SECRECY & THE SECURITY STATE - page 37

A federal judge in Texas this week refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by the children of a woman who was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend in Mexico after being deported. Judge Andrew Hanen said that the litigation can proceed, ruling that the plaintiff’s claims about due process violations aren’t without merit. “Even aliens who have entered the United States unlawfully are assured the protections of the Fifth Amendment due process clause,” wrote Hanen. Hanen also ruled that the status…

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Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is relaxing his opposition to criminal justice reforms with widespread bipartisan support. Grassley is changing his tune on reducing mandatory minimum sentences, saying that “there will be some reductions,” according to a Thursday report in The Hill. “Asked if those would be general reductions or specifically on nonviolent offenders, he added that ‘I wouldn’t want to limit it to that because we’re in negotiations,’” the daily paper reported. The move brings the key committee chair more in line with prominent…

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House Homeland Security Committee Democrats on Wednesday lamented the panel’s decision to advance counterterrorism legislation in response to last month’s mass shooting in Charleston. The committee’s ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said that the Obama administration has not been sufficiently open about existing efforts to combat domestic extremism, and said he wants to further explore incumbent initiatives before proceeding. “There are overarching questions about the degree to which federal efforts to counter extremist violence are focused on domestic terrorist threats,” he commented at a hearing…

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Unaccompanied minors from Mexico who end up in the hands of US border patrol agents are almost always denied safe haven, likely in violation of federal anti-human trafficking laws, according to a report published Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office. Children under the age of eighteen who have no legal guardian in the United States are identified by the Department of Homeland Security as unaccompanied alien children (UAC), and must be, by statute, evaluated to ensure they aren’t deported if they face danger at home.…

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The top Republican and Democrat on the House Government Oversight Committee came together on Tuesday to point to the recent violence in Baltimore as a reason to rally behind criminal justice reform. Committee chair Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said that the unrest—sparked by the killing of a black man in police custody—highlights rot in the system with widespread consequences. “I watched my community in Baltimore torn apart after the tragic death of one of my neighbors, Freddie Gray,” said Cummings,…

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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson suggested that federal law enforcement authorities may have a blind spot when it comes to thwarting rightwing extremists. Johnson made the statements before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday, when pressed to discuss how his department is attempting to prevent homegrown acts of terrorism like the white supremacist attack that took the lives of nine worshippers last month at a historically black church in Charleston. “At the moment, my priority has been focusing on communities that I believe are most vulnerable…

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Pentagon video editors are on the clock now that a federal judge has ordered that several hours of “disturbing” force-feeding videos from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay are to be redacted and prepared for public release before the end of next month. Read more of this article at The Intercept.

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President Obama’s pick to succeed Gen. Martin Dempsey as the administration’s top military advisor will ratchet up pressure on the White House to delay the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Gen. Joseph Dunford, Obama’s nominee to be next Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, said in his confirmation hearing that, if approved by the Senate, he would advise the president to set a benchmark for an Afghan pull-out “based on the conditions on the ground.” “My experience has been that sometimes the assumptions you make…

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The Pentagon’s office of inspector general warned this week the Department of Defense may “not achieve audit readiness” by the end of September 2017—a violation of a law passed in 2009. The OIG called on military leaders to remedy “deficiencies in accounting entries, compliance with laws and regulations, and audit trails,” and said that Pentagon brass themselves have acknowledged not adhering to widely-accepted accounting standards. “The basic financial statements may also have undetected misstatements that were both material and pervasive,” the IG also said. “Unless…

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Knowing he had the attention of the national security state, one Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday urged government officials to reconsider their unique focus on Islamist extremism. “If you look at who the bad people are in this country right now, they’re not Muslims, they’re not people who identify with Islamic faith,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said during a subcommittee hearing featuring witnesses from the Department of Homeland Security. “They’re these rightwing fanatics who go to churches, who go to other institutions and do harm to…

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