On a May morning in 2015, Xiaoxing Xi, a physics professor at Temple University, woke up to violent banging on the door of his home in a quiet suburb of Philadelphia.
He raced downstairs. When he opened the door, he was greeted by a group of armed federal agents. Within minutes, he was handcuffed and under arrest, and his wife and daughters, in their pajamas, were held at gunpoint with their hands up. In the subsequent hours, he was strip-searched, interrogated, and charged before being released on bail. “From the very beginning, I was telling myself,” he said, “do everything they ask me to do so that they don’t shoot me.”
Professor Xi had no idea what the agents wanted with him, until they told him during questioning that he was suspected of spying for China. It became clear over the course of the interrogation that they had been closely monitoring his communications. “He seemed to be familiar with many, many of my emails,” Professor Xi said of the interrogator.
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The FBI accused Professor Xi, an American citizen, of sharing information about a device called a pocket heater in violation of a non-disclosure agreement. But he had never shared that information. The emails in question concerned an entirely different technology, discussed over the course of routine — and perfectly legitimate — academic cooperation.
The charges were dropped against the professor four months later. In that time, he lost his chairmanship of the Physics Department at Temple University. He was temporarily suspended from his job, banned from campus, and forbidden from speaking with his students. He could not leave the Philadelphia area without permission. His family suffered trauma, symptoms of which persist to this day.
“I think my wife probably slept one or two hours a night. Myself, too. I couldn’t sleep during the night. So, you know, we just established new routines,” he said. “We might have two or three naps during the day when we really felt exhausted.”
The American justice system typically forbids law enforcement officials from spying on citizens without a probable cause warrant issued by a judge. However, the government claims a carve-out to that constitutional principle. Two provisions — called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333 — allow for the dragnet collection of electronic communications. While both technically prohibit targeting American citizens and residents, each captures vast quantities of Americans’ international — and even some domestic — communications. In addition, the FBI and other agencies are allowed to sift through the data collected under Section 702 for information about anyone, without judicial oversight. In other words, the FBI has a treasure trove of information it can use to prosecute citizens, even if it has never made a case before a judge.
We’ve seen the destructive effects of unwarranted government scrutiny on the lives of people who have done nothing wrong, and minorities and activists have historically borne the brunt of these practices. Professor Xi’s case is not an aberration. As we explain in the lawsuit the ACLU joined on his behalf, a number of Chinese-American scientists have been indicted for spying for China, only to have their cases dismissed before trial. The investigation of Professor Xi appears to have been based his Chinese ethnicity. In the words of Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), who has called for accountability for these wrongful indictments, “Are all Chinese-American scientists suspects because they are Chinese-American?"
Warrantless surveillance can shatter reputations and ruin lives — for nothing. Section 702 is set to expire at the end of the year. Congress is considering various proposals to extend the law, and in some cases even to expand it. Instead, it should reform Section 702 to end these egregious violations of basic principles of justice.
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News & CommentaryDec 2024
Civil Liberties
National Security
Where Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth Stands on Civil LibertiesWhere Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth Stands on Civil Liberties
The ACLU has more than 100 years’ experience holding power accountable. As President-elect Donald Trump rolls out his cabinet picks, we analyze how his nominee for secretary of defense will impact civil liberties. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions.