Blue Mass Group

At a time when rolling back federal surveillance programs seems particularly challenging, we can still have a major effect here at the state level. Recently, Attorney-General Martha Coakley proposed a new bill that would actually loosen Massachusetts’ wiretapping laws – by a lot. The bill, called “An Act Updating The Wire Interception Law” (S. 654 / H. 3261), is coming up for a hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Massachusetts legislature on July 9, along with a stack of other privacy-related legislation that might actually be good.

The wiretapping bill’s major provisions:

1) Remove the requirement that an electronic wiretapping warrant be connected with organized crime, or indeed with serious crimes more generally. Potentially, even minor crimes like marijuana possession could become eligible for wiretapping by state authorities.

2) Double the length of an authorized wiretap, from 15 to 30 days.

3) Legalize mass interception of communications at telecommunications switching stations, rather than through individual wiretaps on individual phone numbers.

The mass interception provisions in this bill are new, and are especially worrying. Both the Fourth Amendment and our own state constitution’s Article XIV forbid ‘general warrants’ that tap entire streams of personal information without specifying ahead of time what’s being searched for and whose records are being searched. So my group Digital Fourth, in coalition with the ACLU of Massachusetts, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has launched a petition to oppose this bill.

I’d be very grateful to you as a member of the BMG community, if you’d sign it and tell your friends! Don’t be one of those Democrats who opposes this stuff only when the other side does it!

UPDATE (by David): I received the following response to this post from the Attorney General’s office today.  I have reprinted it in its entirety.

The above blog post includes inaccuracies that are highly misleading about the changes our office has proposed to the currently outdated Massachusetts wiretap law. Updating the wiretap law is a critical tool to combatting gang violence, gun violence, human trafficking, and many other violent crimes that undermine public safety in our communities. And equally important to what it does, is what it does not do. One thing it does not do is alter in any way the many safeguards already put in place under the current wiretap statute to protect against abuse.

I will explain some of the benefits of this new law further below, but first want to correct some of the inaccuracies in this blog post:

Well, well, well, it turns out that Howie Carr, the gatekeeper of morality who daily impugns the motives of everyone from the poor to the politicians, is a business partner with serial killer John Martorano.

Martorano testified (Globe subscription maybe required) yesterday that he and Carr split a $110,000 advance for the book Carr wrote regarding Martorano’s murderous acts. In addition Martorano has so far received $20,000 in royalties on the sale of the book. So every time Howie promotes the book on WRKO or in his Herald column (which he did today), it helps line the pockets of this monster. I intended to buy the book at some time, but now that I know some of my money will be going to this creep (I mean Martorano in this case), I won’t be buying it.

Of course it is no surprise that Carr is a two-face hypocrite, but entering into a business arrangement to enrich a cold-blooded killer! And shame on Entercom and the Boston Herald for allowing their companies to be promotional platforms for one of the devil’s henchmen.

First, the good news, which is being widely hailed by voting rights groups: today the Supreme Court invalidated Arizona’s rule requiring documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.  The Court held that the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which requires only a statement made under penalty of perjury that the registrant is a citizen, preempts Arizona’s law that purported to require additional proof of citizenship.  The decision was 7-2, with Justice Scalia writing for the majority; Justices Thomas and Alito dissented.  As an example of how voting rights groups are reacting, here’s the statement from the Brennan Center:

Voters scored a huge victory today. We applaud the Supreme Court for confirming Congress’s power to protect the right to vote in federal elections. Congress recognized that voter registration must be made more accessible when it passed the National Voter Registration Act, and the Court also affirmed that today.

All true, and all well and good.  Similarly, Ari Berman at The Nation wrote that “[t]he ruling is a major victory for voting rights and an affirmation of the NVRA, which has helped 141 million Americans register to vote and turned twenty last month.”  And over at Slate, Emily Bazelon smugly declares that “[a]t his next Federalist Society event, Scalia will have some explaining to do.”

Or not.  Here’s what worries me: in addition to telling Arizona that it could not require proof of citizenship in the way it tried to do (and, indeed, the question whether Arizona’s law is preempted is very easy – of course it was), Scalia’s opinion also lays out a roadmap for an alternative way for Arizona – or any other state – to do exactly the same thing.  

Just stumbled upon this at Daily Kos. State Senator Karen Spilka, who’s in the race to succeed Ed Markey in Congress should he win next Tuesday, has introduced legislation to protect citizens’ data:

Long before Massachusetts was a high-tech leader, we led the nation in developing laws to safeguard our liberty. Today, we must lead again — to make sure privacy protections keep pace with technology and renew our freedoms in the digital age.

Just recently, the American people have been given a wake-up call that our privacy is not as secure as we think it is.

* * *

Most Americans are shocked to learn that, because of significant gaps in the law, law enforcement can quietly look at all of our phone records, our old emails, and the documents we store online — without ever getting a search warrant or even notifying the person whose records have been inspected.

This is chilling. That’s why, in the Massachusetts Senate, I have filed legislation known as the Electronic Privacy Act to protect our privacy and guarantee that our system of checks and balances applies to our digital lives.

As Senator Spilka explains:

The Electronic Privacy Act would make our statutes say what most of us assumed they said already — that our phone and Internet records are private, unless police have probable cause to believe we’re involved in criminal activity or the information is needed to protect lives in an emergency. This simple standard has worked for search warrants for hundreds of years. Now we must update it to apply in an era when many of our “papers and effects,” which the constitution aims to protect, are kept at our service providers’ homes instead of our own.

Of course, even if if the proposal makes it through our legislature and is signed into law, there are limits to how much a state law can protect against intrusion by federal “national security” officials. But it’s a step in the right direction.

I think Don Berwick is the first to officially jump into the 2014 MA-Gov race.  And I’m glad he’s in: he’s very smart, and he knows a lot about health care.  Plus, he was unconfirmable as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (he served in that capacity under a presidential recess appointment) because the GOP would have filibustered him – that, surely, is a badge of honor in Massachusetts that will set him up nicely as a guy who stands for everything that Washington Republicans hate.  Full announcement is on the flip (email, no link).

To the rest of the potential candidates: come on in, the water’s fine!

This morning, the Senate President, the Senate Chairs of the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities and the Senate Ways and Means Committee announced in a press conference at the State House a “welfare reform” bill that will add more humiliation to being poor, restrict exemptions to the work requirement while spending millions of taxpayer dollars on photo IDs for EBT cards that serves no legitimate public purpose.  At the same time, the bill takes only limited steps to help poor families learn skills or build assets that will lead to an improved standard of living, the only fair and proven way to lift people out of poverty and reduce taxpayer expenditure.

Progressive advocacy groups from across the state will undoubtedly be speaking out against several of the bill’s most onerous provisions as well as against the process by which the bill was brought to the Senate.

This appears to be just the latest in a series of assaults on the poor here in Massachusetts.

Laughably called An Act to Foster Economic Independence, the bill requires welfare recipients to:

• Prove they are actively seeking a job before getting any cash assistance
• Secure a Photo ID EBT card that must be checked by store owner
• Not be out of state more than 30 days (currently 60) before losing benefits

In addition, it:

• Limits work exemptions to those individuals meeting SSI standards (very onerous)
• Limits work exemption for pregnant women to one month before birth (currently up to 4 months)
• Reduces benefit extension from 6 months to 3 months
• Raises age of work requirement from 60 to 66

My question – what problem are we solving??

We know that the right typically hypes the amount of fraud – or the number of people who are sitting on their asses enjoying the largess of the government.  Whoa – want to have a cushy life – live on welfare and food stamps!!

But why do we have democrats doing this?

In the last few state-wide elections, the most progressive candidate won.   What does that tell us about where our policy and our priorities need to be?

More to come in another post on the hideous process used to move this bill so rapidly.

Great letter in CapeCodToday, about Bloomberg’s global warming preparation/adaptation plan for NYC, but also about the fate of Cape Cod.

Of course it’s not just a NYC problem. 39% of all Americans, 123 million of us, live in coastal communities. 50% of our nation’s shoreline — 11,200 miles of it — are highly vulnerable to sea level rise. NOAA warns that extra water is a threat in storms, flooding previously safe areas.

via Clean energy now or chaos | CapeCodToday.Com.

On the same page is Menino’s adaptation plan for Boston, due next year.

I’m baffled as to how climate has not been an issue in the Senate campaign. We’re the Bay State. There’s going to be a lot more Bay and a lot less State over the next 100 years. Might be of some concern to someone.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, because campaign “coverage” generally means that our professional media cover what the campaigns say about themselves and each other. Our media generally doesn’t use its power to fully cover an issue of grave concern and push it into a campaign.

I can think of a few reasons why climate hasn’t gotten more oxygen, none of which are adequate:

• Rep. Markey has such an advantage on this issue that it’s just not even a fair fight. So? Should there not be competition of ideas?
• Gomez has come out as a “Green Republican”, so, you know, it’s off the table somehow. See above. If Gomez wants the Green mantle, let him fight for it, not simply assert it.
• The campaigns themselves have not decided to make it central, instead making guns, choice, and … um … whatever Gomez talks about. Well, who cares what the campaigns say? Is our electoral discourse to be left up to message-hacks and professional propagandists? Are we accountable to them, or the other way around?

(Oh, but I slay myself. Norman Rockwell and Frank Capra are long dead, the cute nostalgic Hummel figurines of democracy. Mr. Potter won and won big; we live in his world.)

Again, the media can drive a public interest agenda when they want.
Spying and privacy have gotten plenty of attention and forced themselves into the political discussion party because media types are very close to it. I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with that in this particular case — just demonstrating that they can do it when they want.

A savage servility slides by on grease.

After looking at recent polling data, fundraising data and some fundamentals — including the higher unpredictability of a special election, Nate Silver concludes that Gomez’s chances for an upset are “slim.”

Although some news accounts had been describing the race as a tossup until recently, Mr. Gomez’s odds of prevailing are remote — probably no more than 10 percent even under optimistic assumptions for his campaign.

And that 10% is largely because this is a special election; in a regular election, the odds would be around 5%, he said. Just another example of why GOTV is so important in this one, even moreso than a general election.

Fundamentals alone “would now project Mr. Markey to win the contest by roughly 12 percentage points,” Silver writes. That same model “would have seen the 2010 race as a tossup by this point in the campaign on the basis of Mr. Brown’s superior fund-raising totals and the national political environment.”

You can read Silver’s full post here.

Cam Kerry and John Markey kick off Broookline canvass June 13, 2013

I joined Ed Markey’s brother (and my former law partner) today to kick off Markey for Senate canvasses in Brookline and Concord.  With 10 days until the June 25 election, I wanted to do my part to make sure the Democratic grassroots effort is in full gear.

This race matters to me a great deal — because my brother held seat until he joined the Obama Administration, because I know and have worked with Ed Markey, because it will have a real impact on the debates in Washington.

Ed Markey has fought many of the same battles as John Kerry.  He will pick right up where John left off.

In 2010, the two of them led the fight for energy and climate change legislation.  As I work in Washington for consumer privacy Ed is the first person I turn to because he has fought so consistently and forcefully for consumers.   He is also a key champion of the innovation economy. Ed will be able to hit the ground running in the Senate with the same energy and creativity.

The choice in this race is clear.  On a woman’s right to choose, on gun safety, on keeping an eye on Wall Street, there is a real difference.  We cannot to afford to lose one vote in the Senate.   One vote can make a difference on Supreme Court nominations and the confirmation of key appointees.  On the next round of budget battles.  With 39 straight months of job growth now, we cannot afford to go backwards or balance the budget of the middle class or the most vulnerable.

The people of Massachusetts elected John Kerry to the Senate five times because these issues matter to them.  I’m working to elect Ed Markey because he will carry on what the voters elected my brother to do.

Multiple choice … private equity … jobs overseas … good packaging but vague positions … the guy could be Mitt Romney’s fifth son!

There is one key vote he can’t duck.  That’s the vote he would cast to make Mitch McConnell the Majority Leader of the Senate, and along with him, to put Republicans in charge of Senate committees (like climate-change-denier James Imhofe on the committee that deals with the environment).

I have seen what BMGers can do to mobilize the grass roots grass roots going back to 2006. 10 day to go — time to do it again, for Ed Markey.

I’d take this with a grain or two of salt, given UNH’s track record in recent elections.  Nonetheless, it’s hard to be disappointed in the Globe’s new poll showing Ed Markey leading Gabriel Gomez 54-41.  The whole poll is available at this link.

The poll shows very few undecided voters – only 4%.  It also shows Gomez leading among unenrolled voters by only 9% – far short of what he needs to have any kind of a shot at winning.

It seems clear that there is going to be no late-breaking surprise surge in this race the way there was in 2010.  If Gomez pulls out a win, it will be because he and his supporters dramatically outwork Team Markey between now and June 25.

So, your job is to be sure that doesn’t happen.

I am suspending virtually all of my field campaign activities from June 20-25, and offering my field team (by far the largest in the Boston mayoral race) staff and office locations to the GOTV effort for Congressman Markey. Over 1000 of our volunteers, as well as our staff, will be pressed into service in the critical final days of his campaign. In addition to the human capital, I have offered the Markey campaign use of our field offices in Beacon Hill, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, South Boston, Mattapan, Hyde Park and East Boston.

This is important. I want our canvassers, phone bankers, data people and other staff out there working day and night on the GOTV effort to send Ed Markey to the United States Senate. He is a national leader on climate change, health care, equity and every other issue important to Democrats, and will serve us well in the Senate. I was proud to be the leader in the Dorchester effort in recent elections. I was the first Boston elected official to join the Elizabeth Warren campaign. Every member of our team in Boston was instrumental in sending her to the Senate and returning Barack Obama to the Oval Office. It is important that we continue to support both of them, and our shared agenda, by sending Ed Markey to the Senate to work alongside them. As he has in many races over the last 20 years, Mayor Menino has similarly directed his people to join the Markey effort, and we are happy to join them. I urge all other candidates to do the same. We’re all Democrats.

-Marty Walsh

Ed Markey is out-fundraising Gabriel Gomez by a substantial margin. Why does this matter? Besides the obvious (the Markey campaign can spend more), Gomez’s fundraising ability is a key indicator of whether he’s got a chance to pull off another GOP special election upset, according to a Nate Silver post last month:

 …if there is one thing to watch in the next couple of weeks, it will be how much financial support he receives from rank-and-file Republicans. In 2010, Mr. Brown’s fund-raising was spectacular after he became the Republican nominee. He had raised about $15 million in individual contributions by the special election date, roughly double Ms. Coakley’s $7.3 million. That was a sign that something special was going on.

Well, it looks like nothing special is going on in this race. Between April 11 and June 5, the Markey campaign took in $3.1 million while Gabriel Gomez’s campaign raised $2.1 million (including, it appear, $300K Gomez loaned his campaign), CQ Roll Call posted today.