About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 Rachel Levinson-Waldman & Jose Guillermo Gutierrez, DHS at 20: An Agenda for Reform: Overdue Scrutiny for Watch Listing and Risk Prediction: Reining in Civil Liberties Abuses and Assessing Efficacy 1 (2023)

handle is hein.brennan/dhsanada0001 and id is 1 raw text is: DHS AT 20: AN AGENDA FOR REFORM Overdue Scrutiny for Watch Listing and Risk Prediction Reining In Civil Liberties Abuses and Assessing Efficacy By Rachel Levinson-Waldman and Jose Guillermo Gutierrez PUBUSHED OCTOBER 19, 2023 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) touches the lives of all Americans - U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents - who board a plane, cross the border into Canada or Mexico, or seek a visa for a loved one to visit the United States.1 DHS is likely the largest single U.S. government consumer - and creator - of detailed, often intimate information about individuals' lives. It stores the data it amasses in vast, interlocking databases to be recycled for purposes far beyond those for which it is initially collected.2 The systems that house and analyze this data largely deter- mine who is allowed to travel into and out of the country and how they are treated when they arrive. This report addresses two categories of screening, vetting, and risk assessment efforts.3 The first comprises programs that check travelers against watch lists and other databases of individualized, assertedly derogatory information.4 The second consists of programs that iden- tify travel patterns and other behaviors ostensibly related to terrorist or criminal activity and flag for scrutiny indi- viduals whose activity matches those patterns. Fundamental defects plague each of these types of programs. Vague standards draw in people with no connection to terrorism - overwhelmingly Muslims, people of color, and persons of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent. Records are riddled with factual errors. The programs operate without adequate privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties protections and have been used to target political activities protected by the First Amendment. Compounding these problems, the govern- ment's attempts to assess their efficacy have been super- ficial at best. As it enters its third decade, DHS, along with other agencies and Congress, must evaluate how these programs function, determine whether they contribute measurably to national security, reckon with their effects on marginalized communities, tailor them to meet objective standards, and demonstrate empirical proof Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law 1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most