DHS is using obscure law to snoop on journalists, non-profits, unions
DHS is using obscure law to snoop on journalists, non-profits, unions
美国国土安全部正利用冷门法律秘密监视记者、非营利组织和工会
The Trump administration has been deploying an obscure legal maneuver to try to obtain private information on journalists, non-profits and unions, raising alarm over a power the government has asserted without judicial oversight. 特朗普政府一直在部署一种冷门的法律手段，试图获取记者、非营利组织和工会的私人信息，这引发了人们对政府在没有司法监督的情况下行使权力的担忧。
In one instance, the government obtained six months of telephone records for Georgia Fort, a Minneapolis journalist. Fort was not notified of the request for her information, nor was she given a chance to contest the government’s effort to obtain them, her lawyers said in court papers. 在一个案例中，政府获取了明尼阿波利斯记者乔治亚·福特（Georgia Fort）六个月的电话记录。福特的律师在法庭文件中表示，福特本人并未收到有关其信息被调取的通知，也没有机会对政府的获取行为提出异议。
In February of this year, federal prosecutors twice sought search warrants for account information for the YouTube channel of Fort and the journalist Don Lemon, both of whom have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in connection to a protest at a Minneapolis church in January that they were covering. A judge twice rejected the request, writing that the government had failed to establish probable cause of a crime and that he wanted Lemon and Fort to be informed of the request so they could have a chance to challenge it. About a month after the judge’s ruling in late February, the government said it was withdrawing the request. 今年2月，联邦检察官两次申请搜查令，要求获取福特和记者唐·莱蒙（Don Lemon）的YouTube频道账户信息。两人此前因报道1月份明尼阿波利斯一家教堂的抗议活动而面临刑事指控，并均已表示不认罪。法官两次驳回了该请求，并指出政府未能证明存在犯罪的合理根据，且他希望莱蒙和福特能获悉该请求，以便他们有机会提出质疑。在2月下旬法官做出裁决约一个月后，政府表示撤回该请求。
But officials hadn’t given up on getting the data. Less than a month later, the DHS served Google with a different request for the YouTube information. This time, DHS utilized a different method that didn’t require approval from a judge, only a sign-off from a DHS official. It served Google an administrative summons citing an arcane provision of federal law – 19 USC 1509 – dealing with customs imports. The provision gives the DHS broad power to inspect records in order to determine whether duties and taxes are being correctly levied on imported items. It also instructed the recipients of the summons to keep it secret. 但官员们并没有放弃获取这些数据。不到一个月后，国土安全部（DHS）向谷歌提交了另一份获取YouTube信息的请求。这一次，国土安全部采用了另一种不需要法官批准、仅需国土安全部官员签字的方法。他们向谷歌发出了一份行政传票，援引了联邦法律中关于海关进口的一项冷门条款——《美国法典》第19卷第1509条。该条款赋予国土安全部广泛的权力来检查记录，以确定进口商品是否被正确征收关税和税款。传票还要求接收方对此保密。
The DHS summons was issued under a statute that does give the agency broad power to demand records, but only in the limited circumstance of there being a need to investigate a customs issue, said Chris Duncan, a former lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security. “These laws have absolutely nothing to do with a domestic situation at a church, a social media post, even an immigration matter,” he said. 前国土安全部律师克里斯·邓肯（Chris Duncan）表示，国土安全部发出的这份传票所依据的法规确实赋予了该机构广泛的调取记录权力，但仅限于调查海关问题的有限情况下。“这些法律与教堂发生的国内事件、社交媒体帖子，甚至是移民问题完全无关，”他说。
“It’s outrageous conduct on so many levels. It’s hard to know where to begin,” said John Roth, who served as the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security from 2014 to 2017. “This is an improper use of the subpoena under any circumstances. This is not a customs case; it is not a customs violation. They are not investigating a customs violation.” “这种行为在多个层面上都令人愤慨。简直不知从何说起，”2014年至2017年担任国土安全部监察长的约翰·罗斯（John Roth）表示。“无论在什么情况下，这都是对传票的不当使用。这不是海关案件，也不是海关违规行为。他们根本不是在调查海关违规。”
The episode in Minnesota was particularly alarming because it appeared to be an end run around a judge who was skeptical of the government’s need for the information. “There is no judge in the loop. You don’t have that independent authority to scrutinize the demand and to say whether or not it’s legitimate,” said Caitlin Vogus, a senior adviser at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. 明尼苏达州的这一事件尤其令人担忧，因为它似乎是在绕过那位对政府获取信息必要性持怀疑态度的法官。“没有法官参与其中。你失去了那种审查需求并判断其是否合法的独立权威，”新闻自由基金会（Freedom of the Press Foundation）高级顾问凯特琳·沃格斯（Caitlin Vogus）说。
The DHS also sought and obtained six months of phone records for Fort from T-Mobile, which included records for more than 10,000 calls and text messages. Fort was not notified the government was seeking the records until mid-July, when government lawyers produced them to her lawyers. Fort’s lawyers wrote in a filing this week they were “stunned” to see the government had unilaterally been able to obtain a log of her communications after a judge had warned them about obtaining records about a journalist. 国土安全部还从T-Mobile获取了福特六个月的电话记录，其中包括超过1万条通话和短信记录。直到7月中旬政府律师将这些记录交给福特的律师时，福特才得知政府一直在调取这些记录。福特的律师在本周的一份文件中写道，他们对政府在法官已警告过不得获取记者记录的情况下，仍能单方面获取其通讯记录感到“震惊”。
“That’s very concerning because the information demanded can help the government uncover a journalist’s confidential sources,” Vogus said. “这非常令人担忧，因为被要求提供的信息可能会帮助政府揭露记者的保密消息来源，”沃格斯说。
In a statement, T-Mobile did not address why it turned over the information. “We take our responsibility to protect customers’ privacy and personal information very seriously. Our team carefully reviews government demands for customer information and responds in accordance with the law. We don’t comment on specific law enforcement demands,” the company said. T-Mobile在一份声明中没有解释为何移交了这些信息。“我们非常认真地对待保护客户隐私和个人信息的责任。我们的团队会仔细审查政府对客户信息的索取要求，并依法做出回应。我们不对具体的执法要求发表评论，”该公司表示。
The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security both declined to comment on the use of the summons. 美国司法部和国土安全部均拒绝就传票的使用发表评论。
In addition to Fort and Lemon, the DHS also sought information on the YouTube accounts for the left-leaning outlet Democracy Now, conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and an independent journalist named Brendan Gutenschwager. Some of the videos they cited in the summons were livestreams of the protest, but not all of them. The video cited as part of the request for information on Democracy Now involved a news report on the protest and an interview with Nekima Levy Armstrong, who led the protest. The video cited on the request for Kelly’s show included an interview with Jonathan Parnell, the pastor at the church. 除了福特和莱蒙，国土安全部还寻求获取左翼媒体《民主现在》（Democracy Now）、保守派播客主持人梅根·凯利（Megyn Kelly）、《密尔沃基哨兵日报》（Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel）以及独立记者布伦丹·古滕施瓦格（Brendan Gutenschwager）的YouTube账户信息。传票中引用的部分视频是抗议活动的直播，但并非全部。在针对《民主现在》的请求中引用的视频涉及对抗议活动的新闻报道以及对领导抗议活动的内基玛·利维·阿姆斯特朗（Nekima Levy Armstrong）的采访。在针对凯利节目的请求中引用的视频则包括对该教堂牧师乔纳森·帕内尔（Jonathan Parnell）的采访。
It’s unclear why exactly the DHS wanted the YouTube account information, which includes things like a user’s IP address, and information about when a user was logging in. 目前尚不清楚国土安全部究竟为何需要这些YouTube账户信息，其中包括用户的IP地址以及用户登录时间等信息。
“It’s still concerning that the government sought subscriber information for Lemon and Fort because there’s no reason it would need this information for the criminal charges that it’s brought against them,” Vogus said. “It’s not a crime to post a YouTube video, and it’s not at all clear why the government is demanding this information about Lemon and Fort’s YouTube accounts.” “政府寻求莱蒙和福特的订阅者信息仍然令人担忧，因为对于他们所面临的刑事指控而言，政府根本没有理由需要这些信息，”沃格斯说。“发布YouTube视频并不是犯罪，政府为何要索取莱蒙和福特YouTube账户的这些信息，这一点完全不清楚。”
The episode was the most recent example of an alarming pattern in recent months in which the DHS avoided judicial scrutiny and deployed a summons related to customs enforcement to pressure companies into turning over information on Americans. 这一事件是近几个月来令人担忧的模式的最新例证：国土安全部规避司法审查，并利用与海关执法相关的传票向公司施压，要求其移交美国人的信息。