This is the first truly novel FDM 3d printer that I’ve seen in years…not only do they look like they’ve solved a few issues (printing at an angle allows for overhangs to be dealt with differently) but the never-ending printed is genius. The printer isn’t cheap, but this is extremely clever engineering.
I look forward to seeing this come to fruition.
Elon Musk’s neural lace project could turn us all into cyborgs, and he says that it’s only four or five years away. The billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla has long been an outspoken critic of unrestricted artificial intelligence, and has been quietly researching the concept of “neural lace,” a merger of machine learning and human intelligence that could revolutionize our species. In a profile published Monday in Vanity Fair, Musk said he thinks a “meaningful partial brain interface” could be here in less t
Source: Elon Musk Thinks We’re Four or Five Years Away From Neural Lace | Inverse
Farmers are required to manage acres of farmland at a time, and have recently begun to tap into aerial technology to do so efficiently and sustainably. DJI MG-1S revolutionizes the way in which farmers can utilize drones to manage and take care of their crops. In this video, three individuals in the agricultural drone industry speak of their experiences with DJI’s MG-1S and tell us why it stands out amongst the UAV choices when considering factors of precision, effectiveness, intuitiveness, ease of use, s
Sounds more and more like Rainbows End every day…
Ripcord takes your static, paper records collecting dust in warehouses and uses robots to scan, OCR and upload them to Ripcord Canopy, our cloud platform. Once on Ripcord Canopy, you can manage your records or integrate them into your existing enterprise systems. Ripcord’s end-to-end solution includes shipping, scanning, indexing, auto-classifying and unlimited access to Ripcord Canopy. We also include connections to the enterprise systems you already use at no extra cost.
Source: Digitization | Ripcord
Yep. IoT for Cows. I can’t wait for this to be hacked somehow, and used a a distributed cownet.
Tie the cowlar on the cow’s neck. The Cowlar simply consists of a strap designed to comfortably fit around your cow and a small magic box that measure temperature, activity and cow behaviour, i.e. whether it’s eating, sleeping, ruminating or showing lameness.
Source: Cowlar – How It Works
This year I have a small number of international speaking engagements, and I just returned from the first of those in 2017…which means it was the first since the recent spat of increased DHS and Customs enforcement. It was also my first trip to a Muslim-majority country, and while not one on the magic list, it still made me consider my re-entry into the US and the possible attention therein. These things combined to make me far more attentive to and aware of my personal information security (infosec) than every before. This post will be an attempt to catalog the choices I made and the process I used, as well as details of what actual technological precautions I took prior to leaving and when actively crossing the border.
This trip was to the SLA Arabian Gulf Library Conference, held this year in Manama, Bahrain, where I was on a panel discussing future tech. This means flying internationally through a major city, which for me meant flights from Nashville to JFK to Doha International Airport in Qatar, then finally to Manama, Bahrain. The return was was the same, with the exception of flying back into the US via O’Hare in Chicago rather than JFK. This meant crossing into at least 2 foreign countries physically on each leg of the trip, although in Qatar I remained in the international section of the airport and didn’t go through customs and enter the country proper. Still, there were LOTS of checkpoints, which meant lots of potential checks of my luggage and technology.
What was my concern, and why was I thinking so hard about this prior to the trip? After all, I’m a law-abiding US citizen, and as the saying goes, if you’ve nothing to hide, why worry? First off, the “if you’ve nothing to hide” argument is dismissible, especially given the last 6 weeks of evidence of harassment and aggression at the US border. I am a citizen of the US, but I have also been very outspoken online regarding my feelings for the actions of the current administration. On top of that, information security isn’t just about the individual…it’s about everyone I’ve exchanged email with, texted, messaged on Facebook, sent a Twitter DM, and the like….the total extent of my communications and connections could, if dumped to DHS computers, theoretically harm someone that isn’t me, and that was not ok in my book. A primary goal was to prevent any data about my communications or contacts from being obtained by DHS.
DHS and Border Control has very, very broad powers when it comes to searching electronic devices at the border. I was not certain of the power granted to Border Agents in Qatar and Bahrain, but my working assumption was they had at least the powers that the US Agents did. I also assumed that the US agents would probably have better technological tools for intrusion, so if I could protect my data against that threat, I was safe for the other locations as well.
A secondary goal in my particular model was to attempt to limit the possibility for delay in my travels. If I could comply with requests up to a certain point without breaking my primary goal of data protection, that would likely result in less delay. When considering these levels of access, I thought about questions like: could I power on my devices without any data leakage? Could I unlock my devices if requested and allow the Agent to handle my phone, for instance, without risking data leakage? Could I answer questions about my device and the apps on it (or other apps in question, for instance social media accounts such as Facebook or Twitter) honestly without risking data leakage?
With all of that in mind, here’s how I secured my technology for border crossing. Your mileage may vary, as your threat model may be very different, and the manner in which you choose to answer the various questions above may be different. If everything had gone south and my devices were impounded, I’d be writing a very different post (and contacting the EFF). But for this particular trip, this is my story.
First off, I decided quickly that I wasn’t going to travel with my MacBook Pro. I was lucky enough that I didn’t need it for this trip, because there wasn’t any work that I would be doing on the road that necessitated a general purpose computer. I had work to do, but it all involved writing…some email, some writing text for a project, some viewing of spreadsheets and analysis of them. Simple and straightforward things that luckily could easily be done with a tablet and a decent keyboard. I already had an iPad with the Apple keyboard case, which made for an easily-carried and totally capable computing device for the trip. I could load some movies and music on it, fire up a text editor, answer email, and generally communicate without issue. It’s also iOS based, which makes it enormously more secure than Mac OS from first principles.
Since both my main computing device and my phone ran the same OS, I was able to also double-up any planning and efforts in security, as any decision I made could be equally applied to both devices. This turned out to be very, very convenient, and saved me time and effort.
The first thing that I did was backup the both the iPad and iPhone to a local computer here at my house (not iCloud) and ensure that those backups were successful. I stored those backups on my home network to ensure their safety…if anything went wrong later, these would be my “clean” images that I could revert to upon returning home. Then I used Apple Configurator 2 to “pair lock” my devices to my laptop, which would remain at home.
This process was best described back in 2014 by security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski. While his instructions are fairly out of date, the general idea is still there and still works in iOS 10 and Apple Configurator 2. Basically, pair-locking an iOS device is a method by which the device is flashed with a cryptographic security certificate that prevents it from allowing a connection to any computer that doesn’t have the other half of the cryptographic pair on it. This means that once locked to my laptop (which, again, wasn’t in my possession and was still at my home), my iPhone and iPad would simply refuse to connect to any other computer in the world…whether that was someone that stole it from me and and attempted to reflash it using iTunes on their computer, or whether that is a diagnostic device being used by law enforcement.
This process is designed with the concept of using it for enterprise installation of iOS devices that need high security procedures to prevent employees from being able to connect their home computer to their work phone and retrieve any information. But it works very well for the purposes of preventing any possible attacker from accessing the phone’s memory directly through it’s lightning port. This processes ensures that even if the phone is unlocked and taken from my possession, DHS or other attacker cannot dump the memory directly or examine it using typical forensic information gathering devices.
Once both devices were pair-locked, I was left with two freshly installed iOS devices that I needed to reload with apps and content that would be useful for me. After loading a set of games and apps that would allow me to pass the time and still get some work done, as well as media I might want to consume on the road, I loaded my password manager (I use and am very happy with 1Password) and created a very, very long and complicated vault password that there was no possibility I could remember. I recorded that password on paper (left at home in a fireproof safe) and gave it to a trusted person that had instructions not to give the password to me until I had cleared the border and only over a secured channel.
I then changed the 1Password vault password to be that password plus a phrase that I knew and could remember (a sort of salt). 1Password was set up to allow me to login with TouchID, so I could still operate normally (logging into services and such) until such a time as that TouchID credential was revoked. Once revoked, I would be completely locked out of my passwords, with no ability to access them, until through a pre-arranged time and secure channel I got the vault password from either of the mentioned trusted sources. Those trusted sources, meanwhile, couldn’t access my password vault either, since the salt was resident only in my head.
It may be obvious, but I also ensured that everything in my life that was accessed with a password had a very strong one that was held by 1Password, and that I didn’t know and couldn’t memorize even if I tried. My bank, social media, dropbox…everything that could get a password, had a very, very secure one. Any service that supported 2-factor authentication had said 2 factor turned on, with the second factor set to an authentication app that supports a PIN (or, in the case of Very Important Accounts, a physical Yubikey that was left in TN as well). This is security 101, and not directly related to my border crossing…but if you don’t have the basics covered, nothing else really matters.
I made sure that iOS had most iCloud sync services off….no contact syncing, no calendar syncing, really the only thing I left syncing was my photo gallery. I did not install any social media apps (no Facebook app, no Twitter app, etc) and only logged in and out on the websites in question. The browser on both devices was set to not remember passwords, and I clear cache and history regularly when traveling. As far as I could, I eliminated anything that stored conversations or messages between myself and others…no Facebook Messenger app, etc. I deleted my email app, and didn’t enter my account information for email into the standard iOS mail app.
This was, keep in mind, just for the transit period. Once in country and across borders, I could use a VPN to connect to the ‘net and download any apps needed, log into them after retrieving the password from one of the trusted sources, and effectively use both devices normally (with basic security measures in place all the time, of course).
At this point, I had a device that couldn’t be memory dumped, that had very little personal information on it, and even less information about my contacts on it. It mostly acted normally for me, because 1Password handled all of my logins and I used TouchID during daily usage…right up until I needed to cross a border. Before I did so, I deleted my TouchID credentials via Settings (by deleting the fingerprint credential), and powered-cycled my phone. Those two actions did several things all at once:
The first was that it prevented me from being able to know or retrieve any passwords for anything in my life. That’s a pretty scary situation, but I knew it was fixable in the future (this wasn’t a permanent state). It also meant that if I were asked to unlock my phone, I could do so pretty much without anything of interest being capable of access. Without the ability to dump the phone forensically, officers could ask me for passwords for accounts and I could truthfully say that I had no way of telling them, because the password manager knew them all and I didn’t. And I couldn’t give them the password vault login because I literally didn’t know it.
The idea with all of this was to create a boundary of information access beyond which, if DHS wanted to try and access, they would need to impound the phone and potentially subpoena the information from me with a warrant. My guess (which turned out to be correct) was that they would ask to have it powered on, and maybe they would ask to see it unlocked, but that would be it. If they pried further, well…I was prepared to tell them truthfully that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t know. And I would call a lawyer if detained, and proceed from there.
The worst case scenario for me was minimal delay and discomfort. I am enormously privileged in my position to be able to think about this sort of passive resistance without actual fear for bodily harm or other forms of retribution. For me, the likely worst case, even if things had escalated to asking for social media passwords, would have been the confiscation of my devices and my being detained for a time. This is assuredly not the worst case for many, and it is extraordinarily important that each person judge their own risks when deciding on security practices.
For some, it is far better to simply not carry anything. Or to carry a completely blank device. Or purchase an inexpensive device when you arrive in the country of your destination. For me, I had the ability to prepare and be ready for resistance if needed. Your mileage may, and should, vary.
The results of all this thought and effort? Nothing at all. Not a single bit of attention was paid to me at the various border crossings, by either US or foreign agents. On the leg of my flight leaving Qatar, I went through no fewer than 4 security checkpoints from the time I landed until getting onto the plane taking me to O’Hare, and at each one there was a baggage scanner and metal detector, agents pulling people out of line for additional screening, and the like. When I finally got to my gate, it had its own private security apparatus, again with metal detector and baggage X-ray. At this security checkpoint, I was randomly selected for additional screening, but the agent in question (a Qatar security agent) was incredibly professional, thorough, and neither invasive nor abusive. I got a pat down (much less severe than those I’ve been given at US airports), and they asked to look inside my carryon…they even asked me to power on my iPhone and iPad. But they didn’t ask to unlock them, and they didn’t ask for passwords of any type.
When entering into the US at O’Hare, the plane was greeted by DHS agents at the gate, who asked to check passports upon exiting the plane. The agent I was greeted by barely had time to glance at my US Passport before waving me through…again, the privilege of my appearance and nationality was evidenced by the fact that several of my fellow passengers were not waved through so easily. The last thing I heard as I walked up the jetway towards Customs was a DHS Agent saying to the robed gentleman behind me “So you don’t speak very much English, huh….”
The current state of our country cannot stand. We are a nation of immigrants many peoples1, and a nation that believes in the privacy of our affairs and effects. This concern I had for my own and my friends’ information shouldn’t have been necessary. We should be able to be secure in our possessions, even and especially when those possessions are information about ourselves and our relationships to others. I do not want to be in a position where I have to threat model crossing the border of my own country. And yet, here we are.
I’d love any thoughts about the process described above, especially from security types or lawyers. Any holes or issues, any thoughts about what was useless, anything at all would be great to hear. I hope, as I so often hope these days, that all of this information never becomes applicable to you and that you never need to use it. But if you do, I hope this helped in some way.
1 I was called out on Twitter for my use of “immigrant” as an inclusive term for people in the US, when, of course, many US citizens ancestry is far more complicated and difficult than “they chose to come here”. It was written in haste and while it works for the emotion I was attempting to convey, it definitely undercuts the violent and difficult history of many people in the US. I’ve edited the text to reflect the meaning more clearly and left the original to indicate my change.
The connected denim smart jacket made in partnership between Levi’s and Google’s ATAP division now has a price tag, but its release date has been pushed from this spring to the fall. The jacket, which will cost around $350 when it goes on sale, is the first commercial product containing ATAP’s Project Jacquard technology, which uses conductive fabric to turn a standard article of clothing into a connected device of sorts that can send instructions to your smartphone, like pausing or skipping a song that’s playing by double tapping your wrist.
Source: Google and Levi’s connected smart jacket will come out this fall and cost around $350 – The Verge
Handle is a research robot that stands 6.5 ft tall, travels at 9 mph and jumps 4 feet vertically. It uses electric power to operate both electric and hydraulic actuators, with a range of about 15 miles on one battery charge. Handle uses many of the same dynamics, balance and mobile manipulation principles found in the quadruped and biped robots we build, but with only about 10 actuated joints, it is significantly less complex. Wheels are efficient on flat surfaces while legs can go almost anywhere.
Warning: This is a very long post. There are lots of resources mentioned, laws referenced, and opinions given. If you’re looking for a TL;DR version for a tweet, here you go:
Recent immigration enforcement efforts by the current administration should be alarming to libraries & we need to have action plans in hand.
Read on for lots, lots more.
Libraries and Immigration
Threat Models
Why Libraries?
How to Prepare
Laws Regarding Resistance
Call to Action
With the release on Feb 21st of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos (one and two) detailing increased efforts relating to the efforts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and related federal offices (Customs and Border Control ((CBP)) and the like), the threat that there may be immigration raids in libraries continues to grow. I have been trying to gather information about such threats since the initial increase in ICE raids began just a few weeks ago, and here is what I’ve discovered, links to resources, and some of my thoughts on the matter.
Since Trump took office, ICE and CBP have been on a much, much looser leash when it comes to the allowances they have to question, detain, and remove non-citizens from the US. Reports of mothers being removed from their children, removal of someone after a court appearance, arresting people leaving church-based hypothermia shelters, and the like have shown a willing disregard for humanitarian instincts and that no location should consider itself safe from the threat of immigration officers entering your space, questioning individuals, and potentially removing them for deportation.
As I see it, there are two threats for libraries that emerge from the current reimagining of US immigration policy. The first is similar to the threat that the PATRIOT act and other historical efforts have illustrated: the use of library-gathered information to target or identify an individual or group of people. That information could be circulation records, attendance lists for library programs, library card records, and the like. Libraries are aware of the threat to these sorts of records, there are State laws that outline limitations and protections for that information, and we have a history of protecting it. There are myriad resource that will give libraries tips on how to manage their technology in such a way to limit the information they keep, and action plans that outline how to react to an information request.
The second threat is, however, a new(ish) one. That threat is to the patrons inside or around your library, and the threat that an “enforcement action” could result in ICE agents entering your building, asking patrons for proof of citizenship, detaining those that cannot provide such, and expeditiously moving those patrons into “detention centers” and from there to deportation and out of the US entirely. If we protect patrons information so closely, with so much effort and vigor, how much more effort must we put forth in protecting the patrons themselves? What are the limits of protecting individuals in your community?
Given libraries’ efforts in assisting immigrant populations of the US, and that many libraries provide significant citizenship assistance, we should be very aware of the potential for a visit by ICE officers. Public libraries in particular should have an action plan for this, in the same sort of way that we had action plans for an FBI visit post-9/11 in regards to the PATRIOT act.
The Department of Homeland Security does specify “Sensitive Locations” within which ICE must meet a higher degree of legal proof before they are empowered to enter, question, detain, or remove someone. These include schools, hospitals, churches, and more:
it is worth noting that libraries are NOT called out in this list. It’s possible that they could be construed as part of “educational-related activities,” but in practice that refers to school activities that may take place after official school hours. I do not believe that any of the above categories affirmatively includes libraries.
Even if libraries WERE to be construed as Sensitive Locations, that designation only protects what ICE refers to as an “enforcement action”:
The question of what powers ICE and CBP can bring to bear is a complicated one. Within the borders of the US, ICE has particular limits to their operations. They cannot enter a private home without permission or a warrant, for example. However, there is special legal dispensation given in US law to what is commonly known as the 100 Mile Zone, that is, any area within 100 miles of the border of the US.
As you may note, that 100 mile zone includes enormous sections of the population of the US, including the entirety of Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, and most of the largest cities (New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, and more. Within this zone, CBP has more authority to pursue immigration issues. The memos linked above direct ICE to hire an addition 10,000 agents, and CBP to hire an addition 5,000 agents, in order to pursue immigration issues more aggressively. I hope that it is obvious why this might be worrisome.
Finally, while we are seeking things to worry about, there’s the Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g). This allows the Department of Homeland Security to “partner” with local and/or state law enforcement and thus allow the local officers to act on immigration issues…effectively, a form of ICE deputization. The memos linked above also direct ICE to more regularly use this in their enforcement efforts, increasing the number of officers available to detain and arrest immigrants even further.
Given the combination of the broad powers assigned to DHS and the zeal with which the current administration appears to be going after immigrants, I believe strongly that it would be a dereliction of our duty to our communities to not consider how to respond to the potential of immigration officer activity in your library. This is a situation of not if, but when.
The resources linked below are almost all available in both English and Spanish, and most of those that are designed to be handed out to patrons are available in several languages.
A first step is being the information resource that your patrons need. Print and distribute rights cards for your patrons, so that they understand what their rights are here in the US, and how they should and shouldn’t interact with ICE agents. Here is a page with even more resources for patrons, many of which you could provide in your buildings.
This Community Raid Preparedness Checklist is a fantastic resource (with more coming from the same group), and outlines several steps that libraries should be looking at as quickly as they possibly can. NILC also has a presentation called Raids: What is Happening and How to Respond that was put together jointly with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other stakeholders just a week ago that outlines the current state of things as well as possible responses.
The National Immigration Project has a variety of other amazing resources that libraries should have on hand, discuss, and implement where they can, including this FAQ that answers questions in a framework that I feel is very useful for libraries.
Finally, the most thorough response document I have found is this one, the Defend Against ICE Raids and Community Arrests toolkit, which has well-considered suggestions, resources, and ideas in it. It focuses on home raids, but much of the advice can be adjusted and used for public places.
ALA has a Libraries Respond page entitled Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers with links to ALA statements on service to these communities, as well as a few external links to resources. Some of the resources are older than I would like, but there are links to more current news reporting on the current situation. I would prefer to see ALA taking a much stronger stance on this, but understand their limitations.
In classic Internet style, here is where I remind you that I Am Not A Lawyer. Luckily, my friend Kyle K. Courtney is a lawyer, and a damned good one. He is, however, not your lawyer, and this section is meant as a summary of possibly applicable laws and cases regarding interfering with federal officers. The more you know, the better off you are in developing your action plan. Take it away, Kyle:
The concept of resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating, or interfering with federal agents’ duties has been considered by the courts for decades, and is governed by federal statutes. It is important that you know and understand the law surrounding these actions. While we outline some of the major laws here, there are usually a large segment of ways you can be held or, of course, simply detained and later charged with misdemeanors.
18 U.S.C.A. § 111
This federal statute makes it a crime for anyone forcibly to assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with certain enumerated federal officers and employees while they are engaged in the performance of their official duties.
Note also that 18 U.S.C.A. § 1114 is critical to determining the official status of the person assaulted, so, in order to fall within the scope of 18 U.S.C.A. § 111, the person assaulted must be within the definition of government officers, etc. as defined in § 1114.
The statute provides for two offense levels:
The elements of the offense of an assault on a federal officer are:
(1) a forceful assault;
(2) committed voluntarily and intentionally;
(3) against an officer employed by the federal government who was then engaged in the performance of an official duty or on account of the performance of official duty.
*Cases have found that § 111 does not require that the assailant be aware that the victim is a federal officer.
28 U.S.C.A. § 1501
There is also a lesser offense of willful and knowing obstruction defined in 28 U.S.C.A. § 1501, making it a misdemeanor to obstruct, resist, or oppose any officer of the United States in attempting to serve or execute any legal or judicial writ or process.
A § 1501 violation contains all of the elements of a § 111 violation, except the element of force is required for a conviction under § 111.
18 U.S.C.A. § 1071
§1071 makes it a federal offense for a person to harbor or conceal any person for whose arrest a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States, so as to prevent that person’s discovery or arrest, after notice or knowledge that a warrant or process has been issued for his arrest.
The federal offense of harboring or concealing a fugitive so as to prevent his discovery and arrest may be viewed as being comprised of three elements. Thus, in order for § 1071 to be applicable there must be:
(1) an act or acts of harboring or concealing done so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of an individual;
(2) a warrant or process issued under the provisions of any law of the United States for the arrest of the individual who is harbored or concealed; and
(3) notice or knowledge on the part of the person who performs the act or acts of harboring or concealing, before the performance of such act or acts, that a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States for the arrest of the individual who is harbored or concealed
The following caselaw is a sample of the enforcement of the federal statutes listed above. Some are specific to immigration and border patrol officers, while other are interpretations of the statutes for any enumerated federal officers and employees. There are even a few cases where third parties attempt to resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with federal officers that are engaged in the performance of their official duties, namely arresting another party.
| CASE CITATION | SUMMARY |
| Bennett v. U.S., 285 F.2d 567 (5th Cir. 1960) | In a prosecution for assault on an immigration officer, it is not necessary to prove scienter, that is, that the accused knew the object of the assault was a federal officer (Border Patrol officers in plain clothes on horseback) |
| U.S. v. Varkonyi, 645 F.2d 453 (5th Cir. 1981).
|
It is no defense that the accused was attempting to protect his or her private property from trespassers who were immigration officers. |
| United States v. Vigil, 431 F.2d 1037 (10th Cir. 1970)
|
Third person does not have right to assist in resisting the arrest of another if third person knows or has good reason to believe the person making arrest is government official authorized to make arrest and official is not clearly using unnecessary force. |
| United States v. Ulan, 421 F.2d 787 (2d Cir. 1970)
|
Demonstrating bystander, who voluntarily intervened and struck federal deputy marshal in attempt to prevent arrest of co-demonstrator was found guilty of assaulting and interfering with federal deputy marshal in performance of his official duties |
| U.S. v. Davis, 690 F.3d 127 (2nd Cir. 2012) | Evidence was insufficient to support defendant’s conviction for misdemeanor of resisting arrest which showed only that defendant ran from a DEA agent and, when tackled to the ground, struggled against being handcuffed, primarily by putting their hands under their stomach. There was no evidence that defendant engaged in any conduct that demonstrated a desire to injure an agent or would cause an agent to apprehend immediate injury. |
| U.S. v. Steele, 550 F.3d 693 (8th Cir. 2008) | When defendant’s mother gave federal officer permission to enter her house and defendant was extremely angry and made threatening gestures, a reasonable juror could determine that defendant was not justified in using force to resist arrest. |
| U.S. v. Span, 970 F.2d 573 (9th Circ. 1992) | Defendants do not have a right to resist arrest by federal officers even if supported by probable cause |
| U.S. v. Cunningham, 509 F.2d 961 (D.C. 1975) | Federal officers engaged in performance of their duty may not be forcibly resisted; the subject of officers’ action must submit peaceably and seek legal redress thereafter. |
| U.S. v. Beyer, 426 F.2d 773 (2nd Cir. 1970) | Even if warrant of arrest or arrest itself had been invalid, defendant was not entitled to resist arrest by physically assaulting federal officer executing warrant |
| Darrah v. City of Oak Park, 255 F.3d 301 (6th Cir. 2001)
|
Federal court (applying state law) found that while arrestees have the right to use physical force to resist an unlawful arrest, third-party intervenors do not have the same right. |
| United States v. Heliczer, 373 F.2d 241 (2d Cir. 1967)
|
Bystander was guilty of assaulting a federal narcotics agent and interfering with agent’s performance of official duties because bystander attempted to kick one of the agents, even though bystander had opportunity to inquire of the agents about the arrest of another party, but did not do so.
“[A]s a general rule, he has no right to intervene if in fact a lawful arrest is being made by a federal agent, whether the bystander knows it or not, because, like the person being arrested, he is subject to [other caselaw] and to a great degree takes a chance in assisting another to resist arrest.” |
| Amaya v. U.S., 247 F.2d 947 (9th Cir. 1957) | Defendants, suspected to be aliens by an immigration officer, were found guilty of who 18 U.S.C.A. § 111, when immigration officer entered a public café and commenced asking persons therein suspected to be aliens as to their place of birth. The officer was struck by the first defendant while questioning the man, who was edging toward the front door. As the officer attempted to handcuff the first defendant, a co-defendant jumped the officer and took his gun. |
| U.S. v. Cho Po Sun, 409 F.2d 489 (2d Cir. 1969) | Two immigration officers, employed to assist in obtaining compliance with immigration laws, were assaulted by the defendant when they went into the kitchen of a restaurant where six Asian employees were present and asked the defendant questions as to his citizenship status.
*Note: The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the officers had no right to interrogate him, since he was neither an alien nor a person reasonably believed to be an alien whom they were authorized by 8 U.S.C.A. § 1357 to interrogate. |
| United States v. Cain, 413 F. Supp. 2d 197 (W.D.N.Y. 2006)
|
U.S. Marshals were arguably engaged in the performance of official duties when they were allegedly assaulted while assisting state officers in executing a state arrest warrant, acting pursuant to a MOU where state and federal officers worked together in apprehending persons with outstanding state and federal bench warrants. |
I feel strongly that the aggressive pursuit and removal of immigrants, in the manner of the current administration, is morally wrong and inhumane. It is driven by racism and xenophobia, and has at its base some of the ugliest of human beliefs. In Stand, Fight, Resist I wrote:
Libraries are powerful forces for good. Now is the time to muster our powers, to stand brave against the people who seek to limit and reduce our rights and our understanding of the world….This country, and the people in it, deserve a better world than the one that is currently being forced upon them. Use your power as pillars of your communities, as the guardians of knowledge and the providers of help, use that power now to resist the normalization of fascism and bigotry, of hate and fear and greed. Stand for truth and knowledge, justice and equity for all. Stand for facts, and stand for those who are most at risk. Stand against the horrorshow revealing itself to us, and fight with those who are determined to create equity among people, justice in the face of the unjust, and love out of hate.
I’m not sure how to say it better than that. Libraries must stand for justice and freedom for all people, for the best parts of our republic. We need to continue to fight on the information front, to show that immigrants who come to this country bring with them the strength that will make the US better than it is now.
Concretely, libraries need a clear and direct set of policies that outline their response to an immigration enforcement action. We need to have those in place now, as quickly as possible. There needs to be a clear set of directives for your staff, meetings to gather feedback and to clarify your local threat model (libraries on borders will have very different sets of threats than non-border libraries), and connections made with local civic and non-profit groups that are already active in this space. You need to have meetings with your Mayor, City Council, and local representatives about this issue. We need to be ready to protect our communities.
As bad as things are in this moment, they are going to get much, much worse. The administration has a stated goal of the removal of all undocumented immigrants in the US, which amounts to over 10 million people. There is no way to do this humanely, or with respect for human dignity and agency. It is the equivalent of rounding up, processing, and deporting every single person in New York City and Chicago, combined. It is easy on the Internet to fall into Godwin’s Law, and until recently one could expect that comparison of a current practice to the Nazi Party was, in fact, somewhat hyperbolic. Rounding up 11 million people, placing them into “detention centers” and attempting to remove them from our society…I’m not sure there are comparisons other than the Nazis that make any sense of it.
We are better when we embrace differences, when the marketplace of ideas is a bustling mercado and souq. None of us is as smart as all of us, and we are going to need all of us if we are to find that future where the United States is still a shining city upon the hill. That light is dimmed now, and sputtering, but it isn’t dark just yet. Libraries are partial keepers of this flame, and we need to be prepared to protect the people in our communities when they are threatened, however and whenever we can.
Disney Research has recently revealed research into tech that could power a mobile phone as soon as it enters a room.
They call it “Quasistatic Cavity Resonance for Ubiquitous Wireless Power Transfer,” which is a long way of saying we are on our way to cutting our need for power cords.
