The Washington Post - 13.03.2020

friday, march 13 , 2020. the washington post eZ re A

long as the family member

provides s ervices at a fair market

value.

A relationship between Omar

and Mynett was publicly alleged

in August, when Mynett’s t hen-

wife, B eth Mynett, filed f or

divorce a nd accused h er husband

and O mar of h aving an affair. In

response, T im Mynett f iled his

own c ourt document d enying

that he t old h is wife he was in love

with Omar a nd that he w as

ending his m arriage to be with

the c ongresswoman.

In O ctober, Omar f iled for

divorce from Ahmed Hirsi, citing

an “irretrievable breakdown” i n

the m arriage. That d ivorce was

finalized i n November.

According to Beth Mynett’s

divorce f iling, T im Mynett i s a

founder of E Street Group.

— Associated Press

who w orked for h er, months a fter

the two w ere accused o f having an

affair, which she d enied.

A marriage license filed in t he

District shows Omar (D-Minn.)

married political consultant Tim

Mynett o n Wednesday. Omar

announced her new marriage

Wednesday night o n Instagram,

with a photo of her and a bearded

man smiling and displaying

wedding rings. “Got married!

From partners i n politics to life

partners, so blessed,” t he p ost

says, w ithout i dentifying Mynett

by name.

Filings with the Federal

Election Commission show

Omar’s c ampaign paid Tim

Mynett o r his firm nearly

$600,000 since July 2 018. Though

it may raise eyebrows, family

members, including spouses, c an

be on t he campaign payroll as

deliver n ational defense

information t o aid a foreign

government, t he delivery of t hat

information, and t he willful

retention o f defense information.

She was arrested Feb. 27 at a U.S.

military facility in Irbil, Iraq,

where s he w orked, and is b eing

held pending an April 1 detention

hearing, according to court

filings.

Thompson p assed the

information t o a man i n whom

she h ad a romantic interest, t he

government said.

— Spencer S. Hsu

MiNNesOtA

Rep. Omar marries

political consultant

U.S. R ep. Ilhan O mar h as

married a political c onsultant

NAtiONAL seCURitY

Pentagon linguist

pleads not guilty

A Pentagon contract linguist

assigned to a U. S. Special

Operations task f orce i n Iraq

pleaded not g uilty Thursday to

espionage charges.

U.S. o fficials have accused

Mariam Ta ha T hompson, 61,

formerly of R ochester, Minn., of

turning over the n ames o f

informants to a Lebanese m an

with apparent ties t o the m ilitant

group Hezbollah.

She entered a not guilty plea

through h er attorney, D avid

Benowitz, b efore U.S. District

Judge John D. B ates in the

District o f Columbia.

Thompson w as i ndicted March

5 on three counts of conspiring to

Digest

david crane/associated Press

An umbrella-toting pedestrian walks past the art museum the Broad in Los Angeles on Thursday. Rain fell heavily on parts of Southern

California on Thursday as a low-pressure system drew subtropical moisture into the region. This came after flooding rains deluged much of

Southern California earlier in the week, helping fill rainfall deficits in some areas after an abnormally dry winter.

Politics & the Nation

BY ELLEN NAKASHIMA

Congress is on the verge of ap-
proving several surveillance policy
changes that attempt to address
shortcomings identified by the
Justice D epartment inspector gen-
eral in his scathing report on the
FBI’s handling of a wiretap appli-
cation for a former Trump cam-
paign a dviser.
“The legislation begins to ad-
dress the problems that we saw
with the FBI’s illegal surveillance
of Trump campaign associate Cart-
er Page,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-
Ohio), who worked with Demo-
crats on the measures approved as
part of a much larger reform pack-
age passed Wednesday by the
House.
The measures are not perfect,
but they are “an improvement”
over the status quo, said Jordan, a
vocal Trump ally who has blasted
the FBI for its surveillance of Page
that began after he left the cam-
paign in late 2016 and continued
into the summer of 2017. The wire-
tap, part of a counterintelligence
investigation into Russian con-
tacts with Trump associates, never
resulted in a criminal case. The
inspector general did not call the
surveillance i llegal, but the Justice
Department acknowledged that
the government lacked probable
cause in at least two of the Page
FISA applications.
The current law, known as the
USA Freedom Act, expires Sunday,
but the Senate is expected to ap-
prove t he bill soon after.
The changes are a step toward
expanding constitutional protec-
tions for U.S. citizens who are tar-
gets of government surveillance in
national security investigations,
say analysts and lawmakers, but
leave room for improvement.
“They are modest but useful re-
forms, helpful in fixing the prob-
lems identified by Inspector Gen-
eral [Michael] Horowitz but with-
out unduly hamstringing foreign
intelligence investigations,” said
Robert Chesney, a law professor at
the University of Te xas at A ustin.
The changes relate to the rules
the government must follow i n ob-
taining court permission t o secret-
ly wiretap or search a suspect’s
property in espionage and terror-
ism investigations. The process is
governed by the Foreign Intelli-
gence Surveillance Act (FISA) and
overseen b y the FISA court.
Page called the measures “a
complete c op-out” a nd said the b ill
“doesn’t address any of the prob-
lems we learned about.”
One problem highlighted in
Horowitz’s December report was
that the FBI failed to provide the
Justice Department attorney vet-
ting the application for probable
cause that Page was an agent of
Russia — the legal standard — with
information that might have un-
dermined that suspicion. For in-
stance, the FBI agent knew that
Page h ad been a n occasional “oper-
ational contact” f or the CIA.
As o ne way to address that issue,
the bill includes a new require-

BY DREW HARWELL

The American Civil Liberties

Union sued federal immigration

and transportation agencies

Thursday, demanding records re-

lated to the government’s use of

facial-recognition technology that

the group said could pose “grave

risks to privacy.”

The Freedom of Information

Act lawsuit asks a federal court to

demand the agencies — the De-

partment of Homeland Security,

Customs and Border Protection,

the Transportation Security Ad-

ministration, and Immigration

and Customs Enforcement —

hand over records related to the

face-scanning software’s expand-

ing role in U.S. airports and along

the b order.

ACLU attorneys wrote that the

technology raises “profound civil-

liberties concerns” and “can en-

able undetectable, persistent gov-

ernment surveillance on a mas-

sive scale.”

CBP, ICE and TSA said they do

not comment on pending litiga-

tion. DHS did not immediately

respond t o requests for c omment.

The lawsuit could shed new

light o n a largely o paque t echnolo-

gy deployed by security officials

nationwide. ACLU attorneys are

seeking c ommunications between

the agencies and airlines, as well

as details on any internal audits

and g uidelines governing its use.

Facial-recognition technology

is used at more than 20 airports

nationwide to verify travelers’

identification when flying out of

the country. U.S. citizens can opt

out o f the s cans, which o fficials say

help speed up boarding at busy

gates. Delta Air Lines also allows

travelers to check their bags by

submitting to a facial scan.

But privacy advocates have ar-

gued the t echnology c ould further

empower officials to trace Ameri-

cans en masse. ICE, the FBI, local

police forces and other agencies

have used the software to scan

through driver’s l icense databases

for c riminal suspects.

In December, DHS dropped a

proposal t hat would have r equired

all citizens to have their faces

scanned when entering or leaving

the c ountry.

But officials have shown inter-

est in continuing to expand the

technology’s use. At a congressio-

nal hearing last summer, a top

CBP official said the agency’s fa-

cial-recognition and biometric se-

curity systems were “the envy of

the w orld.”

[email protected]

Agencies sued for data on use of facial recognition

ment that FBI agents certify to the

court that they have told the Jus-

tice Department “all information

that might reasonably call into

question the accuracy of the [wire-

tap] application.”

The measure “could be signifi-

cant if agents think that the FBI,

Justice Department and the court

will enforce the certification,” s aid

James A. Baker, a former FBI gen-

eral counsel who reviewed the first

Page a pplication. “The court could

conduct an inquiry. It would de-

pend on how they implement it —

that’s the bottom line.”

Another change would expand

the role of a court-appointed spe-

cial advocate to include cases that

present “exceptional” concerns

about a citizen’s First Amendment

rights. But there are likely to be few

such cases, analysts said.

More significant, say libertari-

ans on the right and privacy advo-

cates on the left, is what is not in

the bill. One provision they would

have liked to have seen would have

mandated that the defendant or

their attorney — with a security

clearance — be able to review the

application materials if cases are

prosecuted. Some said the job

could also be given to a special

advocate, also called an amicus.

Although FISA allows a judge to

disclose such material to the de-

fendant, the government has suc-

cessfully opposed disclosure in ev-

ery case in which the issue has

arisen. In one instance where a

judge allowed disclosure, an ap-

peals c ourt reversed t he decision.

“It’s important that the defen-

dant or his attorney be given an

opportunity to identify errors and

omissions in applications and to

challenge unlawful surveillance,”

said Neema Singh Guliani, senior

legislative counsel with the A CLU.

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-

Ohio), Freedom Caucus policy

chairman, agreed.

“On the front end of the process,

the amicus has the c hance to be an

advocate,” s aid Davidson, who v ot-

ed against the bill. “Here you

would h ave someone w orking pre-

emptively to prevent any harm be-

ing done to a U.S. citizen.”

Nicholas Lewin, a former feder-

al terrorism prosecutor, said the

issue was a difficult one “as there

are fundamental values on both

sides of the scale — liberty and

security.”

Baker, a former Justice Depart-

ment attorney who handled FISA

applications, cautioned that allow-

ing such disclosure would have “a

substantial negative impact” on

the usefulness of FISA as a coun-

terintelligence tool and would

pose a “greater national security

risk” t o the nation.

“Foreign partners and sensitive

human sources located overseas

would be quite reticent to either

share information with the FBI or

allow information they generated

to be used i n FISA applications,” h e

said, “because they would be quite

concerned about the prospect that

some defense attorney down the

road could see that information.”

Horowitz is conducting a wide-

ranging review of FISA applica-

tions in the wake of the Page re-

port. The results will show wheth-

er the problems unearthed in

Page’s case are systemic or not. If

they are, Congress will be under

pressure t o bolster its measures.

[email protected]

Federal surveillance

law changes are

modest, experts say

Pending bill addresses

issues uncovered in IG

report on Page wiretap

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