By Justin Elliott, ProPublica

In the months following the October 2001, passage of the Patriot Act, there was a heated public debate about the very provision of the law that we now know the government is using to vacuum up phone records of American citizens on a massive scale.

"A chilling intrusion" declared one op-ed in the Baltimore Sun.

But the consternation didn't focus on anything like the mass collection of phone records.

Instead, the debate centered on something else: library records.

Salon ran a picture of a virtual Uncle Sam gazing at a startled library patron under the headline, "He knows what you've been checking out." In one of many similar stories, the San Francisco Chronicle warned, "FBI checking out Americans' reading habits."

The concern stemmed from the Patriot Act's Section 215, which, in the case of a terrorism investigation, allows the FBI to ask a secret court to order production of "any tangible things" from a third party like a person or business. The law said this could include records, papers, documents, or books.

Civil liberties groups and librarians' associations, which have long been fiercely protective of reader privacy, quickly raised fears of the FBI using that authority to snoop on circulation records.

The section even became known as the "library provision."

Yet as the Guardian and others revealed this month, the government has invoked the same provision to collect metadata on phone traffic of the majority of all Americans — a far larger intrusion than anything civil libertarians warned about in their initial response.

"A person might uncharitably think of us as lacking in imagination," says Lee Tien, a longtime attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

Continue reading »

As the Senate begins its debate on the immigration reform bill, Democracy Now! speaks to Shena Gutierrez, whose husband was nearly killed in an encounter with Border Patrol agents. While still unconscious in the hospital, he was threatened with deportation. She explains what happened. Also joining the discussion, is Andrea Guerrero, co-chair of Southern Border Communities Coalition and executive director of Alliance San Diego.

Shena Gutierrez tells what happened to her husband when he encountered U.S. Border Patrol agents:

"Two years ago, March 30th—he was deported to Mexico March 21st. And, you know, he was desperate. You know, we have two young children. At the time, our son was two and a half; our daughter was only four months old. And our daughter was in the hospital. And he was deported, and he was just trying to figure out how to get back to us. March 30th, he attempted to cross back, and I lost contact with him that day. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday go by. By Saturday, I’m completely going insane, not knowing what happened, where he’s at, if he’s alive, if he’s OK. I mean, it just wasn’t like him to not call me and let me know what was going on.

Continue reading »

by Peter Sleeth, Special to ProPublica

The top Republican and Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs are demanding more information from defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about lost Army field records from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the subject of a ProPublica investigation last year.

In an unusually detailed letter sent Friday to Hagel, Reps. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., and Michael Michaud, D-Maine, said the Defense Department's response to an earlier request about why records are missing — and what the military is doing about it — didn't go far enough.

"Congress must have a clear understanding of the extent  of the lost records in order to safeguard the best interests of our service members and veterans,'' the letter says.

The 12 questions posed to Hagel in the letter focus largely on the Army because it has the largest records deficit. Among other things, the congressmen want to know what happened to operational records for the 1st Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne Division and what is being done to reconstruct them.

In November, ProPublica and the Seattle Times reported that they were among numerous Army units that had lost or failed to keep battlefield records as required, making it harder for some veterans to obtain benefits and for historians to recount what actually happened.

"Operational records can be used to track the history of our nation's military, plan for future operations and support innovative medical research,'' Miller and Michaud wrote to Hagel.

In addition to chairing the veterans' panel, Miller sits on the House Armed Services Committee, which has direct oversight responsibility for the Defense Department and service branches.

The department did not return a phone call seeking comment. 

By Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica

This was co-published with The Washington Post.

President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial reform law in July 2010, hailing it as an overhaul to prevent the kind of crisis that hit the world economy in 2008 and one of the signature achievements of his first term. Almost three years later, much of the big stuff the law calls for is on hold, under legal and legislative assault, or still working its way through the regulatory intestines. According to a law firm that tracks the legislation, only 38 percent of the 398 Dodd-Frank rules have been imposed, while regulators haven't yet publicly put forward versions of almost a third of them.

Is this the face of success? A new book, "Act of Congress," by Robert Kaiser, an associate editor and senior correspondent for The Washington Post, gives that question a qualified yes. "The story of Dodd-Frank does demonstrate that Congress still can work," he writes, "and it shows how, but only in extreme circumstances."

Continue reading »

The House Republican bill H.R. 1406 is the latest in a string of GOP attacks on workers' rights. The bill would force an unnecessary choice between overtime pay that workers rely on and time off that they may never be able to take advantage of. H.R. 1406 -- the "Working Families Flexibility Act" -- would give employers the ability to offer compensatory time off in exchange for any overtime wages the worker has earned.

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed the bill on Wednesday that they say gives workers more time off - rejecting criticism from the White House, unions, women's groups and others that the measure is a sham that would force more work for less pay.

Backed by business (There's a shocker.), the bill is part of an effort by budget-slashing Republicans to project a "kinder and gentler image," particularly with women and working families.

On a nearly party-line vote of 223-204, the House approved the measure and sent it to the Senate where President Barack Obama's majority Democrats appear certain to kill it.

The bill would permit workers in the private sector, like those now in the public sector, to swap overtime pay for compensatory time off. They would get 1-1/2 hours time off for each hour of overtime, based on a standard 40-hour work week.

Continue reading »

Via Occupy Wall St.:

One of the points Occupy Wall Street made, by choosing to occupy space in Manhattan and not in DC, was that it's really Wall Street who runs things, not the government.

The votes in the House Financial Services Committee today underscore that point with stark clarity.

Today the Committee considered a slew of bills that tear down many of the Wall Street reforms passed in 2010. These reforms were already imperfect, as Wall Street sent the full force of its lobbying to the Hill in 2010 to compromise these reforms as much as possible.

Wall Street, having succeeded in 2010 in watering down the reforms meant to regulate them two years after they ruined the economy, did not rest. They have been lobbying nonstop since then to do everything they could to gut these reforms even more.

Today, nine deregulatory bills were considered, and nine were passed. The most egregious, HR 992, which we wrote about on Monday, passed 53-6. This bill is named "Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act", but it should be called, "If Banks Get Bailed Out, We'll Get Sold Out. Again." This is the bill that makes the cost of doing business for Wall Street lower by exploiting the implicit backing of the Federal Government. It allows banks to hold risky derivatives in the insured depository--that part of the bank that is insured by the FDIC. As we wrote yesterday, this is dangerous because derivatives are senior in bankruptcy--derivatives counterparties get paid out first.

Continue reading »

By Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica

We've updated our sequestration explainer to reflect new developments. It was originally published on April 11, 2013.

When the annual White House Easter Egg Hunt faced cancellation this year due to the package of mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, the National Park Service kicked into high gear. It rescued the event — held since 1878 — with money from "corporate sponsors and the sale of commemorative wooden eggs," according to the Washington Post.

The nation's airline passengers also caught a break last month when Congress passed (and President Obama quickly signed) a bill allowing the Federal Aviation Administration to shift some funds and halt the furloughs of air traffic controllers that had been blamed for long flight delays around the country.

But other programs haven't been so lucky. Children in Indiana have been cut from the federally funded Head Start preschool program, and one Head Start program in Maine is being cut altogether. Furloughs have begun for employees of agencies from the U.S. Park Police to the Environmental Protection Agency. And cuts to Medicare have forced cancer clinics to turn away thousands of patients who are being treated with drugs the clinics can no longer afford.

We've taken a look at what's actually happened in the two months since sequestration took effect.

Remind me, what is sequestration again?

Remember the clash over the debt ceiling back in 2011?

When Republicans and Obama struck a deal to raise it, they created a "super committee" of six Democrats and six Republicans and gave them three and a half months to hash out $1.2 trillion worth of cuts to the federal budget over the next decade. If they failed, a package of automatic cuts designed to slash funding to programs dear to both parties (military spending, in the Republicans' case, and Medicare and other domestic programs in the Democrats') would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

Needless to say, the super committee failed, leading to the cuts we're seeing now.

Continue reading »

Instagram photo posted by Mortgage Bankers Association lobbyist Len Wolfson during their fundraising ski trip with Rep Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) -- Memify this!

Via Occupy Wall St.:

One might think that with the wave of scandals that have rocked the banking industry in the last several months, from HSBC money laundering to drug cartels, to the lies perpetuated in the JP Morgan London Whale trades, that politicians might have some sense of shame about continuing to deregulate on behalf of the banks. One might think that even if they are captured completely by their true bosses--Wall Street--that politically, they would have enough sense to go easy, lay low, and not carry the water for the banks so soon after this deluge of scandals.

You'd be wrong.

This Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee will be reviewing nine bills that gut many of the reforms passed to regulate derivatives on Wall St in 2010. These bills vary in the specifics of their aims, but all effectively make profits easier for Wall Street, often at the expense of the American public.

As Mike Konzcal wrote for the Washington Post, “One bill would weaken cross-border regulations, allowing U.S. firms that run their derivatives in other countries to avoid following the new derivative rules. Another would exempt inter-affiliate swaps, or derivatives between various corporate entities, from having to follow the new Dodd-Frank derivative rules.”

But by far the most egregious of these bills is HR 992. Currently, banks can hold three kinds of derivatives in the same accounts as depositor funds--those that enjoy FDIC insurance. HR 992 would expand this to allow banks to hold ANY kind of derivative, with one exception (a structured swap, which is defined in the bill), in the insured depository.

The reason this is a problem is because derivatives are senior in bankruptcy. In the event a big bank went under, hedge funds sitting on the other side of trades with the bank would get money paid back to them first. If the hedge funds and other companies the bank traded derivatives with (what is technically called a “counterparty”) exhausted the funds set aside to insure the regular depositors (those with checking and savings accounts), the FDIC would have to 1) sell assets from the failed bank to raise money, and 2) try and fight to get back some of this money from the derivatives counterparties. If that didn’t work, the Treasury would step in and give a loan to the failed bank for 5 years--which essentially is a bailout. Banks want to hold their derivatives in the insured account because it makes it cheaper for them. HR 992 at its heart is about making the cost of doing business cheaper for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.

Continue reading »

By Lois Beckett, ProPublica

In mid-April, Kansas passed a law asserting that federal gun regulations do not apply to guns made and owned in Kansas. Under the law, Kansans could manufacture and sell semi-automatic weapons in-state without a federal license or any federal oversight.

Kansas' "Second Amendment Protection Act" backs up its states' rights claims with a penalty aimed at federal agents: when dealing with "Made in Kansas" guns, any attempt to enforce federal law is now a felony. Bills similar to Kansas' law have been introduced in at least 37 other states. An even broader bill is on the desk of Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell. That bill would exempt any gun owned by an Alaskan from federal regulation. In Missouri, a bill declaring federal gun laws "null and void" passed by an overwhelming majority in the state house, and is headed for debate in the senate.

Mobilizing the pre-Civil-War doctrine of "nullification," these bills assert that Congress has overstepped its ability to regulate guns — and that states, not the Supreme Court, have the ultimate authority to decide whether a law is constitutional or not.

The head of the Kansas's State Rifle Association, an  affiliate of the National Rifle Association, says she put the bill together and found it a sponsor. While the NRA regularly lauds passages of states' gun-rights laws, it stayed silent on Kansas' law, and, so far, has kept a low profile on nullification. (The group did not respond to our requests for comment.)

Continue reading »

It's been over five years since the beginning of the Great Recession, and unemployment is still a major economic hurdle in the United States, with long-term unemployment extremely problematic as over 4.6 million Americans have been jobless for at least 27 weeks, according to the latest job figures.

But when a hearing Thursday on long-term unemployment held before the 19-member Joint Economic Committee began, it was with just a single lawmaker in attendance. Panelists testifying on the problem and discussing its potential solutions spoke only to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the committee's vice-chair, for the beginning of the nearly 90-minute session.

Three more Democrats arrived later to join in the meeting, Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) arrived eight minutes into the hearing. Then when the hearing had been under way for 35 minutes, Representative John Delaney (D-MD) arrived, and eventually Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) joined in bringing the crowd to four.

Didn't anyone else get the memo?

The National Journal reports:

"When a hearing to explore how to get the long-term unemployed back to work kicked off on Wednesday morning, only one lawmaker was in attendance. That was Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who was holding the hearing in her role as the vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee. The Joint Economic Commitee is one of a handful of committees whose members come from both parties and both houses of Congress. Klobuchar was eventually joined by three colleagues (in order of their appearance): Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Maryland Rep. John Delaney and Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings. All four are Democrats."

Continue reading »