But I thought many of Wieners bosses could have benefited from an understanding of their industry that went beyond fables of disruption and growth from hearing about how the internet is experienced by the people who use it and the developers who maintain it, rather than the tin-pot emperors hustling for tribute on whatever corner of it they can annex. The spate of new books that flesh out our understanding is welcome. If were going to recover the fully human lurker from the prepackaged and surveilled user, histories like these will be essential.

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Writing a Lurkers History of the Internet - New York Magazine