theintercept--2020-04-03--Zoom’s Encryption Is “Not Suited for Secrets” and Has Surprising Links To China, Researchers Discove

Zoom’s Encryption Is “Not Suited for Secrets” and Has Surprising Links To China, Researchers Discover

the increasingly popular video conferencing service , are encrypted using an algorithm with serious , well-known weaknesses , and sometimes using keys issued by servers in China , even when meeting participants are all in North America , according to researchers at the University of Toronto .
The researchers also found that Zoom protects video and audio content using a home-grown encryption scheme , that there is a vulnerability in Zoom ’ s “ waiting room ” feature , and that Zoom appears to have at least 700 employees in China spread across three subsidiaries .
They conclude , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Citizen Lab — widely followed in information security circles — that Zoom ’ s service is “ not suited for secrets ” and that it may be legally obligated to disclose encryption keys to Chinese authorities and “ responsive to pressure ” from them .
Zoom could not be reached for comment .
Earlier this week , The Intercept reported that Zoom was misleading in its claim to support end-to-end encryption , in which no one but participants can decrypt a conversation .
Zoom ’ s Chief Product Officer Oded Gal later wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on behalf of the company “ for the confusion we have caused by incorrectly suggesting that Zoom meetings were capable of using end-to-end encryption.
” The post went on to detail what encryption the company does use .
Based on a reading of that blog post and Citizen Lab ’ s research , here is how Zoom meetings appear to work : When you start a Zoom meeting , the Zoom software running your device fetches a key with which to encrypt audio and video .
This key comes from Zoom ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world .
Specifically , it comes from a type of server known as a “ key management system , ” which generates encryption keys and distributes them to meeting participants .
Each user gets the same , shared key as they join the meeting .
It is transmitted to the Zoom software on their devices from the key management system using yet another encryption system , TLS , the same technology used in the “ https ” protocol that protects websites .
Depending on how the meeting is set up , some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ connectors ” may also get a copy of this key .
For example , if someone calls in on the phone , they ’ re actually calling a “ Zoom Telephony Connector ” server , which gets sent a copy of the key .
Some of the key management systems — 5 out of 73 , in a Citizen Lab scan — seem to be located in China , with the rest in the United States .
Interestingly , the Chinese servers are at least sometimes used for Zoom chats that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Citizen Lab researchers , Bill Marczak and John Scott-Railton , live in the United States and Canada .
During a test call between the two , the shared meeting encryption key “ was sent to one of the participants over TLS from a Zoom server apparently located in Beijing , ” according to the report .
The report points out that Zoom may be legally obligated to share encryption keys with Chinese authorities if the keys are generated on a key management server hosted in China .
If the Chinese authorities or any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key wants to spy on a Zoom meeting , they also need to either monitor the internet access of a participant in the meeting , or monitor the network inside the Zoom cloud .
Once they collect the encrypted meeting traffic , they can use the key to decrypt it and recover the video and audio .
Citizen Lab flagged as worrisome not only the system used to distribute Zoom encryption keys but also the keys themselves and the way they are used to encrypt data .
Zoom ’ s keys conform to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or AES .
A security white paper from the company claims that Zoom meetings are protected using 256-bit AES keys , but the Citizen Lab researchers confirmed the keys in use are actually only 128-bit .
Such keys are still considered secure today , but over the last decade many companies have been moving to 256-bit keys instead .
Furthermore , Zoom encrypts and decrypts with AES using an algorithm called Electronic Codebook ( ECB ) mode , “ which is well-understood to be a bad idea , because this mode of encryption @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to the Citizen Lab researchers .
In fact , ECB is considered the worst of AES ’ s available modes .
Here ’ s why : It should be impossible to tell the difference between properly encrypted data and completely random data , such as static on a radio , but ECB mode fails to do this .
If there ’ s a pattern in the unencrypted data , the same pattern shows up in the encrypted data .
This Wikipedia page has a useful illustration to visualize this : Once it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , video and audio data is distributed to all participants in a meeting through a Zoom Multimedia Router server .
For most users , this server runs in Zoom ’ s cloud , but customers can choose to host this part on-premises .
In this case , Zoom will generate , and thus have access to , the AES key that encrypts the meeting , but shouldn ’ t have access to the meeting content itself , so long as none of the aforementioned “ connector ” servers ( for phone calls and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meeting .
( In its blog post , Zoom said self-hosting customers will eventually be able to manage their own encryption keys . )
Meeting hosts can set their meetings to have virtual “ waiting rooms ” , making it so that users do not directly enter the meeting when they log on with Zoom but instead must wait to be invited in by a participant .
The Citizen Lab researchers discovered a security vulnerability with this feature while conducting their encryption analysis .
They said in their report that they have disclosed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we are not currently providing public information about the issue to prevent it from being abused.
” In the meantime , the researchers advised Zoom users who desire confidentiality to avoid using waiting rooms and instead set passwords on meetings .
The newly uncovered flaws in Zoom ’ s encryption may be troubling for many of the company ’ s customers .
Since the coronavirus outbreak started , Zoom ’ s customer base has surged from 10 million users to 200 million , including “ over 90,000 schools across 20 countries , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CEO Eric Yuan .
The U.S. government recently spent $ 1.3 million on Zoom contracts as part of its response to the pandemic , according to a review of government contracts by Forbes , and the U.K. government has been using Zoom for remote Cabinet meetings , according to a tweet from Prime Minister Boris Johnson .
Among those who should be concerned about Zoom ’ s security issues , according to Citizen Lab , are “ governments worried about espionage ” and “ businesses concerned about cybercrime and industrial espionage.
” Despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ failures , Yuan , Zoom ’ s CEO , appears to be listening to feedback and making a real effort to improve the service .
“ These new , mostly consumer use cases have helped us uncover unforeseen issues with our platform .
Dedicated journalists and security researchers have also helped to identify pre-existing ones , ” Yuan wrote in his blog post .
“ We appreciate the scrutiny and questions we have been getting – about how the service works , about our infrastructure and capacity , and about our privacy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fixing several security issues that were reported , the company removed an “ attendee attention tracker ” feature , a privacy nightmare which let meeting hosts track whether participants had the Zoom window — or some other app ’ s window — in focus during a meeting .
It has also invested in new training materials to teach users about the security features like setting passwords on meetings to avoid zoom-bombing , the phenomenon where people disrupt unprotected Zoom meetings .
Because Zoom ’ s service is not end-to-end encrypted , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and to all video and audio content traversing its cloud , it ’ s possible that governments around the world could be compelling the company to hand over copies of this data .
If Zoom does help governments spy on its users , the company claims that it hasn ’ t built tools specifically to help law enforcement : “ Zoom has never built a mechanism to decrypt live meetings for lawful intercept purposes , ” Gal , Zoom ’ s Chief Product Officer , wrote in the technical blog post , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our employees or others into meetings without being reflected in the participant list.
” Unlike some other tech companies , Zoom has never released any information about how many government requests for data it gets , and how many of those requests it complies with .
But after the human rights group Access Now ’ s open letter urging Zoom to publish a transparency report , Yuan also promised to do just that .
Within the next three months , the company will prepare “ a transparency report that details information related to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ content.
” Access Now has commended Zoom on committing to publish a transparency report .

Meetings on Zoom, the increasingly popular video conferencing service, are encrypted using an algorithm with serious, well-known weaknesses, and sometimes using keys issued by servers in China, even when meeting participants are all in North America, according to researchers at the University of Toronto.
The researchers also found that Zoom protects video and audio content using a home-grown encryption scheme, that there is a vulnerability in Zoom’s “waiting room” feature, and that Zoom appears to have at least 700 employees in China spread across three subsidiaries. They conclude, in a report for the university’s Citizen Lab — widely followed in information security circles — that Zoom’s service is “not suited for secrets” and that it may be legally obligated to disclose encryption keys to Chinese authorities and “responsive to pressure” from them.
Zoom could not be reached for comment.
Generating Encryption Keys in China
Earlier this week, The Intercept reported that Zoom was misleading users in its claim to support end-to-end encryption, in which no one but participants can decrypt a conversation. Zoom’s Chief Product Officer Oded Gal later wrote a blog post in which he apologized on behalf of the company “for the confusion we have caused by incorrectly suggesting that Zoom meetings were capable of using end-to-end encryption.” The post went on to detail what encryption the company does use.
Zoom
Based on a reading of that blog post and Citizen Lab’s research, here is how Zoom meetings appear to work:
When you start a Zoom meeting, the Zoom software running your device fetches a key with which to encrypt audio and video. This key comes from Zoom’s cloud infrastructure, which contains servers around the world. Specifically, it comes from a type of server known as a “key management system,” which generates encryption keys and distributes them to meeting participants. Each user gets the same, shared key as they join the meeting. It is transmitted to the Zoom software on their devices from the key management system using yet another encryption system, TLS, the same technology used in the “https” protocol that protects websites.
Depending on how the meeting is set up, some servers in Zoom’s cloud called “connectors” may also get a copy of this key. For example, if someone calls in on the phone, they’re actually calling a “Zoom Telephony Connector” server, which gets sent a copy of the key.
Some of the key management systems — 5 out of 73, in a Citizen Lab scan — seem to be located in China, with the rest in the United States. Interestingly, the Chinese servers are at least sometimes used for Zoom chats that have no nexus in China. The two Citizen Lab researchers who authored the report, Bill Marczak and John Scott-Railton, live in the United States and Canada. During a test call between the two, the shared meeting encryption key “was sent to one of the participants over TLS from a Zoom server apparently located in Beijing,” according to the report.
The report points out that Zoom may be legally obligated to share encryption keys with Chinese authorities if the keys are generated on a key management server hosted in China. If the Chinese authorities or any other hypothetical attacker with access to a key wants to spy on a Zoom meeting, they also need to either monitor the internet access of a participant in the meeting, or monitor the network inside the Zoom cloud. Once they collect the encrypted meeting traffic, they can use the key to decrypt it and recover the video and audio.
Encryption Flaws: The Worst of AES
Citizen Lab flagged as worrisome not only the system used to distribute Zoom encryption keys but also the keys themselves and the way they are used to encrypt data.
Zoom’s keys conform to the widely used Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES. A security white paper from the company claims that Zoom meetings are protected using 256-bit AES keys, but the Citizen Lab researchers confirmed the keys in use are actually only 128-bit. Such keys are still considered secure today, but over the last decade many companies have been moving to 256-bit keys instead.
Furthermore, Zoom encrypts and decrypts with AES using an algorithm called Electronic Codebook, or ECB, mode, “which is well-understood to be a bad idea, because this mode of encryption preserves patterns in the input,” according to the Citizen Lab researchers. In fact, ECB is considered the worst of AES’s available modes.
Here’s why: It should be impossible to tell the difference between properly encrypted data and completely random data, such as static on a radio, but ECB mode fails to do this. If there’s a pattern in the unencrypted data, the same pattern shows up in the encrypted data. This Wikipedia page has a useful illustration to visualize this:
Wikipedia
Once it has been poorly encrypted in this manner, video and audio data is distributed to all participants in a meeting through a Zoom Multimedia Router server. For most users, this server runs in Zoom’s cloud, but customers can choose to host this part on-premises. In this case, Zoom will generate, and thus have access to, the AES key that encrypts the meeting but shouldn’t have access to the meeting content itself, so long as none of the aforementioned “connector” servers (for phone calls and so forth) are participating in the meeting. (In its blog post, Zoom said self-hosting customers will eventually be able to manage their own encryption keys.)
Meeting hosts can set their meetings to have virtual “waiting rooms,” making it so that users do not directly enter the meeting when they log on with Zoom but instead must wait to be invited in by a participant. The Citizen Lab researchers discovered a security vulnerability with this feature while conducting their encryption analysis. They said in their report that they have disclosed the vulnerability to Zoom but that “we are not currently providing public information about the issue to prevent it from being abused.” In the meantime, the researchers advised Zoom users who desire confidentiality to avoid using waiting rooms and instead set passwords on meetings.
Corrective Moves By Zoom
The newly uncovered flaws in Zoom’s encryption may be troubling for many of the company’s customers. Since the coronavirus outbreak started, Zoom’s customer base has surged from 10 million users to 200 million, including “over 90,000 schools across 20 countries,” according to a blog post by Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. The U.S. government recently spent $1.3 million on Zoom contracts as part of its response to the pandemic, according to a review of government contracts by Forbes, and the U.K. government has been using Zoom for remote Cabinet meetings, according to a tweet from Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
This morning I chaired the first ever digital Cabinet. Our message to the public is: stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives. #StayHomeSaveLives pic.twitter.com/pgeRc3FHIp — Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 31, 2020
Among those who should be concerned about Zoom’s security issues, according to Citizen Lab, are “governments worried about espionage” and “businesses concerned about cybercrime and industrial espionage.”
Despite a recent flood of security and privacy failures, Yuan, Zoom’s CEO, appears to be listening to feedback and making a real effort to improve the service. “These new, mostly consumer use cases have helped us uncover unforeseen issues with our platform. Dedicated journalists and security researchers have also helped to identify pre-existing ones,” Yuan wrote in his blog post. “We appreciate the scrutiny and questions we have been getting — about how the service works, about our infrastructure and capacity, and about our privacy and security policies.”
Kudos to @zoom_us: https://t.co/nU84c5fPcE In *one* day:
? "Released a fix for the UNC link issue"
? "Released fixes for both Mac-related issues" Promise to:
? Engage in pen-tests
? Improve bug bounty program
? Enact feature freeze to focus on safety/privacy issues ??? pic.twitter.com/92JrOv5TVN — Patrick Wardle (@patrickwardle) April 2, 2020
In addition to promptly fixing several security issues that were reported, the company removed an “attendee attention tracker” feature, a privacy nightmare which let meeting hosts track whether participants had the Zoom window — or some other app’s window — in focus during a meeting. It has also invested in new training materials to teach users about the security features like setting passwords on meetings to avoid Zoom-bombing, the phenomenon where people disrupt unprotected Zoom meetings.
Because Zoom’s service is not end-to-end encrypted, and the company has access to all encryption keys and to all video and audio content traversing its cloud, it’s possible that governments around the world could be compelling the company to hand over copies of this data. If Zoom does help governments spy on its users, the company claims that it hasn’t built tools specifically to help law enforcement: “Zoom has never built a mechanism to decrypt live meetings for lawful intercept purposes,” Gal, Zoom’s chief product officer, wrote in the technical blog post, “nor do we have means to insert our employees or others into meetings without being reflected in the participant list.”
Unlike some other tech companies, Zoom has never released any information about how many government requests for data it gets, and how many of those requests it complies with. But after the human rights group Access Now’s open letter urging Zoom to publish a transparency report, Yuan also promised to do just that. Within the next three months, the company will prepare “a transparency report that details information related to requests for data, records, or content.” Access Now has commended Zoom on committing to publish a transparency report.


theintercept--2020-04-03--NYPD’s Aggressive Policing Risks Spreading the Coronavirus

police officers arrested three people in Brooklyn over the weekend after they allegedly “ failed to maintain social distancing , ” court documents reviewed by The Intercept show .
The three individuals appear to be among the first in the city to be arrested over the Covid-19 mitigation measures — despite city officials promising that those disregarding the lockdown would face fines at most .
Violating social distancing is not a crime per se , but each of the individuals arrested was charged with obstructing governmental administration , unlawful assembly , and disorderly conduct .
In a criminal complaint , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of about 25 people “ hanging out ” in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood last Friday night and that the defendants “ refused to leave the location and disperse ” despite the informant repeatedly asking them to do so .
But one of those arrested , a 37-year-old woman , disputed the facts described in the complaint , telling The Intercept that she had been in a parking lot with her boyfriend , who was also arrested , when she saw a group of people nearby dispersing into the street apparently after police ordered them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who asked not to be named because the charges against her remain pending , told The Intercept that a large group of officers , wearing no masks , approached her and her boyfriend and told them it was “ time to leave , ” then proceeded to grab her boyfriend before they could do so .
The interaction quickly escalated and officers pepper-sprayed two people as a crowd gathered to watch what was happening .
“ They actually brought the crowd inside that parking lot once they started bothering me , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the local precinct and then to central booking , where she shared a cell with two dozen other women for the next 36 hours .
Only women who already had masks when they were arrested were allowed to keep them .
There was no soap and the cell was dirty , but at one point an officer went around distributing drops of hand sanitizer to the women held there .
“ They got us all bunched up in one cell , ” the woman said .
“ Nobody gave us no tissues .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in there they are going to treat you like the scum of the earth.
” The woman was ultimately released on Sunday morning — but her employer has not allowed her back to work because of fears she was exposed to the virus while in detention .
Two weeks into the city ’ s lockdown , as the death toll continues to climb and New Yorkers come to terms with their newly restricted lives , it remains largely unclear whether and how people can be forced to comply with the social distancing measures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus .
Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that those gathering in groups of any size or failing to keep 6 feet away from each other could receive police warnings .
If they failed to disperse , or returned after police told them to leave , they could be fined $ 250 to $ 500 .
But as joggers continue to pack sidewalks and crowds gathered to watch a U.S. Navy hospital ship dock in the city , it has become clear that far too many New Yorkers are continuing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This week , New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo threatened to make social distancing guidelines “ a law ” while calling on the NYPD to step up enforcement .
“ The NYPD has to get more aggressive .
Period , ” Cuomo said , taking a shot at the city ’ s administration , which oversees the police department .
The NYPD and the Mayor ’ s Office did not respond to a request for comment .
But as officials threaten harsher enforcement , critics warn that police are not the answer .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ they fear will be doled out unequally across the city .
And with hundreds of officers testing positive for the virus , and thousands more out sick , community advocates worry that a more aggressive response would unnecessarily expose scores of people to the disease .
While a criminal charge for failure to socially distance does not yet exist , officers have a lot of discretion in their encounters with the public and can arrest people under vague charges like disorderly conduct , obstructing government administration , or resisting arrest .
That means @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a distance could quickly escalate into physical , and possibly violent , interactions .
“ It ’ s basically just setting up police encounters , and any police encounter does have some potential to escalate , ” said Jennvine Wong , a staff attorney at Legal Aid ’ s Cop Accountability Project .
“ One of the failings right now is the NYPD has not been communicating very clearly to the public what their role actually is in policing during this time .
A lot of people are not very clear.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lead to police escalation , they also warn of the serious health risks , to all involved , of close interactions between the public and police .
More than 1,400 NYPD employees , including more than 1,000 officers , have tested positive for Covid-19 as of Wednesday .
That puts the police department ’ s infection rate at at least 3.8 percent — far higher than the city ’ s overall 0.5 percent , and almost as high as Rikers Island , where the estimated infection rate stands at a staggering 5.1 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aid .
The high rate of infection within the NYPD is in part explained by officers ’ status as first responders , but it also raises questions about whether police officers should be interacting with the public , and each other , as closely as they have .
In a sign that the virus is taking a heavy toll on the department , more than 15 percent of the force called out sick this week .
Dermot Shea , the police commissioner , called that “ a good thing , ” saying “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the workplace working sick.
” But some have argued the city has done too little to protect officers — and thus anyone with whom officers interact .
In mid-March , the Police Benevolent Association , the largest police union in the city , filed a complaint accusing the department of failing to provide officers with enough protective equipment .
But as the virus continues to course through the department , many officers remain on patrol without masks or gloves , often standing closely to one another and approaching people without taking precautions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside the city limits , those officers also risk becoming vectors of the disease into their own families and communities .
“ The police are themselves both at risk of getting sick and at risk of spreading the disease to others , ” said Alex Vitale , who runs the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College .
“ Police need to practice social distancing.
” Vitale stressed the importance of New Yorkers avoiding close contact with each other , but called for community-based alternatives to pressure people to stay home .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city that are already overpoliced — usually poorer neighborhoods of color where many aren ’ t able to work from home or are forced to share tight quarters with several others .
“ Not everybody can stay home during the pandemic , ” said Josmar Trujillo , a community organizer in East Harlem .
“ Not everybody has a place to go home to and not everybody has a way to unwind or deal with the mental stress that comes with a lockdown.
” Trujillo feared that officials ’ criticism of New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into disproportionate enforcement against poor communities of color in particular , and noted for instance how officials have railed against “ parties ” and “ DJs ” and removed basketball hoops from the city ’ s courts .
As he resisted closing public schools for weeks , de Blasio cited , among other reasons , the fear that teenagers would roam unsupervised in the city .
Trujillo said that while police officers in wealthy neighborhoods might courteously educate New Yorkers to the need for distancing , he expects their approach to residents of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ So on top of the unprecedent problem that we ’ re dealing with , the police can come and escalate and make things worse , ” he said .
That compounds the perception by many in those communities that they have been left to fend for themselves in this crisis , he added .
“ The problem is not that we shouldn ’ t be trying to distance people , but it ’ s the fact that there has been almost a complete absence of government , ” Trujillo said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ window , the only semblance of government that I would see would be the NYPD .
You don ’ t see Health Department officials out here .
You don ’ t see people sanitizing public spaces like they did in China .
It ’ s a ghost town except for the police.
” With much of the city emptied of people , crime levels have sunk in New York as across much of the country .
But as advocates have raised the alarm about city jails that have become petri dishes for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moved to release hundreds of people detained at Rikers , police have continued to make arrests over low-level crimes that critics say pose an unnecessary risk of contagion .
A comparison of arrest and arraignment data from cases Legal Aid represented during the last two weeks of March last year and this year shows that while arrests are significantly down , nearly 34 percent of arraignments this year continued to be over nonviolent offenses , petty misdemeanors , and violations , many for drug possession .
That ’ s less than last year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still a significant amount of cases that , quite frankly , didn ’ t need to come through central booking and didn ’ t need to come through arraignment to begin with , ” said Wong , of Legal Aid .
On Sunday , the city released about 650 people from Rikers , bringing the total number of people there to under 5,000 for the first time in more than half a century .
But attorneys said they continued to see police make arrests they said were particularly questionable in the current circumstances @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stopped a man for playing loud music and then arrested him over a 10-year-old warrant for spitting .
In another case this week , a homeless man was arrested for allegedly possessing synthetic marijuana and held for 30 hours before being arraigned and released .
“ It ’ s pretty counterproductive to arrest somebody for that , because now you ’ re putting someone who is already vulnerable into a holding cell for hours and hours , and we have already heard stories about how unsanitary they are and how crowded it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for people to actually wash their hands , socially distance , and follow CDC guidelines , ” said Wong .
Each arrest also puts any emergency personnel involved , police and corrections officers , court staff , and other arrestees at risk , she added .
“ It ’ s very dangerous.
” In the midst of a mass public health emergency , police should be focused on meeting that emergency — not making matters worse , critics argue .
That should include putting in place measures to limit exposure during necessary interactions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strictly essential ones .
Several police departments have taken steps to do so , for instance by instructing officers to respond to certain calls by phone .
Meanwhile , district attorneys in cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco are declining to prosecute some low-level offenses .
But so far , New York has done neither — and police and prosecutors have pushed back against calls to release people from jail , prompting a rare public rebuke from Rikers ’ own chief medical officer .
“ They really think that if they let anyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up for ten seconds on broken windows policing , that there ’ s going to be rioting in the streets , ” said Vitale .
But the NYPD ’ s failure to adapt its policing to the crisis at hand puts the city ’ s public health in even greater danger , advocates say .
“ We want them to modify their protocols to reflect the fact that we are in the middle of a public health emergency , we are at the epicenter of this pandemic , ” said Wong .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already decided that it is not only in the community ’ s best interest , but also in the best interest of the individual officers to decrease instances of police encounters with civilians — because we don ’ t know who has it and who doesn ’ t .
”

New York City police officers arrested three people in Brooklyn over the weekend after they allegedly “failed to maintain social distancing,” court documents reviewed by The Intercept show. The three individuals appear to be among the first in the city to be arrested over the Covid-19 mitigation measures — despite city officials promising that those disregarding the lockdown would face fines at most. Violating social distancing is not a crime per se, but each of the individuals arrested was charged with obstructing governmental administration, unlawful assembly, and disorderly conduct.
In a criminal complaint, police claim an informant observed a group of about 25 people “hanging out” in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood last Friday night and that the defendants “refused to leave the location and disperse” despite the informant repeatedly asking them to do so. But one of those arrested, a 37-year-old woman, disputed the facts described in the complaint, telling The Intercept that she had been in a parking lot with her boyfriend, who was also arrested, when she saw a group of people nearby dispersing into the street apparently after police ordered them to do so.
The woman, who asked not to be named because the charges against her remain pending, told The Intercept that a large group of officers, wearing no masks, approached her and her boyfriend and told them it was “time to leave,” then proceeded to grab her boyfriend before they could do so. The interaction quickly escalated and officers pepper-sprayed two people as a crowd gathered to watch what was happening. “They actually brought the crowd inside that parking lot once they started bothering me,” she said.
The woman was taken to the local precinct and then to central booking, where she shared a cell with two dozen other women for the next 36 hours. Only women who already had masks when they were arrested were allowed to keep them. There was no soap and the cell was dirty, but at one point an officer went around distributing drops of hand sanitizer to the women held there.
“They got us all bunched up in one cell,” the woman said. “Nobody gave us no tissues. Regular jail stuff. Once you go in there they are going to treat you like the scum of the earth.”
The woman was ultimately released on Sunday morning — but her employer has not allowed her back to work because of fears she was exposed to the virus while in detention.
Two weeks into the city’s lockdown, as the death toll continues to climb and New Yorkers come to terms with their newly restricted lives, it remains largely unclear whether and how people can be forced to comply with the social distancing measures so essential to slowing the spread of the virus.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that those gathering in groups of any size or failing to keep 6 feet away from each other could receive police warnings. If they failed to disperse, or returned after police told them to leave, they could be fined $250 to $500. But as joggers continue to pack sidewalks and crowds gathered to watch a U.S. Navy hospital ship dock in the city, it has become clear that far too many New Yorkers are continuing to get too close to one another. This week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened to make social distancing guidelines “a law” while calling on the NYPD to step up enforcement. “The NYPD has to get more aggressive. Period,” Cuomo said, taking a shot at the city’s administration, which oversees the police department.
The NYPD and the Mayor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
But as officials threaten harsher enforcement, critics warn that police are not the answer. They caution against a heavy-handed response that they fear will be doled out unequally across the city. And with hundreds of officers testing positive for the virus, and thousands more out sick, community advocates worry that a more aggressive response would unnecessarily expose scores of people to the disease. While a criminal charge for failure to socially distance does not yet exist, officers have a lot of discretion in their encounters with the public and can arrest people under vague charges like disorderly conduct, obstructing government administration, or resisting arrest. That means that police interventions meant to keep people at a distance could quickly escalate into physical, and possibly violent, interactions.
“It’s basically just setting up police encounters, and any police encounter does have some potential to escalate,” said Jennvine Wong, a staff attorney at Legal Aid’s Cop Accountability Project. “One of the failings right now is the NYPD has not been communicating very clearly to the public what their role actually is in policing during this time. A lot of people are not very clear.”
Police Need To Practice Social Distancing
While advocates fear social distancing enforcement might lead to police escalation, they also warn of the serious health risks, to all involved, of close interactions between the public and police. More than 1,400 NYPD employees, including more than 1,000 officers, have tested positive for Covid-19 as of Wednesday. That puts the police department’s infection rate at at least 3.8 percent — far higher than the city’s overall 0.5 percent, and almost as high as Rikers Island, where the estimated infection rate stands at a staggering 5.1 percent, according to an analysis by Legal Aid.
The high rate of infection within the NYPD is in part explained by officers’ status as first responders, but it also raises questions about whether police officers should be interacting with the public, and each other, as closely as they have. In a sign that the virus is taking a heavy toll on the department, more than 15 percent of the force called out sick this week. Dermot Shea, the police commissioner, called that “a good thing,” saying “We don’t want anyone sick in the workplace working sick.”
But some have argued the city has done too little to protect officers — and thus anyone with whom officers interact. In mid-March, the Police Benevolent Association, the largest police union in the city, filed a complaint accusing the department of failing to provide officers with enough protective equipment. But as the virus continues to course through the department, many officers remain on patrol without masks or gloves, often standing closely to one another and approaching people without taking precautions. With nearly half the force living outside the city limits, those officers also risk becoming vectors of the disease into their own families and communities.
“The police are themselves both at risk of getting sick and at risk of spreading the disease to others,” said Alex Vitale, who runs the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College. “Police need to practice social distancing.”
Vitale stressed the importance of New Yorkers avoiding close contact with each other, but called for community-based alternatives to pressure people to stay home.
That is particularly important in parts of the city that are already overpoliced — usually poorer neighborhoods of color where many aren’t able to work from home or are forced to share tight quarters with several others. “Not everybody can stay home during the pandemic,” said Josmar Trujillo, a community organizer in East Harlem. “Not everybody has a place to go home to and not everybody has a way to unwind or deal with the mental stress that comes with a lockdown.”
Trujillo feared that officials’ criticism of New Yorkers disregarding social distancing guidelines would translate into disproportionate enforcement against poor communities of color in particular, and noted for instance how officials have railed against “parties” and “DJs” and removed basketball hoops from the city’s courts. As he resisted closing public schools for weeks, de Blasio cited, among other reasons, the fear that teenagers would roam unsupervised in the city. Trujillo said that while police officers in wealthy neighborhoods might courteously educate New Yorkers to the need for distancing, he expects their approach to residents of poorer neighborhoods to be much more aggressive. “So on top of the unprecedent problem that we’re dealing with, the police can come and escalate and make things worse,” he said.
That compounds the perception by many in those communities that they have been left to fend for themselves in this crisis, he added.
“The problem is not that we shouldn’t be trying to distance people, but it’s the fact that there has been almost a complete absence of government,” Trujillo said. “If I just looked out my window, the only semblance of government that I would see would be the NYPD. You don’t see Health Department officials out here. You don’t see people sanitizing public spaces like they did in China. It’s a ghost town except for the police.”
Broken Windows Policing in a Pandemic
With much of the city emptied of people, crime levels have sunk in New York as across much of the country.
But as advocates have raised the alarm about city jails that have become petri dishes for the disease, and as the city has moved to release hundreds of people detained at Rikers, police have continued to make arrests over low-level crimes that critics say pose an unnecessary risk of contagion.
A comparison of arrest and arraignment data from cases Legal Aid represented during the last two weeks of March last year and this year shows that while arrests are significantly down, nearly 34 percent of arraignments this year continued to be over nonviolent offenses, petty misdemeanors, and violations, many for drug possession. That’s less than last year’s 58 percent, but “still a significant amount of cases that, quite frankly, didn’t need to come through central booking and didn’t need to come through arraignment to begin with,” said Wong, of Legal Aid.
On Sunday, the city released about 650 people from Rikers, bringing the total number of people there to under 5,000 for the first time in more than half a century. But attorneys said they continued to see police make arrests they said were particularly questionable in the current circumstances. In one instance, police recently stopped a man for playing loud music and then arrested him over a 10-year-old warrant for spitting. In another case this week, a homeless man was arrested for allegedly possessing synthetic marijuana and held for 30 hours before being arraigned and released.
“It’s pretty counterproductive to arrest somebody for that, because now you’re putting someone who is already vulnerable into a holding cell for hours and hours, and we have already heard stories about how unsanitary they are and how crowded it is, and how there is no way for people to actually wash their hands, socially distance, and follow CDC guidelines,” said Wong.
Each arrest also puts any emergency personnel involved, police and corrections officers, court staff, and other arrestees at risk, she added. “It’s very dangerous.”
In the midst of a mass public health emergency, police should be focused on meeting that emergency — not making matters worse, critics argue. That should include putting in place measures to limit exposure during necessary interactions, but also curtailing police interventions to strictly essential ones. Several police departments have taken steps to do so, for instance by instructing officers to respond to certain calls by phone. Meanwhile, district attorneys in cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco are declining to prosecute some low-level offenses. But so far, New York has done neither — and police and prosecutors have pushed back against calls to release people from jail, prompting a rare public rebuke from Rikers’ own chief medical officer. “They really think that if they let anyone out of jail, if they let up for ten seconds on broken windows policing, that there’s going to be rioting in the streets,” said Vitale.
But the NYPD’s failure to adapt its policing to the crisis at hand puts the city’s public health in even greater danger, advocates say.
“We want them to modify their protocols to reflect the fact that we are in the middle of a public health emergency, we are at the epicenter of this pandemic,” said Wong. “Other cities with far fewer cases have already decided that it is not only in the community’s best interest, but also in the best interest of the individual officers to decrease instances of police encounters with civilians — because we don’t know who has it and who doesn’t.”


theintercept--2020-04-03--Why Wisconsin Is Fighting So Hard Over Its Tuesday Primary

postpone the presidential primary on Tuesday because of the coronavirus pandemic , Wisconsin state officials have been reluctant to push their elections due to concerns over a key statewide race : an election for a state Supreme Court seat that has the potential to loosen conservatives ’ grip on the judiciary .
Daniel Kelly , the incumbent judge appointed in 2016 by former Republican Gov .
Scott Walker is facing a liberal challenge in his first election from Dane County Circuit Court Judge and former prosecutor Jill Karofsky .
In Wisconsin , Supreme Court justices run in nonpartisan elections for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ held the majority since 2008 .
They currently hold the court 5 to 2 , and a win by Karofsky could pave the way for liberals to retake the court in 2023 , when the conservative Chief Justice Pat Roggensack will be up for reelection .
Karofsky , who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday , is a former assistant attorney general who focused on cases involving domestic violence and sexual assault , as well as a former executive director of the Wisconsin Office of Crime Victim Services .
She has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reform in the state , while Kelly — who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump — has minimized the need for reform and portrayed Karofsky as “ soft on crime.
” On Friday , Karofsky filed a lawsuit trying to block the state ’ s Republican Party from airing ads with false claims about her prosecutorial record .
One of the most consequential decisions delivered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court ’ s conservative majority in recent years was a 2014 ruling upholding a controversial 2011 law that gutted public workers ’ collective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a traditionally union-friendly state .
The court has ruled against the rights of criminal defendants , including a 2017 decision overturning a ruling that had set a precedent for the rights of convicted people to test DNA evidence relevant to their case .
In the court ’ s 2018-2019 term , according to an analysis from Alan Ball , a history professor at Marquette University who runs the blog SCOWStats , the court ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the prosecution in 14 of 16 criminal cases .
In another 2017 case , Kelly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agency rule barring people on public buses from carrying concealed firearms .
The coronavirus pandemic has prompted 15 states to postpone their elections so far .
In Wisconsin , Democratic Gov .
Tony Evers , who initially insisted the election go forward as planned , has moved slowly in response to calls from state Democratic Party leaders and voting rights groups , as well as Sanders , to postpone the election .
Former Vice President Joe Biden declined to take a position , saying that it was up to the state .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling place was different than “ a convention having tens of thousands of people in one arena , ” referencing the decision to postpone the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee .
( The Democratic National Committee announced this week that it would postpone the convention , which was scheduled for July , to the week of August 17 . )
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Wednesday that the state should postpone elections , as called for by local mayors and civil rights groups .
The same day , a lawyer representing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during a court hearing that both groups supported postponing Tuesday ’ s election .
Under mounting pressure , Evers on Friday called on the legislature to take up a measure allowing for an all-mail election , asking them to send ballots to all registered voters by May 19 and extend the deadline to receive those ballots to May 26 .
On Friday , one day after extending absentee voting , a federal judge ruled that Wisconsin could not release election results until April 13 , the new deadline for submitting absentee ballots .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ he didn ’ t have the power to postpone the elections but that it was unsafe to hold voting , criticizing Evers and the state legislature for not acting on their own .
Evers , a Democrat , has been challenged by the state ’ s Republicans ever since his 2018 election , when , before his swearing-in , the GOP under Walker moved swiftly to strip power from the incoming governor and other Democratic officials .
The governor said in a statement Wednesday that he couldn ’ t change the election date @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to reports of a massive shortage of poll workers , he agreed this week to have members of the Wisconsin Army National Guard to work polls on Tuesday .
The Democratic Party has made Wisconsin a priority this cycle , as the state ’ s voters helped Trump win the 2016 presidential election , flipping the state ’ s electoral college vote red for the first time since Ronald Reagan ’ s win in 1984 .
In addition to postponing Tuesday ’ s elections , Sanders said the state should also extend early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a vote-by-mail system .
“ People should not be forced to put their lives on the line to vote , which is why 15 states are now following the advice of public health experts and delaying their elections , ” Sanders said in a statement .

Amid calls to postpone the presidential primary on Tuesday because of the coronavirus pandemic, Wisconsin state officials have been reluctant to push their elections due to concerns over a key statewide race: an election for a state Supreme Court seat that has the potential to loosen conservatives’ grip on the judiciary.
Daniel Kelly, the incumbent judge appointed in 2016 by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker is facing a liberal challenge in his first election from Dane County Circuit Court Judge and former prosecutor Jill Karofsky. In Wisconsin, Supreme Court justices run in nonpartisan elections for 10-year terms, and conservative judges have held the majority since 2008. They currently hold the court 5 to 2, and a win by Karofsky could pave the way for liberals to retake the court in 2023, when the conservative Chief Justice Pat Roggensack will be up for reelection.
Karofsky, who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday, is a former assistant attorney general who focused on cases involving domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as a former executive director of the Wisconsin Office of Crime Victim Services. She has spoken about the need for criminal justice reform in the state, while Kelly — who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump — has minimized the need for reform and portrayed Karofsky as “soft on crime.” On Friday, Karofsky filed a lawsuit trying to block the state’s Republican Party from airing ads with false claims about her prosecutorial record.
One of the most consequential decisions delivered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority in recent years was a 2014 ruling upholding a controversial 2011 law that gutted public workers’ collective bargaining rights, a huge blow in a traditionally union-friendly state. The court has ruled against the rights of criminal defendants, including a 2017 decision overturning a ruling that had set a precedent for the rights of convicted people to test DNA evidence relevant to their case. In the court’s 2018-2019 term, according to an analysis from Alan Ball, a history professor at Marquette University who runs the blog SCOWStats, the court ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the prosecution in 14 of 16 criminal cases. In another 2017 case, Kelly authored an opinion invalidating a Madison transit agency rule barring people on public buses from carrying concealed firearms.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
The coronavirus pandemic has prompted 15 states to postpone their elections so far. In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who initially insisted the election go forward as planned, has moved slowly in response to calls from state Democratic Party leaders and voting rights groups, as well as Sanders, to postpone the election. Former Vice President Joe Biden declined to take a position, saying that it was up to the state. On Thursday, Biden said voting in a polling place was different than “a convention having tens of thousands of people in one arena,” referencing the decision to postpone the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. (The Democratic National Committee announced this week that it would postpone the convention, which was scheduled for July, to the week of August 17.) Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Wednesday that the state should postpone elections, as called for by local mayors and civil rights groups. The same day, a lawyer representing the state party and the DNC said during a court hearing that both groups supported postponing Tuesday’s election.
Under mounting pressure, Evers on Friday called on the legislature to take up a measure allowing for an all-mail election, asking them to send ballots to all registered voters by May 19 and extend the deadline to receive those ballots to May 26. On Friday, one day after extending absentee voting, a federal judge ruled that Wisconsin could not release election results until April 13, the new deadline for submitting absentee ballots. On Thursday, the judge said that he didn’t have the power to postpone the elections but that it was unsafe to hold voting, criticizing Evers and the state legislature for not acting on their own.
Evers, a Democrat, has been challenged by the state’s Republicans ever since his 2018 election, when, before his swearing-in, the GOP under Walker moved swiftly to strip power from the incoming governor and other Democratic officials.
The governor said in a statement Wednesday that he couldn’t change the election date without violating state law. In response to reports of a massive shortage of poll workers, he agreed this week to have members of the Wisconsin Army National Guard to work polls on Tuesday.
The Democratic Party has made Wisconsin a priority this cycle, as the state’s voters helped Trump win the 2016 presidential election, flipping the state’s electoral college vote red for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s win in 1984.
In addition to postponing Tuesday’s elections, Sanders said the state should also extend early voting and try to move entirely to a vote-by-mail system. “People should not be forced to put their lives on the line to vote, which is why 15 states are now following the advice of public health experts and delaying their elections,” Sanders said in a statement.


theintercept--2020-04-03--Amid Coronavirus Crisis, Andrew Cuomo Held New York’s Health Care Hostage to Undo Criminal Justice R

Amid Coronavirus Crisis, Andrew Cuomo Held New York’s Health Care Hostage to Undo Criminal Justice Reforms

New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo broadcast his now daily press briefing from the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City , which the Army Corps of Engineers is rapidly transforming into a massive pop-up hospital to help manage the city ’ s exploding coronavirus caseload .
Backed by the New York state flag and Old Glory , Cuomo sounded an inspirational note about the need to transcend politics as usual during this unprecedented crisis .
“ I ’ m not going to engage in politics , ” he said .
“ I think it ’ s counterproductive , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Forget the politics .
Forget the politics .
We have a national crisis .
We are at war .
There is no politics.
” The statement surely appealed to the growing national constituency that in recent weeks has latched onto Cuomo as a straight-talking , get-it-done authority figure .
The appeal is obvious , as President Donald Trump ’ s narcissistic flailing and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden ’ s Homer-into-the-hedge disappearing act have left a disconcerting void in national leadership .
For anyone that has a passing familiarity with Cuomo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past politics for the greater good was worth at least a grim , wheezing chuckle .
Cuomo forswearing politics is like a shark loftily intoning against swimming through water .
Zero-sum , power-broker politics is what Andrew Cuomo does — indeed , what he excels at — and no pandemic is going to change that .
Even as Cuomo was staging his daily crisis briefings and playfighting with his kid brother on CNN this week , where Chris is an anchor , he was also taking advantage of the pandemic to drive through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the legislature .
It was a naked power grab unprecedented even in a state legendary for its murky and undemocratic government .
The day after Monday ’ s convention center press briefing , the New York State legislature was staring down a midnight deadline to pass a budget .
The process was complicated by the logistical difficulties of conducting the usual debate , conference , and negotiation with most lawmakers physically absent from the state Capitol .
But it was also made immeasurably more difficult by the fact that Cuomo — his calls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on jamming complicated and contentious policy initiatives into the budget negotiations , daring legislators to hold up a crisis budget if they wouldn ’ t get on board .
Late Tuesday afternoon , Cuomo ’ s top aide , Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa , tightened the screws , issuing a thinly veiled threat : If the legislature couldn ’ t agree on a budget by the end of the night , she said , “ State government will shut down — including the Department of Health.
” The legislature didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but it did pass a budget Thursday night , handing the governor virtually everything he wanted .
Cuomo ’ s wish list — what he was prepared to hold his state ’ s own pandemic response at gunpoint to achieve — was a budget full of perversities .
York ’ s health system , already hobbled by years of neglect , buckled under the coronavirus outbreak , Cuomo wanted to cut $ 2.5 billion in state Medicaid funding , even though doing so would mean forfeiting $ 6.7 billion in federal aid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for education .
As the pandemic eviscerates state revenue , he wanted to avoid any increase in taxes on the ultra-rich and instead balance the books by cutting muscle and bone from critical social services .
And like Viktor Orban on the Hudson , Cuomo wanted to use the pandemic to arrogate vast new powers to himself : the ability to further slash spending on a quarterly basis without so much as consulting the democratically elected legislature .
Lastly , and perhaps most inexplicably , Cuomo was holding the state budget hostage to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ previous year , state Democrats had taken advantage of their newfound control of both chambers of the legislature to pass landmark criminal justice reforms that went into effect in January , eliminating cash bail in most instances and ending a long-standing arrangement that allowed prosecutors to withhold their evidence against defendants virtually until the day of their trials .
Cuomo signed the legislation last year , but made it clear he didn ’ t like it , and set about trying to roll it back this year — threatening to put more people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the novel coronavirus .
Rather than asking the legislature to consider changes in open floor debate , he stuffed his criminal justice agenda into the secretive budget process , where legislators would get virtually no chance to even review the changes to the law , much less discuss them before voting on them .
In typical hardball fashion , Cuomo ’ s opening bid was a reformers ’ worst nightmare .
His draft legislation proposed to give judges the power — unprecedented in state history — to jail defendants , even people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a premonition that those defendants might commit some future act of violence .
The same judges who have spent decades using money bail to incarcerate New Yorkers before their trials would now be handed the power to lock people up based on their powers of divination , the reading of entrails , or the huffing of oracular vapors .
The result , critics warned , was sure to be a new era of racist mass incarceration .
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie managed to block this dark vision , but the final compromise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s brief flirtation with criminal justice reform .
Whole new categories of defendants will now be jailed based on their inability to pay money bail .
The carceral forces that lobbied hard to undo last year ’ s reforms are already baying for more blood , making it clear that coming years will likely further erode what remains of reformers ’ modest gains .
What Cuomo wanted , he got .
Gutting health care , protecting the rich , making it easier to put his constituents in pestilential jails , gaining czar-like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got it .
By threats , by arm-twisting , by brilliant manipulation of the legislature ’ s disarray , he got it .
If it all sounds like an incredibly cynical , anti-democratic exploitation of a crisis to accumulate and exert power , well — that ’ s politics .
“ There is no politics , ” Cuomo insisted to his new national audience .
Speaking at an online press conference Tuesday night , Assembly Member Latrice Walker , who sponsored the criminal justice reform last year and fought a losing battle to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The greatest trick that the devil ever pulled , ” she said on the legislature floor in the early morning hours , “ was to prove to the world that he doesn ’ t exist .
”

Photo: Albin Lohr-Jones/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
On Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo broadcast his now daily press briefing from the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, which the Army Corps of Engineers is rapidly transforming into a massive pop-up hospital to help manage the city’s exploding coronavirus caseload.
Backed by the New York state flag and Old Glory, Cuomo sounded an inspirational note about the need to transcend politics as usual during this unprecedented crisis. “I’m not going to engage in politics,” he said. “I think it’s counterproductive, and I think it’s anti-American. Forget the politics. Forget the politics. We have a national crisis. We are at war. There is no politics.”
The statement surely appealed to the growing national constituency that in recent weeks has latched onto Cuomo as a straight-talking, get-it-done authority figure. The appeal is obvious, as President Donald Trump’s narcissistic flailing and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s Homer-into-the-hedge disappearing act have left a disconcerting void in national leadership.
For anyone that has a passing familiarity with Cuomo, however, his call to move past politics for the greater good was worth at least a grim, wheezing chuckle. Cuomo forswearing politics is like a shark loftily intoning against swimming through water. Zero-sum, power-broker politics is what Andrew Cuomo does — indeed, what he excels at — and no pandemic is going to change that.
Even as Cuomo was staging his daily crisis briefings and playfighting with his kid brother on CNN this week, where Chris is an anchor, he was also taking advantage of the pandemic to drive through a vindictive and life-threatening state budget through the legislature. It was a naked power grab unprecedented even in a state legendary for its murky and undemocratic government.
The day after Monday’s convention center press briefing, the New York State legislature was staring down a midnight deadline to pass a budget. The process was complicated by the logistical difficulties of conducting the usual debate, conference, and negotiation with most lawmakers physically absent from the state Capitol. But it was also made immeasurably more difficult by the fact that Cuomo — his calls to transcend politics notwithstanding — was insisting on jamming complicated and contentious policy initiatives into the budget negotiations, daring legislators to hold up a crisis budget if they wouldn’t get on board.
Cuomo’s wish list — what he was prepared to hold his state’s own pandemic response at gunpoint to achieve — was a budget full of perversities.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Cuomo’s top aide, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, tightened the screws, issuing a thinly veiled threat: If the legislature couldn’t agree on a budget by the end of the night, she said, “State government will shut down — including the Department of Health.”
The legislature didn’t quite manage to meet that deadline, but it did pass a budget Thursday night, handing the governor virtually everything he wanted. Cuomo’s wish list — what he was prepared to hold his state’s own pandemic response at gunpoint to achieve — was a budget full of perversities.
While New York’s health system, already hobbled by years of neglect, buckled under the coronavirus outbreak, Cuomo wanted to cut $2.5 billion in state Medicaid funding, even though doing so would mean forfeiting $6.7 billion in federal aid. He wanted to slash state funding for education. As the pandemic eviscerates state revenue, he wanted to avoid any increase in taxes on the ultra-rich and instead balance the books by cutting muscle and bone from critical social services.
And like Viktor Orban on the Hudson, Cuomo wanted to use the pandemic to arrogate vast new powers to himself: the ability to further slash spending on a quarterly basis without so much as consulting the democratically elected legislature.
Lastly, and perhaps most inexplicably, Cuomo was holding the state budget hostage to his regressive criminal justice agenda. The previous year, state Democrats had taken advantage of their newfound control of both chambers of the legislature to pass landmark criminal justice reforms that went into effect in January, eliminating cash bail in most instances and ending a long-standing arrangement that allowed prosecutors to withhold their evidence against defendants virtually until the day of their trials.
Cuomo signed the legislation last year, but made it clear he didn’t like it, and set about trying to roll it back this year — threatening to put more people in jails even as they are ravaged by the novel coronavirus. Rather than asking the legislature to consider changes in open floor debate, he stuffed his criminal justice agenda into the secretive budget process, where legislators would get virtually no chance to even review the changes to the law, much less discuss them before voting on them.
In typical hardball fashion, Cuomo’s opening bid was a reformers’ worst nightmare. His draft legislation proposed to give judges the power — unprecedented in state history — to jail defendants, even people facing misdemeanor charges, on the basis of a premonition that those defendants might commit some future act of violence. The same judges who have spent decades using money bail to incarcerate New Yorkers before their trials would now be handed the power to lock people up based on their powers of divination, the reading of entrails, or the huffing of oracular vapors. The result, critics warned, was sure to be a new era of racist mass incarceration.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie managed to block this dark vision, but the final compromise still spelled the end of New York’s brief flirtation with criminal justice reform. Whole new categories of defendants will now be jailed based on their inability to pay money bail. The carceral forces that lobbied hard to undo last year’s reforms are already baying for more blood, making it clear that coming years will likely further erode what remains of reformers’ modest gains.
What Cuomo wanted, he got. Gutting health care, protecting the rich, making it easier to put his constituents in pestilential jails, gaining czar-like powers to unilaterally determine funding — he got it. By threats, by arm-twisting, by brilliant manipulation of the legislature’s disarray, he got it. If it all sounds like an incredibly cynical, anti-democratic exploitation of a crisis to accumulate and exert power, well — that’s politics.
“There is no politics,” Cuomo insisted to his new national audience. Speaking at an online press conference Tuesday night, Assembly Member Latrice Walker, who sponsored the criminal justice reform last year and fought a losing battle to keep in intact, knew better. “The greatest trick that the devil ever pulled,” she said on the legislature floor in the early morning hours, “was to prove to the world that he doesn’t exist.”


theintercept--2020-04-03--Stephen Smith’s Progressive Populist Campaign for West Virginia Governor Has Become a Covid-19

Stephen Smith’s Progressive Populist Campaign for West Virginia Governor Has Become a Covid-19 Response Program

Smith ’ s focus on Covid-19 , the disease caused by the coronavirus , comes as elected officials around the country struggle to respond effectively , from President Donald Trump ’ s constant denials ; to state governments , including West Virginia , being slow to respond ; to Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden going MIA as it turned into a crisis .
Only Sen. Bernie Sanders , despite being slow to address the escalating crisis , has taken on an approach similar to Smith ’ s , diverting his campaign ’ s fundraising infrastructure to raising millions for coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remade his campaign ’ s field operation to spearhead a statewide response to the pandemic , filling a void left by Republican Gov .
Jim Justice ’ s administration .
Smith ’ s anti-establishment campaign , known as West Virginia Can ’ t Wait , had a coronavirus response website up before the state government did and recently released an 11-point policy plan calling for drive-through coronavirus testing in every county , vote-by-mail legislation , and moratoria on evictions and utility shutoffs .
“ Over the course of 72 hours , we completely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hopeful , who is running as a Democrat , said .
As the coronavirus pandemic upends most aspects of everyday living across the country , political campaigns have abandoned in-person events and transitioned to virtual town halls in efforts to keep their bids afloat .
In West Virginia , Stephen Smith , a 40-year-old community organizer running a movement-based campaign for governor , is attempting something even more ambitious .
The Smith campaign has created an “ adopt-a-voter ” program , under which campaign volunteers aim to check in with 100 voters who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information about local coronavirus resources and volunteer opportunities , suggestions for how to vote by mail , and offers to hear more about the campaign .
The campaign is also working toward recruiting and training 1,000 volunteers on how to check in on their neighbors without leaving their homes , Smith said , covering topics like “ ‘ Where do I get food ?
Where do I get testing ?
How do I apply for my unemployment benefits ?
How do I apply for SBA disaster loans or paycheck protection ?
’ and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next step in the campaign ’ s coronavirus response is to create a library of resources and how-to videos and information for the entire West Virginia Can ’ t Wait network , a slate of dozens of candidates running for various statewide positions .
Equipped with those tools , “ our neighborhood captains can answer just about any question that someone has , ” Smith said .
Another prong of the campaign ’ s organizing strategy calls for “ Constituency Captains ” to build support within their communities , as well as constituency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t Wait , LGBTQ+ Can ’ t Wait , and Educators Can ’ t Wait , that deliberately omit Smith ’ s name .
This week , each of the neighborhood captains wrote and sent 100 letters to people in their communities , which included coronavirus information , brief background on the West Virginia Can ’ t Wait movement , and a personal message .
Jenny Craig , a public school teacher in Ohio County and a member of Educators Can ’ t Wait , said the letters represent what their movement has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just checking in on each other , not for political gain.
” “ The letter has very little about Stephen ’ s campaign , and it doesn ’ t even say ‘ I ’ m Stephen Smith and I ’ m running for governor , ’ ” Craig said .
“ It just really is about taking care of each other.
” Next week , the volunteers are going to start making phone calls to neighbors to ask if they ’ re healthy or if they need anything , in addition to providing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regardless of political party ) and how to register .
Due to public health concerns around voting amid a pandemic , the state has postponed its primary elections from May 12 to June 9. of five Democrats running in the primary with hopes of toppling Justice , a billionaire coal tycoon who was elected to office in 2016 and also happens to be the wealthiest person in the state .
West Virginia , a particularly high-risk state , was the last state in the country to report its first confirmed Covid-19 case , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of testing .
Justice issued a stay-at-home order on March 23 but has faced criticism for not taking decisive action sooner while communicating confusing and conflicting messages about what to do .
“ It ’ s so infuriating how … infuriating and unsurprising … how this governor has reacted , ” Smith said .
“ The governor is going to have blood on his hands when this is all said and done .
And it ’ s the oldest story in West Virginia history .
The people do all the work while the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rich off of us ; the working people look after our neighbors and the good ol ’ boys look after themselves .
It ’ s disgusting — I don ’ t even know what else to say .
”

As the coronavirus pandemic upends most aspects of everyday living across the country, political campaigns have abandoned in-person events and transitioned to virtual town halls in efforts to keep their bids afloat. In West Virginia, Stephen Smith, a 40-year-old community organizer running a movement-based campaign for governor, is attempting something even more ambitious.
The progressive-populist candidate has remade his campaign’s field operation to spearhead a statewide response to the pandemic, filling a void left by Republican Gov. Jim Justice’s administration. Smith’s anti-establishment campaign, known as West Virginia Can’t Wait, had a coronavirus response website up before the state government did and recently released an 11-point policy plan calling for drive-through coronavirus testing in every county, vote-by-mail legislation, and moratoria on evictions and utility shutoffs. “Over the course of 72 hours, we completely reimagined the campaign,” the gubernatorial hopeful, who is running as a Democrat, said.
Smith’s focus on Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, comes as elected officials around the country struggle to respond effectively, from President Donald Trump’s constant denials; to state governments, including West Virginia, being slow to respond; to Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden going MIA as it turned into a crisis. Only Sen. Bernie Sanders, despite being slow to address the escalating crisis, has taken on an approach similar to Smith’s, diverting his campaign’s fundraising infrastructure to raising millions for coronavirus response groups.
The Smith campaign has created an “adopt-a-voter” program, under which campaign volunteers aim to check in with 100 voters who live near them once a week with information about local coronavirus resources and volunteer opportunities, suggestions for how to vote by mail, and offers to hear more about the campaign. The campaign is also working toward recruiting and training 1,000 volunteers on how to check in on their neighbors without leaving their homes, Smith said, covering topics like “‘Where do I get food? Where do I get testing? How do I apply for my unemployment benefits? How do I apply for SBA disaster loans or paycheck protection?’ and on and on and on.”
A next step in the campaign’s coronavirus response is to create a library of resources and how-to videos and information for the entire West Virginia Can’t Wait network, a slate of dozens of candidates running for various statewide positions. Equipped with those tools, “our neighborhood captains can answer just about any question that someone has,” Smith said. Another prong of the campaign’s organizing strategy calls for “Constituency Captains” to build support within their communities, as well as constituency organizing groups, like Seniors Can’t Wait, LGBTQ+ Can’t Wait, and Educators Can’t Wait, that deliberately omit Smith’s name. This week, each of the neighborhood captains wrote and sent 100 letters to people in their communities, which included coronavirus information, brief background on the West Virginia Can’t Wait movement, and a personal message. Jenny Craig, a public school teacher in Ohio County and a member of Educators Can’t Wait, said the letters represent what their movement has been about since the beginning: “just checking in on each other, not for political gain.”
“The letter has very little about Stephen’s campaign, and it doesn’t even say ‘I’m Stephen Smith and I’m running for governor,’” Craig said. “It just really is about taking care of each other.”
Next week, the volunteers are going to start making phone calls to neighbors to ask if they’re healthy or if they need anything, in addition to providing information on how voting has changed (regardless of political party) and how to register. Due to public health concerns around voting amid a pandemic, the state has postponed its primary elections from May 12 to June 9.
Smith is one of five Democrats running in the primary with hopes of toppling Justice, a billionaire coal tycoon who was elected to office in 2016 and also happens to be the wealthiest person in the state. West Virginia, a particularly high-risk state, was the last state in the country to report its first confirmed Covid-19 case, a delay largely caused by a lack of testing. Justice issued a stay-at-home order on March 23 but has faced criticism for not taking decisive action sooner while communicating confusing and conflicting messages about what to do.
“It’s so infuriating how … infuriating and unsurprising … how this governor has reacted,” Smith said. “The governor is going to have blood on his hands when this is all said and done. And it’s the oldest story in West Virginia history. The people do all the work while the good ol’ boys in Charleston get rich off of us; the working people look after our neighbors and the good ol’ boys look after themselves. It’s disgusting — I don’t even know what else to say.”
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Since formally launching at the end of November 2018, West Virginia Can’t Wait has recruited more than 90 candidates, including Smith, to run for positions like city council memberships, magistrate judge seats, and county commissioners. More than half of the candidates are age 40 or younger, and the group is disproportionately women, working class, people of color, and LGBTQ. “There’s some pushback from the establishment, including our own unions, which is frustrating,” Craig said. “But it just makes you recognize that you’re doing something right and have to work even harder for it.”
Earlier this month, the campaign, which has sworn off corporate PAC money, broke the record set by Sen. Joe Manchin for the most donations ever received in a West Virginia gubernatorial race.
The “People’s Platform” — a policy platform that was developed through 11,000 conversations between campaign volunteers and voters, over 190 town halls, and then ratified at a convention — includes the creation of a state bank, a wealth tax, full legalization of marijuana, and a “complete reversal of the tax code” that favors working families over out-of-state land holding companies and multinational corporations. “When we win this policy platform, it will mean that we have created an economy in America that does not exist in any other state,” Smith said.


theintercept--2020-04-03--Zoom’s Encryption Is “Not Suited for Secrets” and Has Surprising Links to China, Researchers Discove

Zoom’s Encryption Is “Not Suited for Secrets” and Has Surprising Links to China, Researchers Discover

The researchers also found that Zoom protects video and audio content using a home-grown encryption scheme , that there is a vulnerability in Zoom ’ s “ waiting room ” feature , and that Zoom appears to have at least 700 employees in China spread across three subsidiaries .
They conclude , in a report for the university ’ s Citizen Lab — widely followed in information security circles — that Zoom ’ s service is “ not suited for secrets ” and that it may be legally obligated to disclose encryption keys to Chinese authorities and “ responsive to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not be reached for comment .
Earlier this week , The Intercept reported that Zoom was misleading users in its claim to support end-to-end encryption , in which no one but participants can decrypt a conversation .
Zoom ’ s Chief Product Officer Oded Gal later wrote a blog post in which he apologized on behalf of the company “ for the confusion we have caused by incorrectly suggesting that Zoom meetings were capable of using end-to-end encryption.
” The post went on to detail what encryption the company does use .
Based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Citizen Lab ’ s research , here is how Zoom meetings appear to work : When you start a Zoom meeting , the Zoom software running your device fetches a key with which to encrypt audio and video .
This key comes from Zoom ’ s cloud infrastructure , which contains servers around the world .
Specifically , it comes from a type of server known as a “ key management system , ” which generates encryption keys and distributes them to meeting participants .
Each user gets the same , shared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is transmitted to the Zoom software on their devices from the key management system using yet another encryption system , TLS , the same technology used in the “ https ” protocol that protects websites .
Depending on how the meeting is set up , some servers in Zoom ’ s cloud called “ connectors ” may also get a copy of this key .
For example , if someone calls in on the phone , they ’ re actually calling a “ Zoom Telephony Connector ” server , which gets sent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the key management systems — 5 out of 73 , in a Citizen Lab scan — seem to be located in China , with the rest in the United States .
Interestingly , the Chinese servers are at least sometimes used for Zoom chats that have no nexus in China .
The two Citizen Lab researchers who authored the report , Bill Marczak and John Scott-Railton , live in the United States and Canada .
During a test call between the two , the shared meeting encryption key “ was sent to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Zoom server apparently located in Beijing , ” according to the report .
The report points out that Zoom may be legally obligated to share encryption keys with Chinese authorities if the keys are generated on a key management server hosted in China .
If the Chinese authorities or any other hypothetical attacker with access to a key wants to spy on a Zoom meeting , they also need to either monitor the internet access of a participant in the meeting , or monitor the network inside the Zoom cloud .
Once @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they can use the key to decrypt it and recover the video and audio .
Citizen Lab flagged as worrisome not only the system used to distribute Zoom encryption keys but also the keys themselves and the way they are used to encrypt data .
Zoom ’ s keys conform to the widely used Advanced Encryption Standard , or AES .
A security white paper from the company claims that Zoom meetings are protected using 256-bit AES keys , but the Citizen Lab researchers confirmed the keys in use are actually only 128-bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today , but over the last decade many companies have been moving to 256-bit keys instead .
Furthermore , Zoom encrypts and decrypts with AES using an algorithm called Electronic Codebook , or ECB , mode , “ which is well-understood to be a bad idea , because this mode of encryption preserves patterns in the input , ” according to the Citizen Lab researchers .
In fact , ECB is considered the worst of AES ’ s available modes .
Here ’ s why : It should be impossible to tell the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ random data , such as static on a radio , but ECB mode fails to do this .
If there ’ s a pattern in the unencrypted data , the same pattern shows up in the encrypted data .
This Wikipedia page has a useful illustration to visualize this : Once it has been poorly encrypted in this manner , video and audio data is distributed to all participants in a meeting through a Zoom Multimedia Router server .
For most users , this server runs in Zoom ’ s cloud , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on-premises .
In this case , Zoom will generate , and thus have access to , the AES key that encrypts the meeting but shouldn ’ t have access to the meeting content itself , so long as none of the aforementioned “ connector ” servers ( for phone calls and so forth ) are participating in the meeting .
( In its blog post , Zoom said self-hosting customers will eventually be able to manage their own encryption keys . )
Meeting hosts can set their meetings to have virtual “ waiting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ users do not directly enter the meeting when they log on with Zoom but instead must wait to be invited in by a participant .
The Citizen Lab researchers discovered a security vulnerability with this feature while conducting their encryption analysis .
They said in their report that they have disclosed the vulnerability to Zoom but that “ we are not currently providing public information about the issue to prevent it from being abused.
” In the meantime , the researchers advised Zoom users who desire confidentiality to avoid using waiting rooms and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newly uncovered flaws in Zoom ’ s encryption may be troubling for many of the company ’ s customers .
Since the coronavirus outbreak started , Zoom ’ s customer base has surged from 10 million users to 200 million , including “ over 90,000 schools across 20 countries , ” according to a blog post by Zoom CEO Eric Yuan .
The U.S. government recently spent $ 1.3 million on Zoom contracts as part of its response to the pandemic , according to a review of government contracts by Forbes , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for remote Cabinet meetings , according to a tweet from Prime Minister Boris Johnson .
Among those who should be concerned about Zoom ’ s security issues , according to Citizen Lab , are “ governments worried about espionage ” and “ businesses concerned about cybercrime and industrial espionage.
” Despite a recent flood of security and privacy failures , Yuan , Zoom ’ s CEO , appears to be listening to feedback and making a real effort to improve the service .
“ These new , mostly consumer use cases have helped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Dedicated journalists and security researchers have also helped to identify pre-existing ones , ” Yuan wrote in his blog post .
“ We appreciate the scrutiny and questions we have been getting — about how the service works , about our infrastructure and capacity , and about our privacy and security policies.
” In addition to promptly fixing several security issues that were reported , the company removed an “ attendee attention tracker ” feature , a privacy nightmare which let meeting hosts track whether participants had the Zoom window — or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in focus during a meeting .
It has also invested in new training materials to teach users about the security features like setting passwords on meetings to avoid Zoom-bombing , the phenomenon where people disrupt unprotected Zoom meetings .
Because Zoom ’ s service is not end-to-end encrypted , and the company has access to all encryption keys and to all video and audio content traversing its cloud , it ’ s possible that governments around the world could be compelling the company to hand over copies of this data .
If Zoom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the company claims that it hasn ’ t built tools specifically to help law enforcement : “ Zoom has never built a mechanism to decrypt live meetings for lawful intercept purposes , ” Gal , Zoom ’ s chief product officer , wrote in the technical blog post , “ nor do we have means to insert our employees or others into meetings without being reflected in the participant list.
” Unlike some other tech companies , Zoom has never released any information about how many government requests for data it gets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it complies with .
But after the human rights group Access Now ’ s open letter urging Zoom to publish a transparency report , Yuan also promised to do just that .
Within the next three months , the company will prepare “ a transparency report that details information related to requests for data , records , or content.
” Access Now has commended Zoom on committing to publish a transparency report .


theintercept--2020-04-02--Navy Dismisses Captain Who Sounded the Alarm on Coronavirus, Signaling a Willingness to Stifle Disse

Navy Dismisses Captain Who Sounded the Alarm on Coronavirus, Signaling a Willingness to Stifle Dissent

has taken the extraordinary step of relieving the captain of the U.S.S .
Theodore Roosevelt of his command over the aircraft carrier after he wrote a memo sounding the alarm on an exploding coronavirus infection on board the cramped quarters of his ship .
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly on Thursday told reporters that Capt .
Brett Crozier was guilty of “ extremely poor judgment in the middle of a crisis , ” and said that due to his “ broad ” circulation of the memo outside his chain of command , he had failed to safeguard that it did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in command of the aircraft carrier , Modly said , though he is expected to keep his rank .
“ I could reach no other conclusion but that Capt .
Crozier had allowed the complexity of the challenge of the Covid breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally , when acting professionally was what was needed most at the time , ” Modly said .
The dismissal of a senior officer for raising concerns about the well-being of his crew is highly unusual , and signals that the Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to silence internal dissent about its handling of the global pandemic .
Last week , the aircraft carrier — one of the Navy ’ s largest and most important ships — was ordered to port in Guam after five sailors tested positive for Covid-19 , the disease caused by the coronavirus .
Modly told reporters at the time that only about half of the 4,800-person crew would disembark , and that a full evacuation was impossible due to the need to guard the ship .
On Monday , Crozier sent a memo to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outbreak , saying that the measure was insufficient to keep sailors on board the ship from dying .
The memo was obtained and published by the San Francisco Chronicle and quickly became national news .
“ With the exceptions of a handful of senior officer staterooms , none of the berthing onboard a warship is appropriate for quarantine or isolation , ” Crozier wrote .
“ We are not at war .
Sailors do not need to die .
If we do not act now , we are failing to properly take care @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sailors.
” According to figures released by the Department of Defense , confirmed Covid-19 cases in the military have more than tripled in the past week , from 280 last Thursday to 893 this Thursday .
In a press conference on Thursday , Modly said that the first time he read the letter was in the San Francisco Chronicle , remarking that it was Crozier ’ s “ hometown newspaper , ” though he said he had no information indicating that Crozier leaked the memo .
Modly also noted that Crozier ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ command of the carrier strike group , was also on board the ship , “ just down the hall , ” and should have been notified about Crozier ’ s concerns before the letter was sent .
“ It unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our sailors and marines , with no plan to address those concerns , ” Modly said .
“ It raised concerns about the operational capabilities and operational security of that ship that could have emboldened our adversaries to seek advantage , and it undermined the chain of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight , called the firing “ outrageous , ” and said it sent the wrong signal about speaking up over concerns .
“ If he ’ s being fired for making sure his sailors received the care they needed , I think this is a gigantic mistake by the Navy , ” Smithberger said .
“ We are hearing service members across the military think their commanders aren ’ t doing enough to protect them , and this sends a devastating signal that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Democrats on the House Armed Service Committee , including Chair Adam Smith , D.-Wash. , released a joint statement Thursday expressing concern that the firing could have a “ chilling effect ” on others coming forward .
“ Throwing the commanding officer overboard without a thorough investigation is not going to solve the growing crisis aboard the U.S.S .
Theodore Roosevelt , ” the statement reads .
“ Dismissing a commanding officer for speaking out on issues critical to the safety of those under their command discourages others from raising similar concerns @ @

The U.S. Navy has taken the extraordinary step of relieving the captain of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt of his command over the aircraft carrier after he wrote a memo sounding the alarm on an exploding coronavirus infection on board the cramped quarters of his ship.
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly on Thursday told reporters that Capt. Brett Crozier was guilty of “extremely poor judgment in the middle of a crisis,” and said that due to his “broad” circulation of the memo outside his chain of command, he had failed to safeguard that it did not leak. Crozier is no longer in command of the aircraft carrier, Modly said, though he is expected to keep his rank.
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“I could reach no other conclusion but that Capt. Crozier had allowed the complexity of the challenge of the Covid breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally, when acting professionally was what was needed most at the time,” Modly said.
The dismissal of a senior officer for raising concerns about the well-being of his crew is highly unusual, and signals that the Trump administration is willing to take extraordinary steps to silence internal dissent about its handling of the global pandemic.
Photo: U.S. Navy
Last week, the aircraft carrier — one of the Navy’s largest and most important ships — was ordered to port in Guam after five sailors tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Modly told reporters at the time that only about half of the 4,800-person crew would disembark, and that a full evacuation was impossible due to the need to guard the ship.
On Monday, Crozier sent a memo to the Navy sounding the alarm on the outbreak, saying that the measure was insufficient to keep sailors on board the ship from dying. The memo was obtained and published by the San Francisco Chronicle and quickly became national news.
“With the exceptions of a handful of senior officer staterooms, none of the berthing onboard a warship is appropriate for quarantine or isolation,” Crozier wrote. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our sailors.”
According to figures released by the Department of Defense, confirmed Covid-19 cases in the military have more than tripled in the past week, from 280 last Thursday to 893 this Thursday.
In a press conference on Thursday, Modly said that the first time he read the letter was in the San Francisco Chronicle, remarking that it was Crozier’s “hometown newspaper,” though he said he had no information indicating that Crozier leaked the memo.
Modly also noted that Crozier’s commanding officer, the rear admiral in command of the carrier strike group, was also on board the ship, “just down the hall,” and should have been notified about Crozier’s concerns before the letter was sent.
“It unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our sailors and marines, with no plan to address those concerns,” Modly said. “It raised concerns about the operational capabilities and operational security of that ship that could have emboldened our adversaries to seek advantage, and it undermined the chain of command.”
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Mandy Smithberger, director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, called the firing “outrageous,” and said it sent the wrong signal about speaking up over concerns.
“If he’s being fired for making sure his sailors received the care they needed, I think this is a gigantic mistake by the Navy,” Smithberger said. “We are hearing service members across the military think their commanders aren’t doing enough to protect them, and this sends a devastating signal that people who speak up will be crushed.”
Democrats on the House Armed Service Committee, including Chair Adam Smith, D.-Wash., released a joint statement Thursday expressing concern that the firing could have a “chilling effect” on others coming forward. “Throwing the commanding officer overboard without a thorough investigation is not going to solve the growing crisis aboard the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt,” the statement reads. “Dismissing a commanding officer for speaking out on issues critical to the safety of those under their command discourages others from raising similar concerns.”