Category Archives: Fourth Amendment

RIFLE, Colo. (CBS4) Rifle Police Sergeant Carlos Cornejo is a 10-year veteran police officer in the town of Rifle located west of Glenwood Springs.

Four years a sergeant, last year he had a thought about doing something about the misinformation he was seeing on social media.

I saw a picture of one of our officers in a traffic stop and the description of that post was saying that we were arresting people for being outdoors, traveling without a mask, he said. And clearly that was not accurate.

He took a plan to his bosses with the Rifle Police Department asking about posting on issues involving police. That was April 2020. It has totally taken off.

Its weird to say, OK, you know, there are five million views on this thing. Thats why its just its just humbling to just think about that. Its hard to picture at the same time.

His Facebook page, Sergeant Carlos Cornejo, has more than 642,000 followers. All for a cop in a town with a population of less than 10,000.

We started talking about clearing up some miscommunication it also kind of grew to also include other things, like peoples rights talking about police procedures, what we can and cant do and also bringing in a personal touch to it.

At times that includes his singing and guitar playing or performing with a band. The messages will be discussions from his patrol car or around town. He records the messages in his native Spanish. Cornejo was an immigrant from Mexico as a child with his family. His father who worked the fields of the West gained residency under immigration policies approved during the Reagan administration, then was able to get citizenship for most of the family. Carlos grew up mostly in Rifle and became a police officer.

For a while he has visited local radio stations to explain his work. But seeing misinformation online, he saw the opportunity to tell the story in a different way.

I think I think its very needed, and I mean one of the reasons I think that my page has grown as it has is for that reason. That need to connect.

His postings will bring hundreds of comments and questions.

The problem is that sometimes they dont have a lot of places to go find the right information in their language, so bad information gets easily translated transmitted push the out correct information, fact-based information, not so much.

Its funny because a lot of the topics that I talk about that get a lot of attention are traffic-related, which was shocking to me I have this whole thing about, you know your Fifth Amendment rights or Fourth Amendment and theyre more curious about how long do I stop for a stop sign?

COVID has been complicated.

Initially, I mean we were talking about people confused about what regulations were going on.

But when the vaccines came out and the Spanish-speaking community fell behind in vaccination rates, he felt he might be able to help. He is part of Colorados paid efforts to use social media influencers to share messages about vaccines.

Seeing someone similar to you speaking to you, like you speak and giving you this information, I think, builds a little bit of rapport and trust in the community.

But his reach is far beyond Rifle. Hes seen people making all kinds of claims in response, like misinformation that components of the vaccine will cause you to be magnetized and that there are microchips to track people. He tells people the phones they carry would be much better to track you. Police know that well.

They track you a lot more than anything else and service is a lot better.

Its all a change from usual police messaging.

I think that needs to be done a little bit more. Police departments are scared sometimes of you know, putting a police officer out there who might say the wrong thing that is going to, you know be on all these headlines and I think we need to get away from that fear a little bit.

Police have a story to tell he believes, thats not being heard enough.

Its a stressful job we have to deal with a lot of variables evolving, quickly evolving situations, people who are in crisis, people who are upset multiple times a day. And it wears on you when you go and see some horrible scene and the next thing you have to do is go deal with a dad and mom not getting along and then you know you have to go see someone take their life and then you have to pull somebody over.

The replies are not only questions but those of support. It seems to be working. With vaccines, Cornejo believes hes convinced some people and feels good about it.

Ive had people message me and tell me firsthand. You know, I was hesitant and you know I made the decision to do it.

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Small Town Cop With Huge Following Shares Information About COVID Vaccines - CBS Denver

Apples new program for scanning images sent on iMessage steps back from the companys prior support for the privacy and security of encrypted messages. The program, initially limited to the United States, narrows the understanding of end-to-end encryption to allow for client-side scanning. While Apple aims at the scourge of child exploitation and abuse, the company has created an infrastructure that is all too easy to redirect to greater surveillance and censorship. The program will undermine Apples defense that it cant comply with the broader demands.

For years, countries around the world have asked for access to and control over encrypted messages, asking technology companies to nerd harder when faced with the pushback that access to messages in the clear was incompatible with strong encryption. The Apple child safety message scanning program is currently being rolled out only in the United States.

The United States has not been shy about seeking access to encrypted communications, pressuring the companies to make it easier to obtain data with warrants and to voluntarily turn over data. However, the U.S. faces serious constitutional issues if it wanted to pass a law that required warrantless screening and reporting of content. Even if conducted by a private party, a search ordered by the government is subject to the Fourth Amendments protections. Any warrant issued for suspicionless mass surveillance would be an unconstitutional general warrant. As the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has explained, "Search warrants . . . are fundamentally offensive to the underlying principles of the Fourth Amendment when they are so bountiful and expansive in their language that they constitute a virtual, all-encompassing dragnet[.]" With this new program, Apple has failed to hold a strong policy line against U.S. laws undermining encryption, but there remains a constitutional backstop to some of the worst excesses. But U.S constitutional protection may not necessarily be replicated in every country.

Apple is a global company, with phones and computers in use all over the world, and many governments pressure that comes along with that. Apple has promised it will refuse government demands to build and deploy government-mandated changes that degrade the privacy of users. It is good that Apple says it will not, but this is not nearly as strong a protection as saying it cannot, which could not honestly be said about any system of this type. Moreover, if it implements this change, Apple will need to not just fight for privacy, but win in legislatures and courts around the world. To keep its promise, Apple will have to resist the pressure to expand the iMessage scanning program to new countries, to scan for new types of content and to report outside parent-child relationships.

It is no surprise that authoritarian countries demand companies provide access and control to encrypted messages, often the last best hope for dissidents to organize and communicate. For example, Citizen Labs research shows thatright nowChinas unencrypted WeChat service already surveils images and files shared by users, and uses them to train censorship algorithms. When a message is sent from one WeChat user to another, it passes through a server managed by Tencent (WeChats parent company) that detects if the message includes blacklisted keywords before a message is sent to the recipient. As the Stanford Internet Observatorys Riana Pfefferkorn explains, this type of technology is a roadmap showing how a client-side scanning system originally built only for CSAM [Child Sexual Abuse Material] could and would be suborned for censorship and political persecution. As Apple has found, China, with the worlds biggest market, can be hard to refuse. Other countries are not shy about applying extreme pressure on companies, including arresting local employees of the tech companies.

But many times potent pressure to access encrypted data also comes from democratic countries that strive to uphold the rule of law, at least at first. If companies fail to hold the line in such countries, the changes made to undermine encryption can easily be replicated by countries with weaker democratic institutions and poor human rights recordsoften using similar legal language, but with different ideas about public order and state security, as well as what constitutes impermissible content, from obscenity to indecency to political speech. This is very dangerous. These countries, with poor human rights records, will nevertheless contend that they are no different. They are sovereign nations, and will see their public-order needs as equally urgent. They will contend that if Apple is providing access to any nation-state under that states local laws, Apple must also provide access to other countries, at least, under the same terms.

For example, the Five Eyesan alliance of the intelligence services of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United Stateswarned in 2018 that they will pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions if the companies didnt voluntarily provide access to encrypted messages. More recently, the Five Eyes have pivoted from terrorism to the prevention of CSAM as the justification, but the demand for unencrypted access remains the same, and the Five Eyes are unlikely to be satisfied without changes to assist terrorism and criminal investigations too.

The United Kingdoms Investigatory Powers Act, following through on the Five Eyes threat, allows their Secretary of State to issue technical capacity notices, which oblige telecommunications operators to make the technical ability of providing assistance in giving effect to an interception warrant, equipment interference warrant, or a warrant or authorisation for obtaining communications data. As the UK Parliament considered the IPA, we warned that a company could be compelled to distribute an update in order to facilitate the execution of an equipment interference warrant, and ordered to refrain from notifying their customers.

Under the IPA, the Secretary of State must consider the technical feasibility of complying with the notice. But the infrastructure needed to roll out Apples proposed changes makes it harder to say that additional surveillance is not technically feasible. With Apples new program, we worry that the UK might try to compel an update that would expand the current functionality of the iMessage scanning program, with different algorithmic targets and wider reporting. As the iMessage communication safety feature is entirely Apples own invention, Apple can all too easily change its own criteria for what will be flagged for reporting. Apple may receive an order to adopt its hash matching program for iPhoto into the message pre-screening. Likewise, the criteria for which accounts will apply this scanning, and where positive hits get reported, are wholly within Apples control.

Australia followed suit with its Assistance and Access Act, which likewise allows for requirements to provide technical assistance and capabilities, with the disturbing potential to undermine encryption. While the Act contains some safeguards, a coalition of civil society organizations, tech companies, and trade associations, including EFF andwait for itApple, explained that they were insufficient.

Indeed, in Apples own submission to the Australian government, Apple warned the government may seek to compel providers to install or test software or equipment, facilitate access to customer equipment, turn over source code, remove forms of electronic protection, modify characteristics of a service, or substitute a service, among other things. If only Apple would remember that these very techniques could also be used in an attempt to mandate or change the scope of Apples scanning program.

While Canada has yet to adopt an explicit requirement for plain text access, the Canadian government is actively pursuing filtering obligations for various online platforms, which raise the spectre of a more aggressive set of obligations targeting private messaging applications.

For the Five Eyes, the ask is mostly for surveillance capabilities, but India and Indonesia are already down the slippery slope to content censorship. The Indian governments new Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code (2021 Rules), in effect earlier this year, directly imposes dangerous requirements for platforms to pre-screen content. Rule 4(4) compels content filtering, requiring that providers endeavor to deploy technology-based measures, including automated tools or other mechanisms, to proactively identify information that has been forbidden under the Rules.

Indias defense of the 2021 rules, written in response to the criticism from three UN Special Rapporteurs, was to highlight the very real dangers to children, and skips over the much broader mandate of the scanning and censorship rules. The 2021 Rules impose proactive and automatic enforcement of its content takedown provisions, requiring the proactive blocking of material previously held to be forbidden under Indian law. These laws broadly include those protecting the sovereignty and integrity of India; security of the State; friendly relations with foreign States; public order; decency or morality. This is no hypothetical slippery slopeits not hard to see how this language could be dangerous to freedom of expression and political dissent. Indeed, Indias track record on its Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which has reportedly been used to arrest academics, writers and poets for leading rallies and posting political messages on social media, highlight this danger.

It would be no surprise if India claimed that Apples scanning program was a great start towards compliance, with a few more tweaks needed to address the 2021 Rules wider mandate. Apple has promised to protest any expansion, and could argue in court, as WhatsApp and others have, that the 2021 Rules should be struck down, or that Apple does not fit the definition of a social media intermediary regulated under these 2021 Rules. But the Indian rules illustrate both the governmental desire and the legal backing for pre-screening encrypted content, and Apples changes makes it all the easier to slip into this dystopia.

This is, unfortunately, an ever-growing trend. Indonesia, too, has adopted Ministerial Regulation MR5 to require service providers (including instant messaging providers) to ensure that their system does not contain any prohibited [information]; and [...] does not facilitate the dissemination of prohibited [information]. MR5 defines prohibited information as anything that violates any provision of Indonesias laws and regulations, or creates community anxiety or disturbance in public order. MR5 also imposes disproportionate sanctions, including a general blocking of systems for those who fail to ensure there is no prohibited content and information in their systems. Indonesia may also see the iMessage scanning functionality as a tool for compliance with Regulation MR5, and pressure Apple to adopt a broader and more invasive version in their country.

The pressure to expand Apples program to more countries and more types of content will only continue. In fall of 2020, in the European Union, a series of leaked documents from the European Commission foreshadowed an anti-encryption law to the European Parliament, perhaps this year. Fortunately, there is a backstop in the EU. Under the e-commerce directive, EU Member States are not allowed to impose a general obligation to monitor the information that users transmit or store, as stated in the Article 15 of the e-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC). Indeed, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has stated explicitly that intermediaries may not be obliged to monitor their services in a general manner in order to detect and prevent illegal activity of their users. Such an obligation will be incompatible with fairness and proportionality. Despite this, in a leaked internal document published by Politico, the European Commission committed itself to an action plan for mandatory detection of CSAM by relevant online service providers (expected in December 2021) that pointed to client-side scanning as the solution, which can potentially apply to secure private messaging apps, and seizing upon the notion that it preserves the protection of end-to-end encryption.

For governmental policymakers who have been urging companies to nerd harder, wordsmithing harder is just as good. The end result of access to unencrypted communication is the goal, and if that can be achieved in a way that arguably leaves a more narrowly defined end-to-end encryption in place, all the better for them.

All it would take to widen the narrow backdoor that Apple is building is an expansion of the machine learning parameters to look for additional types of content, the adoption of the iPhoto hash matching to iMessage, or a tweak of the configuration flags to scan, not just childrens, but anyones accounts. Apple has a fully built system just waiting for external pressure to make the necessary changes. China and doubtless other countries already have hashes and content classifiers to identify messages impermissible under their laws, even if they are protected by international human rights law. The abuse cases are easy to imagine: governments that outlaw homosexuality might require a classifier to be trained to restrict apparent LGBTQ+ content, or an authoritarian regime might demand a classifier able to spot popular satirical images or protest flyers.

Now that Apple has built it, they will come. With good intentions, Apple has paved the road to mandated security weakness around the world, enabling and reinforcing the arguments that, should the intentions be good enough, scanning through your personal life and private communications is acceptable. We urge Apple to reconsider and return to the mantra Apple so memorably emblazoned on a billboard at 2019s CES conference in Las Vegas: What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.

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If You Build It, They Will Come: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship Around the World - EFF

Aug 12th 2021

THE NATIONAL Centre for Missing & Exploited Children was established through an act of Congress in 1983, but it is not part of the American government. NCMEC (pronounced nic-mic) is a charity, one funded almost entirely by the Department of Justice, and which operates as a clearing house for information about abducted children. For the first few decades of its existence NCMECs focus was on abductions in America, helping investigations run across state lines. But as the use of the internet grew it started to turn its attention to the harm caused through online activity, specifically the trade of imagery depicting the sexual abuse of children.

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NCMECs role as an information clearing house has become far more technical as a result. In 1998 it started building a database of imagery known to depict sexual abuse of children based on the tips it had received. The technical term for this kind of data is CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material), mostly images or videos. Only NCMEC is shielded from liability to the extent that it can store CSAM and share it with law enforcement, but in 2006 the organisation began to think of ways that it might use the database to catch other CSAM trafficking. It came up with the idea of generating a long, unique string of letters and numbers known as a hash for each image in its database, then sharing those hashes with companies that wanted to scan their services for CSAM. By reversing the hashing process, companies could scan images on their services just for known CSAM, and report anything they found back to NCMEC.

This has led to an expansion of the number of tips that are sent to NCMEC, as technology companies scan automatically and voluntarily for CSAM. In 2010 NCMEC received 220,000 tips. By 2020 that number had grown to 21.7 million. And it is set to get bigger. On August 5th Apple announced that the next generation of its phone and laptop software would come with NCMECs hash database pre-installed, and would scan its users devices for CSAM automatically. Apples plans have stimulated fierce debate about whether the new system will provide an avenue for governments to expand their capacity to scan private devices for other illicit content. Many technology companies already used NCMECs hashes to scan their own cloud servers for CSAM, but Apple is taking this further with an encrypted system that runs scans on users own phones and laptops.

Yet the government could not easily force NCMEC or Apple to tweak this phone-scanning capability to look for other things. That is because any evidence thrown up by those compelled searches would be inadmissible in court for violating the Fourth Amendment. Crucially, none of the technology companies scanning for CSAM, nor NCMECs storage of it, does so, because the scans are done on a voluntary basis. The Fourth Amendment only protects against unreasonable searches by the governmentones that are carried out without a warrant. Arrests can be made only because of the voluntary nature of the CSAM scanning.

Most of the attention has focused on the technical details of Apples new CSAM scanning system. It will be released along with iOS15, the next update to its iPhone operating system, in September. Those technical details are important. Experts are poring over every available detail of the new software to determine whether it has introduced a security weakness to iPhones. But Apples ability to make this change also rests on the social norms that have underpinned the fight against child abuse in America for decades. The willing co-operation of third parties has long been all that makes it possible for law enforcement to track down child abusers in private spaces. Apple is now testing whether this willingness extends into the phones in Americans pockets.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Hashing ambiguous"

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A 38-year-old charity will be integrated into Apple's newest operating system - The Economist

For years, St. Paul police officer Heather Weyker was swamped. She gathered evidence, cultivated witnesses, filled out the police reports, testified under oathall in connection with an interstate sex trafficking ring run by Somali refugees. But perhaps most impressive is that she did all that while fabricating the same ring she was investigating, which resulted in 30 indictments, 9 trials, and 0 convictions.

Hamdi Mohamud, then a 16-year-old refugee from Somalia, found herself caught up in that scheme in 2011, when one of Weyker's witnesses, Muna Abdulkadir, tried to attack her and her friends at knifepoint. Mohamud called the police, and Weyker intervenedon behalf of Abdulkadir. She arrested Mohamud and her friends for allegedly tampering with a federal witness, and Mohamud subsequently spent two years in jail before the trumped-up charges were dismissed.

While Mohamud lost those two years of her life, Weyker has not paid any pricenot in spite of her position, but because of it. Since the officer conducted her investigation as part of a federal task force, she is entitled to absolute immunity and cannot be sued, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled last year.

It's not because the "sex trafficking" investigationwhich consisted of Weyker conjuring fake information, editing police reports, fabricating evidence, and lying under oath, among other thingswas legitimate. On the contrary, the court says it was "plagued with problems from the start" and notes that Weyker employed "lies and manipulation" to put people behind bars. Legally speaking, none of that matters.

What does matter is a line of Supreme Court jurisprudence that has made suing a rights-violating federal officer almost out of the question. Had Weyker acted in her capacity as a state or local cop, Mohamud would have been permitted to bring her claim before a jury of her peers. Yet the most powerful officers are held to the lowest standard of accountability.

Mohamud hopes to change that standard by asking the Supreme Court to hear her case, which she made official last week.

The problem here isn't qualified immunity, the doctrine that shields police officers and other state actors from federal civil suits unless the way the government violated your rights has been litigated almost exactly in a prior court precedent. That's an onerous standard to meet. It has, for example, protected two police officers who allegedly stole $225,000 while executing a search warrant, because no prior court ruling had said stealing in those circumstances is unconstitutional. The legal principle has been at the center of criminal justice reform efforts over the last year.

But Mohamud cleared that hurdle. The United States District Court for the District of Minnesota ruled that Weyker's actions so clearly made a mockery of the Constitution that she could not skirt the suit. The 8th Circuit then overturned that decision on appeal, citing Weyker's temporary federal badge, while in the same breath acknowledging the depravity of her actions.

"Qualified immunity makes it very, very difficult to sue government officials," says Patrick Jaicomo, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, the libertarian public interest law firm representing Mohamud. "This makes it impossible."

There's a Supreme Court decision that should, in theory, give Mohamud the avenue to redress she needs. In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics(1971), the high court allowed a victim to go before a jury after federal cops conducted a drug raid on his apartment without a warrant and later strip-searched him at the courthouse.

But since then the Court has undermined its own decision in almost comical ways. In 2017, the justices ruled in Ziglar v. Abbasi that lower courts should pinpoint "special factors counseling hesitation" when considering suits against federal cops. In practice, that has meant just about whatever a judge can cook up.

Yet even Abbasi notes that Bivens should be applied robustly for Fourth Amendment claims, and Mohamud's suit rests on the Fourth Amendment. That has been lost on the 8th Circuit.

"Bivens is actually a great decision," says Anya Bidwell, another attorney for Mohamud. "It does provide a cause of action for a violation of Fourth Amendment rights. We want Bivens to be interpreted robustly and allow individuals to seek damages for violations of constitutional rights."

Whether or not the Supreme Court will clarify its oscillating guidance remains to be seen. But last year the justices may have given a hint about where they're leaning when they unanimously ruled that a group of Muslim men should have the right to sue a group of federal cops who violated their religious freedom rights. Jaicomo distills Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion in that case down to its core: "He [essentially] says the availability of damages against federal officers is as old as the Republic itself."

A decade after wrongly losing the end of her teenage years in jail, Mohamud has not yet been able to make use of that lever against the perpetrator, who is still employed by the St. Paul Police Department. "It simply makes no sense that the Fourth Amendment applies with less rigor for someone who happens to work for the federal government," says Bidwell. "This is unsustainable. It just makes no sense."

Read more from the original source:
A Federal Cop Devised a Bogus Sex Trafficking Ring and Jailed This Teen for 2 Years. The Cop Can't Be Sued. - Reason

Philadelphias new rule mandating masks in all indoor businesses unless everyone inside is required to prove they are fully vaccinated will go into effect Thursday.

Heres what you need to know.

READ MORE: Philadelphias new mask mandate begins at midnight

The city announced new mask and vaccine requirements for all indoor businesses on Wednesday.

Masks are once again required at all indoor businesses and institutions, whether or not youre vaccinated, unless the business is requiring staff to get vaccinated and is requiring proof-of-vaccination from patrons.

This means all indoor businesses, not just restaurants. Its also indoor offices and any indoor gathering space.

Masks are also required at non-seated outdoor events with more than 1,000 people.

The move comes as more employers, cities, and states are requiring proof of vaccination. As of Sept. 1, the city will also require all new hires to be vaccinated, and current city employees to be vaccinated or wear two masks while at work.

Philadelphias new mask mandate and proof-of-vaccination rule will take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 12.

At cooling centers, which the city opens during heat emergencies and are open during this weeks heat emergency, the mask mandate went into place at noon Wednesday.

No. If businesses require staff to get vaccinated and require proof of vaccination from patrons, they do not have to require masks.

In other words, masks are only required in the indoor spaces that are not checking guests vaccination status and are not requiring staff to get vaccinated.

The new requirements are in place to slow the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant of COVID-19. Nationwide, daily case counts have doubled within the last two weeks. In Philadelphia, the rate of new cases has doubled three times in the last month. And though hospitals here are far from overrun by coronavirus cases like some other parts of the country, for the first time since June more than 100 people are hospitalized due to the coronavirus.

Experts have said vaccine requirements could encourage more people to get inoculated. Currently, 63% of city residents have been vaccinated.

The citys previous honor system, where officials strongly recommended everyone wear masks indoors, hasnt worked, acting Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said, and its difficult for businesses to enforce masking rules based on individuals vaccination status.

I think all-or-nothing is really whats going to work for them at this point, she said.

The reinstated mask requirement is a first step, Bettigole said, adding that the city will reassess based on future case numbers, hospitalizations, and vaccination rates.

READ MORE: Should you laminate your vaccination card? What if you lose it? Here are the dos and donts.

The city is asking that all businesses require people to wear masks indoors, or, if establishments do not want to require masks, have a reasonable system for enforcing proof of vaccination, Bettigole said. That means businesses that do require proof of vaccination should ask to see patrons cards or a photo of the card on their phone.

Meanwhile, all other establishments must require individuals to wear masks regardless of their vaccine status indoors. Businesses enforcing a mask mandate should have signs making it obvious at the entrance, Bettigole said.

Enforcement of coronavirus rules is typically complaint-driven, Bettigole said, with inspectors visiting establishments under scrutiny. If issues are not corrected on site, inspectors can close a business and charge $315 to reinspect and reopen operations. In rare cases, the health department can take a business to court and charge fines of up to $2,000 per day.

If issues arise for a particular business enforcing the new rules, the city is happy to give them guidance, Mayor Jim Kenney said.

In many cases, you may be able to show a photo of your vaccine card on your phone instead of the actual card. Be sure to take pictures of both sides of your vaccine card and keep those pictures stored on your phone.

If youre traveling and need to show your vaccine card to cross a border, however, you should have the original document with you.

According to the city, valid proof of vaccination includes a CDC card, a vaccine record from the health department, vaccine passport apps, or cards from other countries.

In general, having your card on your person for instance, in your wallet or handbag isnt a bad idea, unless you are prone to losing things.

If you cant find your vaccine card and were vaccinated in Philadelphia, you can contact the citys COVID Call Center at 215-685-5488 or covid@phila.gov to get a record of your COVID vaccination status. The staff at the center will determine the fastest way to get you your immunization record. This record is not a copy of the card you received when you were vaccinated, but it will still show proof of vaccination.

READ MORE: How do I get a replacement vaccine card in Pennsylvania?

To be fully vaccinated, you have to have received your final vaccine dose at least two weeks ago.

For those who arent yet vaccinated, its easy to get a shot. There are many places throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey pharmacies, neighborhood rec centers, and more where you can get your free COVID-19 shot. Visit phila.gov to find a vaccination place near you.

If you have already had the coronavirus, you still need proof of vaccination to enter businesses requiring it.

To eat indoors at a space that requires proof of vaccination, you must show your vaccination card. In most cases, outdoor dining, unless explicitly noted by the restaurant, is still open to unvaccinated individuals.

In spaces that dont require proof of vaccination, indoor dining will still remain an option. The difference is masks will be required for patrons and staff (whether unvaccinated or vaccinated) when you arent eating or drinking.

READ MORE: These are the Philadelphia restaurants that require proof of vaccination

Yes and no. If you are in a standing crowd of more than 1,000 people, like a concert with a mosh pit, you must wear a mask regardless of vaccination status, Bettigole said. Additionally, at the Mann Center in Fairmount Park, masks are required at all times, unless youre eating or drinking.

If you are sitting down at a large outdoor event, like a Phillies or Eagles game, you do not currently need to wear a mask, she said, but will need a mask handy for visiting indoor spaces in the stadiums.

READ MORE: Eagles update COVID protocols at the Linc, will require fans and staff to wear masks in indoor spaces

And if you are attending a smaller outdoor gathering with fewer than 1,000 people say, a wedding or party you are not required by the city to wear a mask. However, if you feel more comfortable in your mask at a smaller outdoor gathering, there is nothing wrong with wearing one.

No. A defining feature of last years virus restrictions, the city is shying away from putting capacity limits on businesses for now, Bettigole said, hoping that the mask-or-vaccination rules will be effective without taking a toll on the economy.

We have a weapon now we didnt have last year: We have very effective vaccines and they are readily available and they are free, she said. Were going to have to watch the numbers and see if this works, but we are trying not to hurt our city economically at a time that its just starting to recover.

Unvaccinated people including children under 12 who are too young to receive the shot are not allowed inside businesses requiring proof of vaccination to enter, Bettigole said. In an Aug. 13 press conference, Bettigole clarified that children dining outdoors at restaurants that require proof of vaccination can still enter to use the bathroom.

Quick, masked bathroom trips dont violate the citys regulations, she said.

Also on Aug. 13, Bettigole noted that grocery stores, doctors offices, pharmacies, and urgent care centers must require masks and do not have the option to accept proof of vaccination instead. This allows children under 12 to still enter these spaces.

Philadelphia schools are expected to welcome students back for full-time in-person learning starting Aug. 31, and will require all students and staff to wear masks, regardless of vaccination status. Families not yet comfortable with the return to classrooms can enroll in virtual schooling.

READ MORE: Philly tweaks mask mandate to help parents of young children

Yes. Much like a dress code or a friendly no shirt, no shoes, no service reminder, businesses can require proof of vaccination and masks.

According to Eric Feldman, professor of law and medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, requiring proof of vaccination does not violate HIPAA or the Fourth Amendment.

Its quite clear that restaurants, airlines, cruise ships, your local caf, your local university, [or] the school that you may choose to send your child to are all within their legal bounds in asking you to demonstrate that you or your child has been vaccinated, he says.

Staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.

READ MORE: Live your best life in Philly: Read our most useful stories here

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Everything you need to know about Phillys new COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Five career employees of the government of Puerto Rico sued Gov. Pedro Pierluisi at the federal court in San Juan for violating their constitutional rights by demanding they get vaccinated against COVID-19.

"The government of Puerto Rico is being arbitrary and capricious by coercing and tricking its public employees into getting vaccinated without regard to their fundamental right to personally refuse the vaccine," reads the lawsuit, presented by Jos Dvila Acevedo, the lawyer for the plaintiffs.

Zulay Rodrguez Vlez, Yohama Gonzlez, Leila Liborio Carrasquillo, and Julissa Piero denounce violations against the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Moreover, they request a declaratory sentence order and a preliminary injunction. They argue that legal action is not capricious, nor arbitrary.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs contest that the COVID-19 statistics suggest that the local government is "exaggerating the severity of the pandemic." Furthermore, they state that in Puerto Rico, the pandemic has not hindered health operations and that there are fewer cases than in other U.S. jurisdictions.

The government has not responded to THE WEEKLY JOURNAL's request for comment.

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Puerto Rico Gov Sued in Federal Court Over Vaccine Mandates - The Weekly Journal

Brian ChilsonLITTLE ROCK POLICE HEADQUARTERS

Vanessa Cole remembers her older brother Roy Lee Richards Jr. as the storyteller of their tight-knit Central Arkansas family. When they got together for family dinners on the weekends, Roy entertained Nae his nickname for Cole her children, and his sons with old family yarns. When their mother passed away in 2002, Richards started calling Cole every day, telling her stories from their childhood that Cole hadnt heard before, mimicking family members voices, making her feel like she was right there with them.

That was one of the gifts God had given him, Cole said.

Nearly five years ago, Richards, who was Black, was shot and killed by Little Rock police officer Dennis Hutchins, who is white, on the steps of Richards uncles home. Hutchins and another officer were responding to a series of 911 calls about a fight between an intoxicated Richards and his uncle, Derrell Underwood, in the early morning hours of October 25, 2016. Without either officer announcing their presence, Hutchins fired five shots at Richards with his secondary patrol weapon, an AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle, striking him twice. Richards appeared to be holding a long gun at the time; it turned out to be a BB gun.

I dont know any officer that comes to your house that their sirens is not on, or their lights is not flashing, Underwood said in a recent interview. They basically snuck up on us.

Many lawsuits alleging excessive force against law enforcement officers are either settled or thrown out of court. Its notoriously difficultto sue a police officer because of a U.S. Supreme Court doctrine called qualified immunity, which can protect government officials from being held personally liable for constitutional violations if a court determines their actions didnt violate clearly established law. Hutchins motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity was rejected, however, first by a U.S. District Court judge in Little Rock and later by a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.Prosecutors declined to pursue charges against Hutchins, and an internal investigation by the Little Rock Police Department cleared him of wrongdoing. He remains on the force today. But he heads to a jury trial this week in a civil case filed by Cole on behalf of Richards estate.

The appellate court ruling concluded that Officer Hutchins use of deadly force against Richards was objectively unreasonable assuming the details of the shooting occurred in the way that Richards family claims. However, the court noted, if the jury determines that certain key facts occurred differently, the legal conclusions may be different. It will now be up to the jury to determine what actually happened that night.

Its the first time an Arkansas officer has faced trial in a fatal police shooting since the nationwide protests last summer over the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Its a significant moment for the Little Rock Police Department, which has beenmired in controversyover allegations of misconduct, excessive violence and poor internal investigations.

For Richards family, its a chance at feeling at least a partial sense of closure after several long, harrowing years. Cole is represented by Chicago attorney Mike Laux, who has sued the LRPD many times in the past several years, including claims on behalf of the families of five people shot by police, and by the Little Rock firm Dodds, Kidd, Ryan, and Rowan. Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter, the lead attorney representing Hutchins, did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this story.

Richards, who was 46 years old when he was killed, left behind two sons, now 17 and 19, and his father, who is in his 70s. The family has not been the same since his death.

I taught him how to ride his bike, Underwood said. He was just like my little brother. He was closer to a little brother than he was a nephew.

Cole said shes seeking compensation for the sake of Richards sons, as well as her father. My dad is just in a whole mess now, she said.

I hope that justice is served, she said. I really hope that it is, that we can finally go forward.

Shortly after 12:30 a.m. on Oct. 25, 2016, five people called 911 to report a disturbance outside of 512 East 8th Street in Little Rock, the home of Richards uncle Derrell Underwood. One of them was Underwood himself.

I got a person in my yard. Hes drunk, and hes my nephew, and Im trying to tell him to leave my house, Underwood says in the recording. But dont hurt him.

Another caller told emergency dispatch that Richards had a long gun. Underwood would later say in a deposition that Richards had come to his home twice that night, first around 11 p.m. and later a little after 12:30 a.m. Both times he was drunk, and both times Underwood asked him to leave.

The first time, Richards left. The second time, he pulled the butt of what appeared to be a long gun out of the trunk of his car.

Hutchins and another officer, Juston Tyer, responded to the emergency calls. Hutchins, a Marine veteran who had been trained to use a high-powered rifle in the military and as part of the LRPDs SWAT team, had been on the force for 15 years.

Underwood and Richards were in a fight by that point, according to witnesses, shoving each other in front of Richards car. Underwood said that as he had Richards pinned to the ground, a neighbor told him the police were there but he never saw the officers himself.

Hutchins and Tyer parked their police cars around the corner and walked towards Underwoods house. The department releasedTyers dashcam video and audio from a recorder worn by one of the officersin September 2017, nearly a year after the shooting.

In the dashcam video, Hutchins appears to raise and cock his gun his secondary patrol weapon, a Bushmaster .223 caliber semiautomatic rifle before turning the corner and disappearing out of the cameras sight. The police remained silent as they approached the scene.

At some point, Underwood released Richards, and Richards walked towards the back of his car, where witnesses said he pulled out what appeared to be a long gun. On the audio recording of the incident, a neighbor can be heard yelling at Derrell Underwood, D, go in the house! D, go in the house!

This is where Hutchins story diverges from those of witnesses. Four seconds after the neighbor began yelling at Underwood to go inside, Hutchins started shooting. An officer shouted Drop your weapon! but only after Hutchins fired the first shot.

Hutchins claims that Richards chased his uncle up the steps while pointing the long gun at his back, and that he shot Richards because he feared Richards was going to shoot Underwood.

He had the rifle pretty much pointed at the guys back and was running after him and the guy was obviously trying to get away, he was scared and trying to get back to the door, I guess to the safety of his house but this guy, I mean, he was on him, Hutchins told an LRPD detective.

But in a deposition with attorneys for Cole, Richards sister, Hutchins said that he did not see Underwood and Richards together in his line of vision after Richards pulled the gun from his car.

Once I seen Mr. Underwood turn and run, and I seen Mr. Richards after him with the gun, with it pointed at him, I focused every bit of my attention on [Richards], he said. He told Laux in the deposition that he did not know whether Underwood was in the house or on the porch when he shot Richards. Hutchins field of vision was narrowed because he was looking through the sight of his rifle.

Others who witnessed the shooting say Underwood was inside his home when Richards was shot and killed. Underwood says the same thing.

Underwood, whose mobility was limited by health problems, said he wasnt moving away from Richards in fear.

My legs were messed up. And I knew my nephew, I knew he wasnt going to do nothing. There was no need to hurry, he said in a recent interview.

And as I pulled myself up on the porch, I walked across my porch, and I went in my house, shut my door, and locked my door from the inside, Underwood said. A friend of Underwoods, Kelvin Jenkins, was living with him at the time. I said KJ get up, Roys outside acting crazy. So KJ got up, and KJ faced me in the hallway, [and] we heard two shots. A week after the shooting, alocal chapter of Black Lives Matter releaseda video,below, in which Underwood said the same thing.

Jenkins told LRPD investigators that he and Underwood were in the house when Richards was shot. Those accounts are corroborated by Charles James, an artist who lived across the street from Underwood and observed the incident from his second-floor window.

By the time [Richards] got to the top of the porch, Derrell beelined into the house and slammed the door, James said in a deposition. At which point, Roy backed down the steps a couple of steps and then turned west towards his car and thats when the shots were fired. James also said Richards was pointing the BB gun towards the sky, not towards his uncle.

Hutchins fired five times, striking Richards on the steps of the home. One bullet hit Richards in the foot; another, the shot that killed him, behind his right ear. The LRPDs Crime Scene Search Unit found bullet holes in the trim and porch of the house next door that were possibly from Hutchins gun.

Hutchins and Tyer approached Richards body after the shooting; Hutchins can be heard on the audio recording warning Tyer that Richards finger was on the trigger of his gun. Tyer began chest compressions, and Hutchins called for backup. Richards was pronounced dead at the scene.

Underwood said in his deposition that an officer knocked on his door and took him to the steps of the house next door, where he sat for about 20 minutes. Later, they put him in the back of a squad car for close to an hour, he estimated. Eventually, an officer took him to the police station, where he gave his statement at about 4:30 a.m. It was only at that point, Underwood said, that he was told his nephew had been killed by an officer.

I dont know where my mind was at. I wasnt thinking about all the shooting that had been going on with police departments across the country. I didnt think about that, he said recently.

Underwood referencedthe June 23 shooting of Hunter Brittain,a 17-year-old white teenager who was killed by a Lonoke County sheriff deputy during a traffic stop, sparking community outcry. These people are supposed to serve and protect us, and they dont, he said. Its not just me. And its not even a Black and white thing no more.

According to the Washington Postsdatabase of fatal police shootings, 95 people have been fatally shot by Arkansas law enforcement since Jan. 1, 2015, 11 of them this year. Richards death was one of 15 fatal police shootings in 2016.

Few such cases result in an officer being successfully sued. Wrongful death suits against cops are often thrown out on the basis of qualified immunity, a legal doctrine intended to protect government officials including police officers from individual liability.

The current standard, which the court talks about very clearly in the Cole v. Hutchins case, is essentially whether or not theres clearly established law, said Teressa Ravenell, an associate dean and professor at Villanova University School of Law who is an expert in qualified immunity. The rationale is that its unfair to hold a government official liable if, at the time of their conduct, they wouldnt have known that what they were doing was illegal.

The clearly established law standard means an officer who has used excessive force may still be immune from liability, simply because a court could find no previous cases involving similar conduct. With Hutchins, though, the court said there was precedent that allowed the case to proceed to trial.

The court did identify a case that seemed to have relatively similar facts but a very clear holding that after a danger had passed, that it was no longer a reasonable use of force, Ravenell said.

In general, the law allows an officer to use deadly force only to protect the officer or another person from the imminent threat of being killed or seriously injured. Hutchins said in the aftermath of the shooting that he shot Richards because he was afraid for Underwoods life. Importantly, he did not claim that the shooting was justified because he was afraid for his and Tyers lives.

A district court judge denied Hutchins motion for summary judgment in 2019, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision in 2020. In the appellate courts ruling, Judge Raymond Gruender wrote that if Coles version of events the night of October 25, 2016, is correct, Hutchins use of deadly force was objectively unreasonable in the circumstances of the case for two reasons.

First, it was clearly established that a person does not pose an immediate threat of serious physical harm to another when, although the person is in possession of a gun, he does not point it at another or wield it in an otherwise menacing fashion. Second, it was clearly established that a few seconds is enough time to determine an immediate threat has passed, extinguishing a preexisting justification for the use of deadly force, the ruling says.

But Gruender emphasized the limitations of the ruling. We do not decide that Officer Hutchins in fact violated Richardss rights, he wrote. If the factfinder [the jury] later determines that key facts are not as we must assume them to be the legal conclusions that may be drawn at that time may be different than the ones we draw here.

Among the facts in question: Was the barrel of Richards gun pointing at the sky or at the ground when Hutchins fired, or was it pointed forward? Was Richards facing the front door, or going back down the steps? How much time elapsed between Underwood going inside and Hutchins opening fire? And was it feasible for Hutchins to give Richards a warning before he killed him?

Because Hutchins and Tyer parked their cars around the corner from Underwoods house, there is no video recording of the scene. (The officers were not wearing body cameras.) The LRPD also lost dashcam video from the six police cars that arrived after the shooting, despite a request from Coles lawyers in the following weeks that they preserve it. Coles lawyer has asked the court to sanction Hutchins because this evidence was destroyed.

Its largely going to come down to the Fourth Amendment question as to whether it was unreasonable, and whether or not its going unreasonable depends a lot on what you believe happened that night, Ravenell said. This case really turns on whose story you believe.

Laux, Coles attorney, said Arkansass open carry gun laws could be a focal point of the defense.

They could have said, Hey, hey. Knock it off, what are you guys doing? Let me see your hands, [or] Drop the gun. Drop it or Ill shoot, I will kill you, Laux said. But you got to give the person, especially in an open carry state like Arkansas, you got to give a person a chance to not get freaking killed.

I think thats a really important holding, Ravenell said. If people have the right to bear arms, we need to think about the relationship between the Second Amendment and the Fourth Amendment, which gives officers the right to use force during the course of a seizure.

Its not clear what made Richards retrieve the BB gun from his car that night, but he was used to handling one. Richards and Cole grew up in England, Arkansas, the seat of rural Lonoke County, and Cole recalls her brother spending his childhood hunting and fishing, sometimes shooting rabbits with a BB gun out of the back seat of his dads Chevy. As an adult, she said, he took the BB gun with him when he went fishing to protect himself against snakes.

Cole was at home when Richards was killed. Underwood had called her after Richards came to his house the first time, and told her that Richards had been drinking. She called her brother then, as he was leaving.

He said, Nae, Im okay, I love you, she recalled. And I said Okay, I love you too.

Coles phone was off the rest of the night, and she didnt get news of her brothers death until the next morning.

My son was getting ready to go off to college. I guess he had the news on his phone, and he came right on back, he turned around, and he said, Mama, they shot Uncle Roy.

Cole said she never received a phone call from the police but the calls from her friends and neighbors kept coming in that morning. Everybodys telling me the police killed your brother, the police killed your brother. But Im on the phone trying to call Brother to see whats going on, because I know its not true, she said. And I found out that it was true.

Cole and her father drove to the Little Rock police station. She says they asked to see Richards body and were told no; their other questions about the circumstances of Richards death were met with assurances that the LRPD was conducting an investigation. Eventually, when it seemed they would get little more information, Cole and her father decided to leave. She says they never heard directly from the LRPD about the investigation into his death again. (The LRPD public affairs office did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)

Hutchins was placed on administrative leave following the shooting and was cleared to return to work on Nov. 7. An internal LRPD investigation eventually cleared Hutchins of wrongdoing, as did city prosecutors. The investigation concluded that his use of deadly force was justified because Richards posed an immediate threat to Underwoods life.

Coles attorneys question how thorough the LRPDs investigation really was. Their report claims Hutchins told LRPD homicide detectives he shot Richards because he had no other viable option to protect himself or the citizen from the use of deadly force. But Hutchins never told detectives that he shot Richards out of fear for his or Tyers life, a fact the lead investigator later admitted in a deposition with Coles lawyers.

In their report, the Crime Scene Search Unit misidentified the side of Richards head that was struck by the bullet a fact which went unnoticed by LRPDs investigation. Hutchins and Tyer gave detectives conflicting statements about the position of Richards gun when Hutchins opened fire: Hutchins claimed Richards was pointing the rifle at Underwoods back, while Tyer said in one statement that he held it vertically along his leg and in another that he held it horizontally by his leg. The lead investigator also admitted in the deposition that there were a number of potential policy violations uncovered during interviews that she did not follow up on.

They rubber stamp everything. Theres no officer accountability, Laux said. They bend the rules, they ignore facts. When theyre aware of policy violations, they dont enforce them. They go out of their way to exonerate the officer.

Coles complaint initially named the city and former police chief Kenton Buckner as defendants, saying the Little Rock Police Department had a history of crime scene tampering and less-than-thorough internal investigations of police shootings. (Buckner, who left the department in November 2018, was chief at the time of Richards death.) The complaints against the LRPD and its former chief Buckner were thrown out by a district judge in 2019.

The trial comes at a tumultuous moment for the Little Rock Police Department.

Just over a year ago, Frank Scott Jr., Little Rocks first elected Black mayor, opened an independent review of the department. During his 2018 campaign, he called for a federal Department of Justice investigation followinga Washington Post report on the departments abuse of no-knock warrants. That put him on the bad side of the police union, which endorsed his runoff opponent.

Scott hired the current chief, Keith Humphrey, in March 2019. Humphrey promised reform, but his tenure thus far has beenrocky. Several of Humphreys subordinates have sued him, saying he retaliated against them for publicly criticizing his leadership; Humphrey in turnfiled a countersuit against many of those same employees and other parties, alleging a conspiracy by the police union to prevent reform within the department. Mike Laux, Coles attorney, also represents Humphrey in his lawsuit against his own subordinates.

Lauxs career has become entangled with the LRPDs internal dramas, but his record of lawsuits against the department is formidable. He represented the family of Bobby Moore,a 15-year-old Black child killed in 2012 by an LRPD officer with a long disciplinary record. A federal juryawardedthe family $415,000 in damages in 2017. Later, he represented the family of Eugene Ellison, a 67-year-old Black Navy veteran and the father of two police officers who was shot and killed by police in his own home in 2010.That case resulted in a $900,000 settlement and an apology from the city in 2016.

For the past five years, Richards sons, his nephews, his sister, and his father have struggled to fill the hole left by Brother, as Cole calls him. Cole has been in therapy for the past three years. Richards sons have moved back and forth from Coles home to their mothers. Family get togethers are not the same without Richards stories to entertain them.

When the working day was done, hed come to my house, wed sit on the porch and have beers, Underwood said. I still literally look for him to pull up to the house. I see somebody walking and I say Hey, that guy looks just like Roy.

The song Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd has taken on a special meaning for him. Every time I hear that song, I think about Roy. When I play that song, I start crying because I think I wish he was here, he said.

The familys trauma has been compounded by the circumstances of Richards death.

It took a big toll on my life, said Cornelius Cole, Vanessas husband. Richards introduced the pair to each other when Cole worked with him at the family tree business. Its hard to get up and go to work or even go to sleep at nighttime because being a Black man youre thinking oh my god, am I going to get assassinated? After a recent injury, Coles fingers were wrapped in a black cast; he went back to the doctor and had them replace the cast with a different color because he was afraid his fingers would be mistaken for a gun.

It seems to be that because we are dark-skinned people, our skin is a weapon, Vanessa Cole said. Because of the color of our skin, were treated as rough, as violent. We are not.

Our life can never be put back, Cole said. Theres a place in my heart for that man, theres a hole in my heart there for him. And itll always be that he had to die out in the street, like an animal. He didnt deserve that.

It didnt have to be, she said. It did not have to be.

This story is courtesy ofthe Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans.

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He had a BB gun. A cop had a semiautomatic rifle. Without warning, the officer fired five times. - Arkansas Times

All of us deserve basic protection against government searches and seizures that the Constitution provides, including requiring law enforcement to get a warrant before it can access our communications. But currently, the FBI has a backdoor into our communications, a loophole, that Congress can and should close.

This week, Congress will vote on the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations bill (H.R. 4505). Among many other things, this bill contains all the funding for the Department of Justice for Fiscal Year 2022 along with certain restrictions on how the DOJ is allowed to spend taxpayer funds. Reps. Lofgren, Massie, Jayapal, and Davidson have offered an amendment to the bill that would prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to conduct warrantless wiretapping of US Persons conducted under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. We strongly support this Amendment.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires tech and telecommunications companies to provide the U.S. government with access to emails and other communications to aid in national security investigations--ostensibly when U.S. persons are in communication with foreign surveillance targets abroad or wholly foreign communications transit the U.S. But in this wide-sweeping dragnet approach to intelligence collection, companies allows government access and collection of a large amount of incidental communications--that is millions of untargeted communications of U.S. persons that are swept up with the intended data. Once it is collected, the FBI currently can bypass the 4th Amendment requirement of a warrant and sift through these incidental non-targeted communications of Americans -- effectively using Section 702 as a backdoor around the constitution. Theyve been told by the FISA Court this violates Americans Fourth Amendment rights but it has not seemed to stop them and, frustratingly, the FISA Court has failed to take steps to ensure that they stop.

This amendment would not only forbid the DOJ from doing this activity, it would also send a powerful signal to the intelligence agency that Congress is serious about reform.

Take action

Tell your member of Congress to support this amendment today.

The DOJ is opposing this amendment, saying that it would inhibit their investigations and make them less successful in rooting out kidnappings and child trafficking. Weve heard this argument before, and its just not convincing.

The FBI has a wide range of investigatory tools. It gives a scary list of potential investigations that it says might be impacted by removing its backdoor, but for every single one of them, the FBI can get a warrant or use other investigatory tools like National Security Letters. What the DOJ elides in protesting this narrow amendment is that the FBI has gotten used to searching through already collected communications of Americans overbroadly collected for foreign intelligence purposes for domestic law enforcement purposes. But it is not the purpose of 702 to save the FBI the trouble of getting a warrant (FISA or otherwise) for domestic investigations as the law and the Constitution requires before it collects needed information from the telecommunications and Internet service providers. The FBI is in no way prohibited from using its long-standing powerful investigatory tools due to this amendment - it just can no longer piggy-back on admittedly over broad foreign intelligence collections.

The government also elides that what it wants is to take advantage of Section 702s massive well-documented over-collection to have a kind of time machine. There is a possibility that information collected by the NSA will be deleted before the FBI can get a warrant, but the FBI has not submitted any public (or as far as we can tell, classified) evidence that this is a major problem in practice or would have resulted in thwarted prosecutions -- as opposed to just requiring a bit more effort by the FBI. But protecting Americans privacy is worth making the FBI follow the Constitution, even if it is a bit more effort.

The US Supreme Court has denied domestic law enforcement a general warrant collecting first a broad swath of Americans communications then sorting through later what it may need.That is what the FBI is defending here, it is what the FISC raised concerns about and it is what this amendment will rightfully stop.

Tell your member of Congress to support this amendment today.

Take action

Tell your member of Congress to support this amendment today.

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Should Congress Close the FBI's Backdoor for Spying on American Communications? Yes. - EFF

Wow. We really are living in George Orwell's "1984." Or, at least, such a possibility is in sight.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is seeking to work with cell phone companies to prevent text messages including "misinformation" about COVID-19 vaccines from being delivered to recipients.

According to an article published by Politico, "Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are ... planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages."

Details on how the fact checkers would detect so-called misinformation is currently scarce.

Let's speculate for a moment.

If the fact checkers are fact checking mass spammers, that is all well and good. Those robots are one hell of a nuisance.

But, are they intent on fact checking private text messages between friends and family?

If that is the case, it is truly terrifying and a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment, which states "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

When Edward Snowden blew the whistle on mass government surveillance almost a decade ago, the classified documents he leaked proved the NSA was vacuuming up data on a worldwide scale, including digital messaging.

But, the documents stated it was only metadata being collected, not the actual phone conversations or text messages themselves. Metadata includes the date and time the message, email or phone call was sent and received, and by whom.

Is this new plan apparently being pursued by DNC an indicator the Feds have now begin snooping into the actual contents of messages? It is a definite possiblity.

But, how could the Feds skirt the Fourth Amendment?

Well, say hello to "Third Party Doctrine." The legal doctrine states that citizens who voluntarily give information to third parties such as banks, phone companies, internet service providers and e-mail servers have "no reasonable expectation of privacy."

A lack of privacy protection laws allow the United States government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherwise complying with the Fourth Amendment.

So, if the Feds declare this issue a threat to national security, they would likely have zero problems reading and blocking messages from private citizens it deemed "misinformation."

That is far too much power in the hands of the government.

It's time for our legislators to close this loophole and restore the right of every citizen to privacy, even in the digital realm.

We have such protections for our physical property, why not in the virtual world?

Read more:
DNC Working to Snoop on Text Messages - The Glasgow Courier - Glasgow Courier

The U.S. Supreme Court building. REUTERS/Jim Young

July 26, 2021 - The U.S. Supreme Court's October 2020 term opened with drama: Mourning Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, adjusting to a new colleague, bracing for the accompanying shift in the court's long-time balance of power, and anticipating a contentious election all in the pandemic-induced arena of telephonic arguments and conferences. But this term's controversy and discord ended up being more subtle than the beginnings foreboded.

The bulk of the court's decisions were characterized by consensus and cautious incrementalism. The court issued more unanimous decisions than last term (26 vs. 18), including in several controversial cases. But it often forged agreement on narrower grounds than expected likely reflecting the court's distaste for being seen as another political actor in a highly polarized and volatile time. In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, for example, the court unanimously held that requiring a Catholic group to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violates the First Amendment but dodged more controversial and sweeping questions about the constitutional framework for religious exemptions.

And in Ford Motor Company v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, the court unanimously held that plaintiffs could sue Ford in the state where their car accident occurred, even though Ford hadn't made or sold the allegedly defective vehicle there, but left open broader questions about the ramifications of internet transactions for assessing personal jurisdiction. Similarly, in Mahanoy Area School District Board v. B.L., a highly anticipated First Amendment decision about a high school cheerleader's profanity-laced Snapchat rant, the court ruled 8-1 for the cheerleader but did not ban schools from punishing all online student speech.

Even in divided cases, the court often achieved agreement through narrow holdings and unexpected coalitions. Four conservative justices joined Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan to uphold the Affordable Care Act in California v. Texas but did so on technical grounds. And in Van Buren v. United States, the three youngest conservative justices teamed up with their more liberal colleagues to narrow the scope of a statute prohibiting unauthorized computer use.

In several cases, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh voted with Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, leaving their other conservative colleagues to dissent on an array of questions, from what counts as a Fourth Amendment seizure to procedural technicalities about judicial review of agency decisions.

Against this backdrop, Justice Amy Coney Barrett's arrival produced less of a tidal wave than many predicted. She voted with the majority 91% of the time and cast the fifth vote in only four 5-4 decisions. Although one term is too early to make confident predictions, Justice Barrett's voting pattern so far suggests that she, like Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, is more likely than the other conservatives to join her more liberal colleagues to forge narrow consensus.

To be sure, the court decided a number of cases that were polarized along ideological lines including upholding two Arizona voting-rights restrictions, invalidating the California Attorney General's policy requiring charities to disclose their major donors, expanding takings law to include a California regulation granting labor organizations access to employers' property, and rejecting further restrictions on sentencing juveniles to life without parole.

But the more surprising controversies this term came through the subtler avenue of separate writings, several of which were uncharacteristically caustic. While the vote was unanimous in Lange v. California, a case limiting the authority of the police to enter a home in hot pursuit of a suspect, Chief Justice Roberts' separate concurrence (joined by Justice Samuel Alito) reads more like a dissent, denouncing the majority decision as "absurd and dangerous."

And in Edwards v. Vannoy, Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan openly sparred in their majority and dissenting opinions. Edwards held that the jury-unanimity rule announced in Ramos v. Louisiana (a case from just last term) does not apply retroactively to habeas petitioners. Justice Kavanaugh accused Justice Kagan of hypocrisy for arguing that a decision she did not join applies retroactively, and Justice Kagan chastised Justice Kavanaugh for judicial "scorekeeping."

This term also saw Chief Justice Roberts' first lone dissent in his 16 years on the court. In Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, the Chief Justice criticized the majority for "turning judges into advice columnists" by holding that a request for nominal damages can satisfy Article III standing.

The term's separate writings also suggest growing fractures among the conservative Justices. While Fulton's holding in favor of a Catholic group was unanimous, Justice Alito drafted a 77-page concurrence (joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch) condemning the court for not going further. And in Caniglia v. Strom, the court issued an unusually concise four-page opinion unanimously holding that the so-called "community caretaking" exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement does not extend to homes. But Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Kavanaugh collectively spilled nearly thrice the ink penning their own separate concurrences to explain the limits of the court's decision.

In addition to muddying guidance for lower courts, all of this creates both challenges and opportunities for advocates before the court. Advocates still need to present strong doctrinal arguments, which can sometimes lead to sweeping positions. At the same time, knowing that some justices are thinking incrementally, advocates also need to be strategic about offering narrower approaches for deciding a case. That may include thinking about how to appeal to some of the justices to vote against stereotype in a way that builds institutional legitimacy but does not undermine their long-term worldview. This past term has shown us that there are often unexpected ways to count to five votes.

We may see this play out in high-profile cases next Term, in cases such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. While the parties' arguments will put Roe v. Wade in the crosshairs, the court could take a more incremental approach and uphold the Mississippi law without rejecting Roe's holding that the Constitution provides some protection to a woman's decision to have an abortion.

Incrementalism and unexpected alignments may play out in business cases, too. City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of Texas is about the validity of Austin's distinction between on-premise and off-premise digital signs, which the plaintiffs claim impermissibly discriminates between signs based on their content. The court will not be writing on a blank slate: The cert grant in this case follows from confusion generated by multiple separate writings in the 2015 case, Reed v. Town of Gilbert.

While Reed was unanimous, three concurrences (representing the views of six Justices) expressed very different understandings of the court's opinion and, in particular, what it means for a distinction to be "content-based." Several justices likely will be concerned about respecting so recent an opinion, so the outcome of Reagan may hinge as much on first principles as on which side offers the least disruptive interpretation of Reed.

Other upcoming cases, like American Hospital Association v. Becerra, invite the justices to make broad or narrow pronouncements about agency deference, which in turn may impact regulatory challenges by businesses.

If Justice Breyer retires, which now seems unlikely before next spring, the voting permutations will shift again and advocates will (again) face the challenge of learning to persuade a new justice. One prediction seems safe, however: Replacing Justice Breyer would probably have the greatest impact on criminal justice cases, where Justice Breyer has been more pro-government than a nominee by President Biden is likely to be. Of course, if Congress decides to expand the court, all bets are off.

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. Westlaw Today is owned by Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News.

Shay Dvoretzky, a partner in Skadden's Washington, D.C. office, is the head of the firm's Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Group. He represents clients in appellate matters in the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals and state appellate courts.

Emily Kennedy is a Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation associate in Skadden's Washington, D.C. office.

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SCOTUS term marked by unexpected alignments and incrementalism - Reuters