Adam Serwer

Reporter

Adam Serwer is a reporter at Mother Jones. Formerly a staff writer at the American Prospect, he has written for the Washington Post, the Root, the Village Voice, and the New York Daily News.

Get my RSS | Follow @adamserwer

Immigrant Rights Activists Slam Arpaio, Obama

—By Adam Serwer

| Fri Dec. 16, 2011 1:38 PM PST

Immigrants rights' activists had a lot of praise Friday for the Justice Department's investigation into Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, which alleged systemic discrimination against Latinos by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. They had less praise for President Obama, whom they say is enabling Arpaio-style anti-immigrant local policing in the first place.

"The Obama administration bears a lot of blame for what is happening here in Maricopa county," said former Sacramento police chief Arturo Venegas, who now runs the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative, a pro-immigration reform group. On a conference call with reporters, Venegas and other immigrants rights activists said the Obama administration's use of the Secure Communities and 287(g) federal programs—both of which use local authorities to find and deport unauthorized immigrants—is a larger problem than Arpaio. "But for those programs we wouldn't have the numbers of racial discrimination and proviling and violations of civil rights that we have, not only in Maricopa county but across the country," Venegas said.

A little background: Secure Communities is a federal program under which the indentifying information of anyone arrested in participating jurisdictions is forwarded to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which then checks their legal status. The 287(g) program allows ICE to work with local law authorities so that they can enforce federal immigration laws. On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that because of the Arpaio investigation, DHS would be ending its 287(g) agreement with the Maricopa County Sheriff's office and "restricting" the county's access to Secure Communities. Both programs predate Obama, but they've been especially effective during his tenure: Obama has deported more than a million undocumented immigrants during his time in office, without doing much to advance immigration reform.

Immigrant rights activists argue that these federal programs are a huge part of the problem. Because local authorities know that under Secure Communities arrestees will have their identifying information forwarded to ICE, cops can racially profile, knowing unauthorized immigrants will be deported even if they weren't committing crimes. Empowering local authorities to enforce federal immigration law through the 287(g) program encourages law enforcement to think and act more like Arpaio.

"It was the climate set up by Secure Communities and the 287(g) agreement that created Arpaio," said Salvador Reza, a Phoenix civil rights activist.

For his part, Arpaio responded to yesterday's findings from the Department of Justice with defiance, telling reporters that "President Obama and the band of his merry men might as well erect their own pink neon sign at the Arizona-Mexico border saying 'Welcome all illegals to your United States, our home is your home." (Arpaio has a thing with pink.)

The head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Thomas E. Perez, stopped short of calling for Arpaio to step down during Thursday's annoucement. On Friday's conference call, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was far more blunt.

"I think the report should add energy and momentum to getting Arpaio out," Grijalva said. "Arpaio is an aberration to the rule of law."

Advertise on MotherJones.com

Does Posting Jihadist Material Make Tarek Mehanna a Terrorist?

How the outcome of Mehanna's trial could rewrite the line between speech and crime.

—By Adam Serwer

| Fri Dec. 16, 2011 4:00 AM PST

Does posting militant videos on the internet make you a terrorist?

For Tarek Mehanna it just might. Arrested in 2009, Mehanna is a Massachusetts resident whom prosecutors describe as a longtime terrorist wannabe. He isn't just being prosecuted for trying (and failing) to acquire terrorist training in Yemen and lying to federal investigators. He's also being tried for posting pro-jihadist material on the internet.

Mehanna's indictment says that since the early 2000s, he and his friends watched extremist videos on the web and discussed going abroad to receive training in Pakistan and later Yemen. When Mehanna and his alleged accomplice finally reached Yemen in 2004, they were turned away by an old man who told them "all that stuff is gone ever since the planes hit the Twin Towers." Returning home, prosecutors say, Mehanna committed himself to battling the West by other means: spreading Al Qaeda's ideology to the masses by translating extremist documents and posting terrorist propaganda on the Internet, in the hopes of converting more to the cause.

"This case is being used by the government to really narrow First Amendment activity in dangerous new ways," says Nancy Murray of the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It might be speech that horrifies people, but it's the nature of the First Amendment to protect that speech, unless it's leading to imminent lawless action."

Civil liberties advocates say the case represents a slippery slope. In the 2010 case Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, which decided whether or not providing nonviolent aid (such as legal advice) to terrorist groups constitutes material support for terrorism, the Supreme Court ruled that even protected speech can be a criminal act if it occurs at the direction of a terrorist organization. Based on that ruling, you could be convicted of materially supporting terrorism merely for translating a document or putting an extremist video online, depending on your intentions.

"If he's doing it on behalf of a designated group, he's providing a service, and that's the crime," says Georgetown University law professor David Cole, who argued against the government in Humanitarian Law Project. "It doesn't matter if the speech is itself violent or nonviolent." The question is whether Mehanna's actions were done at the direction of a terrorist group or whether his actions constituted "independent advocacy."

[Read the full article]

The Most Unconstitutional Sheriff In America?

—By Adam Serwer

| Thu Dec. 15, 2011 12:21 PM PST

Sheriff Joe Arpaio at the 2011 Veteran's Day Parade in Phoenix, Arizona.

A Justice Department investigation into Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the self-described "toughest sheriff in America," has found that Arpaio violated the civil rights of Latinos in Maricopa County, Arizona.

"We did not begin this investigation with any preconceived notions," said Civil Rights Division Head Thomas E. Perez at a press conference in Arizona Thursday. "We peeled the onion to its core." The conclusion? Arpaio's office "engages in a a systemic disregard for basic constitutional protections."

Although Perez stopped short of saying Arpaio needed to step down, he described the problems as being "deeply rooted in the culture" of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. "We have to do culture change," Perez said, adding "culture comes from the top." The Department is seeking a legal agreement with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office that would force it to reform its practices, threatening to sue if it doesn't cooperate.

The report issued by the Justice Department says Arpaio's office undertook "discriminatory policing practices" through racial profiling, including "unlawfully stop[ping], detain[ing] and arrest[ing] Latinos." Perez also said that Arpaio's office unlawfully retaliated against critics of the Maricopa County Sheriff's office by arresting or suing them, and punished Latino jail inmates for being unable to speak English by denying them basic services. The report also describes the Sheriff's Office as responding to reports of people with "dark skin" or people who "spoke Spanish" rather than people actually committing crimes, and says officials exchanged racist jokes over email. Detention officers in Maricopa jails are described in the report as referring to Latinos as "wetbacks" and "Mexican bitches." The report says Arpaio's office "implemented practices that treat Latinos as if they are all undocumented, regardless of whether a legitimate factual basis exists to suspect that a person is undocumented."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

White House Caves on Defense Bill Veto Threat

—By Adam Serwer

| Wed Dec. 14, 2011 2:25 PM PST

The President will not veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) over provisions codifying the use of indefinite military detention on American soil.

As I reported Tuesday, the latest version of the NDAA effectively rendered the provisions "mandating" military custody of non-citizen terrorism suspects arrested on US soil optional. The revised NDAA would make it possible for someone like convicted underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab to go from capture to trial without ever passing through military custody.

The changes were apparently enough to get the White House to back down from its veto threat, notwithstanding FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III's testimony Wednesday that the bill could still interfere with counterterrorism operations.

A statement from the White House press office states that "As a result of these changes, we have concluded that the language does not challenge or constrain the Presidents ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the American people, and the Presidents senior advisors will not recommend a veto." The statement continues, "However, if in the process of implementing this law we determine that it will negatively impact our counterterrorism professionals and undercut our commitment to the rule of law, we expect that the authors of these provisions will work quickly and tirelessly to correct these problems." Sure, the bill could undermine the rule of law and make Americans less safe, but it's not like Congress has ever had a hard time handling urgent problems in a timely manner.

This morning I wrote that by making the mandatory military detention provisions mandatory in name only, the Senate had offered the administration an opportunity to see how seriously it takes its own rhetoric on civil liberties. The administration had said that the military detention provisions of an earlier version of the NDAA were "inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets."

The revised NDAA is still inconsistent with that fundamental American principle. But the administration has decided that fundamental American principles aren't actually worth vetoing the bill over.

FBI Chief: NDAA Detention Provisions Still Bad

—By Adam Serwer

| Wed Dec. 14, 2011 11:03 AM PST

FBI Director Robert Mueller III testifies before the Senate in 2010.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning, FBI Director Robert Mueller III said that the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act doesn't resolve the administration's security concerns that mandating military detention for non-citizen terrorism suspects would harm national security.

The original Senate version of the bill mandates military detention of non-citizen terrorism suspects. After the administration threatened to veto the NDAA over the detention provisions, Congress produced a revised conference bill that makes it much easier for the administration to bypass military detention and deal with terror suspects in the civilian system. Mueller's testimony suggests the revised bill hasn't alleviated the administration's concerns that the detention provisions would hamper intelligence gathering and efforts to bring suspects to trial.

Politico's Josh Gerstein reports:

"The drafters of the statute went some distance to resolving the issue related to our authority but the language, but did not really fully address my concerns...," Mueller said during questioning by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who opposes the detainee-related language in the bill. "I was satisfied with part of it with regard to the authority, I still have concerns and uncertainties that are raised by the statute."

Mueller said he fears that the legislation would muddle the roles of the FBI and the military.

The bill "talks about not interrupting interrogations, which is good, but gaining cooperation is something different than continuing an interrogation," Mueller said. "My concern is that...you don't want to have FBI and military showing up at the scene at the same time on a covered person [under the law], or with a covered person there may be some uncovered persons there, with some uncertainty as to who has the role and who's going to do what."

Mueller's statement reflects the concerns about a potential turf war between the FBI and the military that the ACLU's Chris Anders raised yesterday in relation to the revised NDAA.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney repeated to reporters the administration's prior statement that "any bill that challenges or constrains the president's critical authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the nation would" provoke a veto. For his part, Mueller seems to be saying here that the NDAA's detention provisions do just that.

It's hard to see how Mueller's remarks don't lock the administration into a veto. If for some reason President Obama ultimately doesn't veto after claiming he would, then Congress won't have much reason to take his veto threats seriously in the future.