LIVE JUDGING ACTION!

Tonight three federal judges will hear an appeal of Judge Robart's ruling.

Watch live at 1800hrs EST.

A BIT LESS OLD NEWS

WaPo:

SEATTLE — The Seattle judge derided by President Donald Trump on Twitter Saturday after blocking Trump’s executive order on immigration is known for his conservative legal views, for a record of helping disadvantaged children that includes fostering six of them, and for dramatically declaring “black lives matter” during a hearing on police reform in 2015.

Judge James L. Robart, 69, was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush in 2004, following a distinguished 30-year career in private practice that included his selection to the American College of Trial Lawyers, an honor bestowed on less than 1 percent of lawyers.

The judge made the most high-profile ruling of his tenure Friday when he temporarily invalidated Trump’s ban on travel to the U.S. from seven primarily Muslim nations. Washington state sued to block the order — with support from Minnesota and major corporations including Microsoft, Amazon and Expedia — arguing that it’s unconstitutional and would harm its residents, and Robart held that the state was likely correct.

The ruling did not sit well with the president, who on Twitter called Robart a “so-called judge” and the ruling “ridiculous.” The president later falsely claimed the decision meant “anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.”

OLD NEWS

Old news: Feb 1: Judge Halts Immigration Order:

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered the U.S. government to allow people holding immigrant visas from seven majority-Muslim nations into the United States despite President Trump’s executive order banning them.

In a temporary restraining order issued late Tuesday, Judge Andre Birotte Jr. ordered the government not to cancel any validly obtained immigrant visas or bar anyone from the seven nations holding them from entering the U.S.

But it was unclear whether the order will have any effect. The State Department ordered all visas from the seven countries revoked on Friday, and the government has maintained that orders similar to Birotte’s do not apply because the visas are no longer valid.

VETTING IS ALREADY "EXTREME"

Refugees are already investigated quite thoroughly before entry into the US. From a piece by Natasha Hall, a former State Dept employee:

During nearly four years as an immigration officer, I conducted in-person interviews with hundreds of refugees of 20 different nationalities in 10 countries. I saw countless refugees break down crying in my interview room because of the length and severity of the vetting process. From that experience and numerous security briefings, it’s clear that the authors of Trump’s order are unfamiliar with the U.S. immigration system, U.S. laws, international law and the security threats facing our nation. I can’t speak for all refugee and asylum officers, but I can say that those who have been working in immigration for years from opposite ends of the political spectrum are appalled by these new policies.

....The process for any citizen of a Middle Eastern or majority-Muslim country to get into the United States is tortuous and has become more so over the past 15 years, with additional screenings, interviews and other background checks. When I started, DHS officers interviewed four Syrian or Iraqi refugee cases per day; they now interview only two per day to accommodate the range of questions and safeguards that have been added to the process. While the average wait time for refugee resettlement is 18 to 24 months, Iraqis and Syrians typically wait several years.

....When I started, DHS officers interviewed four Syrian or Iraqi refugee cases per day; they now interview only two per day to accommodate the range of questions and safeguards that have been added to the process. While the average wait time for refugee resettlement is 18 to 24 months, Iraqis and Syrians typically wait several years.

The process starts with the United Nations’ refugee agency, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It conducts interviews and screenings, including home country reference checks and biological screenings such as iris scans. Then the UNHCR decides if an applicant is suitable for resettlement and which country he or she can apply to. (Out of more than 65 million refugees worldwide, about 0.1 percent were resettled to the United States last year.) Another international organization assists with resettlement processing by collecting documents and conducting more interviews with the families, looking carefully for discrepancies.

By the time Homeland Security steps in to conduct an interview, the officer has a stack of biographical information on the refugee. Ironically, Iraqis, Syrians and Iranians, who are all now barred from entering the United States, are far and away the most well-documented refugees we interview. I typically had to review a raft of high school degrees, baptismal certificates, marriage and birth certificates, honors and awards, photos with U.S. service personnel, recommendations from American military members, and conscription booklets or cards, which every man in those countries has to carry. Since the United States has been in Iraq for more than 10 years, the government has a plethora of information on Iraqis — in many cases, terrorists, criminals and persecutors are recognizable and denied. In one instance, because we had this information, I knew that a man had worked with Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency for years and potentially tortured people, and, because of checks already in place, his application was rejected.

The Homeland Security officer then conducts a detailed interview. Every word is recorded so it can be matched up with other documentation and past interviews. Some refugees are so fearful of forgetting some detail of their lives that they bring notes to the interviews to remember everything exactly. Applicants have been reprimanded or denied for having those notes because of concerns that they are fixing their scripts. Every detail of their cases is pored over and exhaustively analyzed. In one instance, while reviewing a case, I came across a report of a refugee who had handed someone a piece of fruit at a checkpoint. The incident was thoroughly investigated to determine whether the person had provided material support to a potential terrorist organization.

Next, our government performs its own intensive screening. The refugees’ information and fingerprints (also taken by Homeland Security officers) are run through the databases of nine law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies and matched against criminal databases and biographical information such as past visa applications. Behind the scenes, officers and supervisors of varying political stripes debate and discuss each case endlessly. At U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services headquarters, officers conduct more research, reconciling multiple interview notes, country conditions and background checks. They are trained to spot “red flags” or issues that might make someone inadmissible. If a national security threat emerges, certain nationalities are placed under tighter scrutiny.

The Executive Order, writes Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch,

...states that after 90 days, any foreign nationals will be barred from entry if their home country does not provide "the information needed ... to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit" under U.S. immigration law. That would presumably include refugee status.

A refugee is defined in U.S. and international law as a person with a well-founded fear of being persecuted who does not have the protection of their own government. Often, it is their governments, such as that of Bashar Assad in Syria, that are their persecutors. To expect that a government would provide information about the people it is persecuting and other relevant information to enable the United States to adjudicate the persecution claim is ludicrous.

THE TAUTOLOGY OF "ISLAMIC TERRORISM"

By always qualifying "terrorism" as "Islamic," you end of conflating the two. Why was such-and-such a violent event terror? Because it was either carried out by a person identifying as a Muslim or carried out ostensibly in the name of Islam. If neither of these criteria obtain, then it wasn't terrorism.

Case in point last week's massacre at a Mosque in Quebec...perpetrated by a Canadian white non-Muslim. It's unclear exactly how much he subscribed to right-wing views, but signs point to yes. The only mention out of the White House regarding the incident is buried in a press conference transcript in a question asked by a reporter.

IRRATIONAL FEAR

Humans can be very stupid. One of the ways in which we are sometimes not so smart is how our fears relate to the risks posed to us. If our fears were proportional to the risks, we would be much more afraid of driving than flying, terrified of sloth and gluttony, and not really very concerned with the risk of being killed by an act of terror.

The Cato Institute published an analysis of the threat posed by refugees and found that there is little reason to believe that restricting refugee access to the US results in more safety.

From 1975 to the end of 2015, 20 refugees have been convicted of attempting or committing terrorism on U.S. soil, and only three Americans have been killed in attacks committed by refugees—all in the 1970s. Zero Americans have been killed by Syrian refugees in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The annual chance of an American dying in a terrorist attack committed by a refugee is one in 3.6 billion.

The report details how the numbers of refugees arrested for terrorism bandied about by conservatives have been artificially inflated in a pretty egregious way:

One list released by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) details 580 terror-related convictions since 9/11. This incomplete list probably influenced which countries are temporarily banned, and likely provided justification for another section of Trump’s executive order, which directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to release all information on foreign-born terrorists going forward, and requires additional DHS reports to study foreign-born terrorism.

....

First, 241 of the convictions (42 percent) were not for terrorism offenses. Senator Sessions puffed his numbers by including “terrorism-related convictions,” a nebulous category that includes investigations that begin due to a terrorism tip but then end in non-terrorism convictions. My favorite examples of this are the convictions of Nasser Abuali, Hussein Abuali, and Rabi Ahmed. An informant told the FBI that the trio tried to purchase a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, but the FBI found no evidence supporting the accusation. The three individuals were instead convicted of receiving two truckloads of stolen cereal. That is a crime but it is not terrorism.

Second, only 40 of the 580 convictions (6.9 percent) were for foreigners planning a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Seeking to join a foreign terrorist group overseas, material support for a foreign terrorist, and seeking to commit an act of terror on foreign soil account for 180 of the 580 convictions (31 percent). Terrorism on foreign soil is a crime, should be a crime, and those convicted of these offenses should be punished severely but the government cannot claim that these convictions made America safe again because these folks were not targeting U.S. soil.

Third, 92 of the 580 convictions (16 percent) were for U.S. born citizens. No change in immigration law, visa limitations, or more rigorous security checks would have stopped them.

FIGMENTS FOR FACTS

Human rag doll and world underbite champion Kellyanne Conway used a fictitious "massacre" to paint Iraqi immigrants as terrorists and to justify the "Muslim Ban."




Additionally, she repeats the lie that Obama had instituted a 6-month ban on Iraqi refugees. From WaPo:

Obama administration officials told The Post that there was never a point when Iraqi resettlement was stopped or banned. In the aftermath of the arrests of the two Iraqis living in Kentucky, the Obama administration imposed more extensive background checks on Iraqi refugees, and the new screening procedures created a dramatic slowdown in visa approvals.

State Department records show there was a significant drop in refugee arrivals from Iraq in 2011, The Post’s Glenn Kessler reported. There were 18,251 in 2010, 6,339 in 2011 and 16,369 in 2012. One news report said the “pace of visa approvals” had “slowed to a crawl,” indicating some were still being approved.

This Guardian piece adds that Sen. Rand Paul remarked that the Bowling Green incident was an attempted bombing. Of course, both Paul and Conway are incredibly wrong. According to the Justice Dept., the two men arrested in Bowling Green were guilty of providing material assistance and attacking US troops in Iraq. From the DoJ press release:

Two Iraqi citizens living in Bowling Green, Ky., who admitted using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and who attempted to send weapons and money to Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) for the purpose of killing U.S. soldiers, were sentenced today to serve federal prison terms by Senior Judge Thomas B. Russell in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

PROTECTING YOUR COMMUNICATIONS IN THE AGE OF TRUMP

Cryptography is not the easiest technology to integrate into your life, especially if you don't care about the details. Making secure communication transparent to the user is hard. Fortunately, there are a number of tools out there that are relatively user friendly.

Signal
Signal is a secure messaging app. It is available for Android, iOS, and desktop. Usually your texts are sent and stored on your provider's servers indefinitely. Anybody can read these, either when they are in transit or snatched from the server. In contradistinction, Signal ensures that messages are encrypted from the moment they leave your device to the moment when they are received by the recipient. What's more, messages do not seem to be stored on a Signal server or in the cloud.

You can also make encrypted voice calls.

WhatsApp
Perhaps a bit more user friendly. Developed in concert with the developers of Signal, WhatsApp also provides end-to-end encryption. You can also make encrypted phone calls.

PGP
PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, has been around for a while and is a bit more complicated. That complication also makes it more versatile. There are many different pieces of software that provide PGP encryption. PGP is meant for email.

Mailvelope
Mailvelope is a PGP plugin for your browser. It works right out of the box with Gmail, GTX, Outlook.com, and Yahoo! mail. It can be tinkered with to work with other webmail providers.

Thunderbird and Enigmail 
Thunderbird is an email client. You can download it and then integrate it with Enigmail, a plugin that adds encryption into the Thunderbird interface.

Tor
Tor is a browser that uses a special method of obscuring the source of data that you send and receive. It essentially makes you anonymous by passing your data off to a bunch of different computers before it gets to the server you are requesting information from.

VPNs
Virtual Private Networks are encrypted connections between your computer and another computer somewhere in the world that makes all the data requests for you. A VPN is like a neighbor with a very short attention span that will go run errands for you. If you send him to the bookstore to get a copy of Steal This Book and the police later take notice, they will go see the neighbor...but by that time he has forgotten everything.

If you use both Tor and a VPN at the same time, you are anonymous and encrypted.

Disc Encryption
You can also encrypt your entire hardrive. OSX provides the option for native encryption and I think NTFS for Windows does as well. You can also choose from a ton of third party software.