* Press release…
Law enforcement organizations and retail industry leaders – including Amazon, The Home Depot, Ulta Beauty, American Eagle Outfitters, UPS and DHL – are calling on Congress to advance the bipartisan Combating Organized Retail Crime Act as part of the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The legislation, led by U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), was filed as an amendment to the NDAA as part of a bipartisan package offered by Grassley and Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to reduce violent crime.
The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act would establish a multi-agency response to organized retail crime, which affects American consumers and businesses nationwide. The legislation would create a centralized task force in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to combat organized retail crime, while establishing new tools to recover stolen goods and enhance coordination between retail industry representatives and law enforcement.
The legislation would create the Organized Retail and Supply Chain Crime Coordination Center, which would be under the Department of Homeland Security. The center’s director would be appointed by the Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
* More than 125 organizations, including several in Illinois, have banded together to oppose inserting the legislation into the “must-pass National Defense Authorization Act”…
This legislation would dramatically expand the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) role in domestic law enforcement, authorizing sweeping new authority to collect, analyze, and share Americans’ personal data without meaningful civil liberties safeguards, adequate oversight, or accountability mechanisms should DHS abuse this power.
Congress should not expand the footprint of DHS, which has already demonstrated it cannot be trusted with expanded surveillance authority. Over the past year alone, the agency has obtained sensitive personal data from Medicaid, the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, private data brokers, police departments, tech companies, and more. It has spent millions on intrusive surveillance tools tracking the movements and locations of private citizens, capturing that information in massive databases and secret watchlists used to surveil protesters and legal observers. DHS has operated far beyond its original mandate, and CORCA would only reward this pattern of overreach with even greater power.
They go on to say that the proposal is “dangerously overbroad,” would “quietly construct a massive public-private surveillance network,” would deepen “DHS’s influence over state and local policing through grants and open-ended cooperation agreements,” and would entrench DHS and ICE in local law enforcement…
The bill positions Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) as the hub of a new national intelligence apparatus focused on organized retail crime, whose leader will be appointed by the director of ICE. This further collapses the distinction between domestic policing and immigration enforcement. Although once independent, HSI is now forced to work with ICE on removal operations, and HSI agents say their connection to ICE has undermined their ability to do investigative work. HSI is intended to investigate transnational crime, and while it has made recent forays into domestic retail theft, Congress should be incredibly wary of permanently authorizing this expansion.
Conclusion…
Congress should not respond to concerns about retail theft by handing more power to an agency that has skirted accountability and has a documented record of surveillance overreach. Effective solutions must be carefully targeted, address the root causes of theft, support impacted workers and businesses, and uphold everyone’s constitutional rights. CORCA does none of this.
* ACLU Illinois…
It is clear that Congress simply cannot — in good conscience — give any additional power to the Department of Homeland Security. Time after time, DHS has used the billions of taxpayer dollars it has been appropriated to terrorize neighborhoods in communities across the country and across Illinois. Now we are being asked to entrust it with enormous surveillance authorities to combat retail theft. DHS officers have abused power, using violence against people across the country, including last week in Houston and just this week in Maine. In each case, DHS has issued statements that bear little relationship to the truth. Now is the time to rein in this reckless agency, not extend it more authority.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who has been outspoken about ICE and DHS, is a co-sponsor.
- Thomas Paine - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 12:39 pm:
This effort should be led by the FBI, if anyone. These retail theft rings are being led by organized crime, not terrorist groups.
But I would not trust the Trump administration with one iota of additional power.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 12:41 pm:
Illinois deserves better Senators.
- Incandenza - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 12:43 pm:
Is there an explanation why immigration-related law enforcement would be involved with petty retail theft crime? Wouldn’t this be a job for State Police or the FBI?
- OneMan - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 12:54 pm:
Well I am sure it is all about the congenial relationships in the Senate.
At this point he has really gotten way to into how the senate is a big club and way too trusting of what some senators say they would do if they didn’t have to deal with the GOP electorate.
Man has gotten played more than a piano in the middle of a mall at this point
- maybe - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:01 pm:
And this is why at the Federal and State level bills should not include nonrelated items. If there is a good reason for the Department of Homeland to do this, perhaps include it in the Homeland Security Appropriation Bill.
- Roadrager - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:07 pm:
I am one hundred percent onboard with DHS becoming mall cops if that becomes their sole jurisdiction and the full extent of their authority, and if they are budgeted, staffed, and equipped accordingly.
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:09 pm:
Everytime I try to buy deodorant or toothpaste or shaving cream, I have to press the button and wait for a store clerk to open the locked cabinet. I asked once, were people really stealing eye drops? The clerk responded, “honey, they be stealing everything.”
Hard to imagine a federal agency being more successful at stopping retail theft than local police, but clearly something ought to be done. The shoplifting has become so brazen that it feels almost impossible to get a handle on.
I’m all for going after organized theft rings, but I’m also in favor of prosecuting anyone caught stealing. I guess that puts me well to the right of some in my party. So be it.
We don’t need better senators on this one. We need better citizens.
- Incandenza - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:14 pm:
=== DHS becoming mall cops ===
If only, but likely at best it’ll be performative security at malls with dudes in masks and long guns outside of every Auntie Annes, and at worst it’ll be the mad king declaring “I hereby declare that forthwith ICE agents will provide security to malls across the GREAT USA and we the USA will charge a 20% fee for those services. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
- Leslie K - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:26 pm:
Nothing about this bill sounds like a good idea. Yes, organized retail crime is a problem. And there are jurisdictional issues that can complicate or hamper investigations. But none of that shouts “put DHS in charge.” And while public-private partnerships are often good things, too much reliance on them can complicate sunshine law issues (e.g. limiting FOIA access).
- Joe Bidenopolous - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:43 pm:
I wouldn’t expect Durbin to go out as anything more than the colossal disappointment he is. He met expectations here
- Norseman - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:54 pm:
There may be real issues to be addressed, however, I have massive concerns giving DHS any further responsibilities that could result in more abuses against Americans.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:56 pm:
Maybe Illinois’ senators can explain why they think their constituents want ICE to run an expanded facial recognition database out of every Target and use it to do immigration enforcement along with federalizing petty theft.
- BE - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 1:59 pm:
Give DHS and ICE an inch and they’ll take your personal data, driving routes and religious habits to grab you if you’re not ‘American’ enough. They are already grabbing people walking out of Walmarts; with this, they can add that you’re part of a crime ring, like how they say anyone non-white with tattoos are part of a gang.
- Ducky LaMoore - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 2:01 pm:
While disconcerting, this isn’t anywhere near the most frightening element of the defense reauthorization bill. Merging Israeli and US intelligence… uh… very bad idea.
- Jack in Chatham - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 2:35 pm:
This bureaucratic creep is creepy. We need to repeal the Not “Patriot Act” and abolish the Department of Homeland Security. This is not the Homeland but the United States of America. Very concerned with the seizure of journalists phones when traveling through airports.
- DuPage Saint - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 2:36 pm:
Sure give DHS more things to do since they are so good at everything
I have always hate the name Fepartment of Homeland Security. It is so 1930 Germany. It should be either disbanded or cut to the bone
- Leslie K - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 5:10 pm:
==want ICE to run an expanded facial recognition database out of every Target ==
A very good point that many people don’t know or think about. Target in particular was a an early adopter of extensive facial image capture. It links to the credit card you are using at the register when it takes your picture, which of course links it to whatever you are buying…So many data points that there is just no reason for the government to have unless they can justify a subpoena or search warrant.
- Walker - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 6:44 pm:
A good chief executive would veto this bill
- Excitable Boy - Tuesday, Jul 14, 26 @ 7:00 pm:
- I guess that puts me well to the right of some in my party. So be it. -
If your party had done anything meaningful the last few decades to address extreme wealth inequality this likely wouldn’t be an issue. But do go on believing this can be prosecuted away.
- Just a guy - Wednesday, Jul 15, 26 @ 11:12 am:
47th Ward at 1:09 p.m. yesterday…thank you for saying this. We actually no longer visit our local Walgreens in Bucktown because more than half the store is locked up, and at most there are three overworked employees trying to manage what is going on. My wife and I spoke with a store manager the last time we were there, and she inquired (she’s a lawyer and an engineer) why so much more had been locked up. The manager told us that in the last week alone, nearly $6K in merchandise had walked out of the store. They even had to lock up the beer coolers because people were walking in and walking out with cases of beer. We need better citizens, and we need more accountability for those who feel it’s fine to take things without paying for them.