The Intercept Sues for Records About Arizona's Financial Surveillance Dragnet
The Intercept filed a public records lawsuit on Monday for documents about a financial surveillance program run by the Arizona attorney general's office for more than a decade. For the past year, the attorney general's office has denied multiple requests for records about its relationship with the Transaction Record Analysis Center, or TRAC, a nonprofit organization that runs a massive database containing details about millions of wire transfers sent through Western Union and other companies.
The database, which is fueled by administrative subpoenas issued by the Arizona attorney general's office, offers an intimate glimpse into the financial lives of millions of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike. Over the years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has played an outsized role in TRAC, not just as a top user of the wire transfer data but also as another data pipeline, via subpoenas that alarmed civil liberties watchdogs.
'The public has the right to know about mass government surveillance of its citizens,' said Heather E. Murray, associate director of Cornell Law School's First Amendment Clinic, which is representing The Intercept in the lawsuit, in an emailed statement. 'Because TRAC is indisputably performing a core governmental function, the records that The Intercept seeks must be released by the AGO and TRAC to fulfill their transparency obligations under the Arizona Public Records Law.'
Ben Rundall, a partner at Zwillinger Wulkan in Phoenix, is also representing The Intercept in the case, which was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court.
'This completely defies the spirit and purpose of the [Arizona public records law].'
In response to The Intercept's records request last year, TRAC claimed it is not subject to public records disclosure requirements because of its nonprofit structure.
But TRAC was established by the attorney general's office in 2014, and records show close coordination over the years between agency officials and TRAC staff — who sometimes used official government email addresses. For years, one TRAC staff member even helped draft the administrative subpoenas, which she sent to the attorney general's office for official signature before they were served on Western Union and the other money transfer businesses.
The attorney general's office previously released hundreds of documents about TRAC's structure and operations to the American Civil Liberties Union. But under Attorney General Kris Mayes, the office now claims it has no obligation to release similar materials because they are in TRAC's possession.
'Stated directly, the AGO and TRAC are engaging in gamesmanship to avoid providing records about their public functions,' reads The Intercept's court filing. 'When a request is made to the AGO, it claims TRAC has the record. When a request is made to TRAC, it claims the AGO has the record. This completely defies the spirit and purpose of the [Arizona public records law].'
The attorney general's office also previously disclosed to the ACLU more than 100 copies of subpoenas the agency has sent under the state's racketeering law to more than two dozen companies since 2014. But in response to The Intercept's request, the agency said releasing any more subpoenas would violate the racketeering law itself.
'We are correcting the previous administration's error and following the law,' wrote Richie Taylor, communications director for Mayes's office, in an email last year.
An ACLU attorney, Nate Freed Wessler, previously called the agency's argument about disclosing the subpoenas 'wrong and borderline frivolous.'
The racketeering law 'has nothing to do with the AGO's responsibility to disclose records,' The Intercept argues in its filing. 'Withholding these records does not comport with any exception to public access provided in Arizona law.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
6 hours ago
- Axios
Virginia is a hot spot for immigration enforcement
Virginia is one of five states where efforts to arrest and remove unauthorized immigrants appear most aggressive, according to an Axios analysis. Why it matters: Over 2,000 Virginians received removal orders in March, the fifth-highest number nationwide, per data from the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). By the numbers: Of the 42,000 removals of immigrants ordered in March, over 300 were from the Richmond area, according to an analysis of TRAC data. Richmond had 126, followed by Chesterfield (116) and Henrico (81). And Fairfax County was in the top 10 U.S. localities for most immigrants ordered removed (504). The big picture: Our review of removal orders and agreements between immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies shows where the Trump administration is dispatching resources for mass deportations. Local law enforcement agencies in Virginia, Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina have been most cooperative with immigration enforcement in rounding up immigrants through deals known as 287(g) agreements, per our analysis. Virginia has a fraction (over 3%) of the 629 agreements in place nationwide, but it has the fifth-highest number signed or pending. Between the lines: Virginia's 21 signed and pending agreements are still less than 10% of the hundreds of localities and state agencies throughout the commonwealth. Most, except for Loudoun, are concentrated in Republican-leaning counties. Others are among state agencies, including the Virginia Department for Wildlife Resources and the Marine Resources Commission. And some police officials, including Richmond's chief of police, have said they have no interest in signing and potentially undermining the communities' trust. Zoom in: Gov. Youngkin, like governors in other GOP-led states, directed state law enforcement to partner with ICE and assist in arresting immigrants back in February via these agreements. It has since led to a series of high-profile raids, including hundreds in Northern Virginia and a few in an Albemarle courthouse, that have rattled immigrant communities. In February, Virginia also launched the first task force in the country that partners with federal agencies to target illegal immigration and international gangs. In May, Youngkin announced that the task force had arrested over 1,000 alleged unauthorized immigrants within two months. Reality check: Neither Youngkin or federal officials have publicly disclosed who these people are or how they're identifying that they have ties to gangs like MS-13 or Tren de Aragua.
The Intercept
7 hours ago
- The Intercept
A Doctor Said Israel's War Is Fueling Health Crises in Gaza. UCSF Fired Her.
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Health care workers demonstrate against the genocide in Gaza in Chicago on Nov. 16, 2023. Photo: Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images A doctor and professor is suing the University of California, San Francisco, alleging school officials fired her for her advocacy for Palestinian human rights in an attempt to silence her. In late May, UCSF terminated Rupa Marya following a nine-month suspension from the elite medical school based on social media posts in which she criticized Israel's genocide in Gaza and questioned how Zionist ideology affects health care outcomes. As a part of her dismissal, UCSF officials will place a letter of censure in Marya's file for 10 years, which she said will likely damage her ability to seek future employment and continue practicing medicine. In two free speech complaints, filed simultaneously this week in state and federal courts in Alameda County, California, Marya alleges the school discriminated against her for advocating on behalf of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students and colleagues. She told The Intercept that it's especially important that those who work in medicine feel free to call out the conditions in Gaza, where Israel's attacks on hospitals and its blockade on aid have caused a suite of overlapping health crises, prompting a famine risk amid ongoing bombardment. 'It's critical that we have the ability to speak out about this as professionals, as health care workers, as citizens, and not only of the United States but of the world, but also as U.S. taxpayers whose money is going to fund this genocide,' Marya said. Her lawsuits seek damages for loss of income and emotional and psychological distress — and come at a time when the University of California system has censured multiple faculty and staff members for speaking out about Palestine. The University of California and UCSF did not immediately respond to The Intercept's requests for comment. The complaints, which name as defendants UCSF officials including the school's Chancellor Sam Hawgood, allege that UCSF began to target Marya's advocacy even before she began to speak out about Palestine. Marya's scholarship includes research into the impacts of colonialism and structural racism in health care. The state complaint says her advocacy for her Black or unhoused patients had drawn criticism from some of her white colleagues, who allegedly used 'racist tropes' against Marya, a woman of Indian descent and raised in a Sikh household. 'UCSF leadership repeatedly characterized Dr. Marya's advocacy for marginalized patients as 'unprofessional,' 'aggressive' and 'harmful,'' the complaints read. Such targeting was magnified, the complaints argue, when Marya began to speak out on social media against Israel's offensive in Gaza following Hamas's October 7 attacks. After she criticized the school's silence on the killings of Palestinians in her posts, UCSF Provost Catherine Lucey called Marya in for questioning, according to the state complaint. Marya continued to post about Gaza. She posted a viral tweet calling for solidarity with Gaza's health care workers, drawing threats of death and rape. Marya notified school officials, including Lucey, about the threats, asking the school to temporarily remove her personal email and her profile from the school's public website, the complaints said. In the past, Lucey and school officials had taken similar protective measures amid the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. In this instance, however, UCSF officials ignored Marya's requests. Instead, Talmadge King Jr., the dean of UCSF's School of Medicine, emailed Marya, informing her that officials would assess whether Marya's social media posts about Gaza had 'violated university policies,' the complaints alleged. Marya had also reported 'racist, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian remarks,' including Islamophobic comments made by her colleagues in school email threads to the school's anti-harassment and discrimination office. The cases were closed without any serious investigations, the complaints alleged. Meanwhile, the university went on to highlight controversial pro-Israeli speakers such as Elan Carr, a U.S. Army veteran and CEO of the Israeli American Council, an influential pro-Israel lobbying and advocacy group, despite complaints from a broad coalition of Jewish, Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, LGBTQ+ students and staff at UCSF. A November investigation by The Intercept revealed widespread anti-Palestinian and pro-Israeli bias across UCSF, which runs the biggest hospital system in San Francisco. UCSF officials canceled and censored lectures by medical researchers for mentioning health impacts on Palestinians under Israel's apartheid system and its assault on Gaza. Some doctors were subject to internal investigations after giving talks that mention Palestine. One nurse practitioner, who had previously volunteered in Gaza, was fired earlier this year for wearing a watermelon pin to work. And in April, UCSF fired Denise Caramagno, a therapist and pioneering violence prevention advocate at the school after she spoke out in defense of Marya. UCSF isn't the only school in the University of California system accused of stifling pro-Palestine speech. A January report issued by the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Muslim Racism found similar patterns of bias at UCLA's medical school, ranging from censoring academic work; suppression of speech of students, medical residents, and faculty around Palestine; and ignoring incidents of racism against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim members of campus. And in early May, UCLA fired a faculty member, Eric Martin, for taking part in UCLA's pro-Palestine encampment one year earlier, the first known faculty firing of its kind across the UC system. Marya said she hopes her legal fight will help others know they can speak out against Israel's genocide despite ongoing attacks on pro-Palestine speech by both universities and the federal government. 'I'm hoping that a legal remedy would push the university for accountability, would educate the public more fully about what's happening — where our free speech rights are being violated around the country, as we are trying to stand for the right for all people to live in peace,' Marya told The Intercept. Read our complete coverage Since Palestinian solidarity encampments erupted on campuses nationwide in the spring of 2024, school officials have punished students and professors with arrests, firings, suspensions, and expulsions amid pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. The Trump administration has only escalated such attacks on universities and colleges over the supposed failure of schools to address reports of antisemitism, cutting federal funding at schools such as Columbia and Harvard, revoking visas for thousands of international students, and abducting pro-Palestinian students and professors. The Trump administration now plans to target the University of California system. Last week, Leo Terrell, head of the Justice Department's antisemitism task force, told Fox News the UC system should expect 'massive lawsuits' in the coming days. 'We are going to go after them where it hurts them financially,' Terrell said later in the Fox News interview. The UC responded by pledging to cooperate with the Trump administration to 'counter and eradicate [antisemitism] in all its forms across the system.' 'Dr. Marya's case fits this pattern that we're seeing across the United States,' said Wade McMullen, a human rights attorney who is a part of Marya's legal team, 'where universities and academic institutions are bowing to pressure from elected officials, whether that's the federal government or state and local government, combined with billionaire donors who sit on the boards of trustees and run these universities, to weaponize notions of antisemitism to suppress pro-Palestinian speech and organizing.' The new complaints nod to the outside pressures on UCSF to quiet its pro-Palestine movement. Mentioned in the complaint are social media posts from January 2024 in which Marya questioned the impacts of Zionism on health care, calling it 'a supremacist, racist ideology.' The posts drew immediate criticism from pro-Israel colleagues and from Democratic California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who accused her of antisemitism and 'attacking Jews.' The complaints allege that Wiener publicly criticized Marya on social media 'intentionally and maliciously in coordination with others.' Shortly after his post, Canary Mission, a pro-Israeli site that doxxes and blacklists academics and students who criticize Israel, created a profile on Marya, 'unleashing a flood of defamatory statements, hate mail, and threats against Dr. Marya.' The Helen Diller Family Foundation, UCSF's largest donor, gave $100,000 to Canary Mission in 2016, the complaint notes. Jaclyn Safier, the foundation's president and a member of UCSF's board of directors, has since distanced herself from the 2016 donation, which was handled by her late father, Sanford Diller. The university responded to the controversy by publishing a statement across its social media accounts addressing the posts without naming Marya, disavowing her statements as a 'racist conspiracy theory' and 'antisemitic attacks.' One of the complaints notes that a public records request later revealed the statement was indeed meant to target Marya. Wiener, the San Francisco-based lawmaker, immediately thanked UCSF for the statement. Wiener went on to single Marya out on social media for the September social media post that led to her suspension. In a tweet, Marya wrote that UCSF students were concerned that a first-year student from Israel may have served in the Israeli military in the prior year, then asked, 'How do we address this in our professional ranks?' Wiener shared Marya's tweet, accusing her of evoking 'an age-old antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish doctors are harming patients.' 'Wiener again misrepresented Dr. Marya's post on his social media, publicly accusing her of wrongdoing and mentioning her employment at UCSF,' the complaints state. The federal complaint called students' fears 'objectively reasonable,' citing the two Israeli military veterans who sprayed students at Columbia University with a noxious gas last year and an Emory University medical school professor who volunteered with the Israeli military in Gaza after October 7 before resuming classes and practicing medicine at the Atlanta school. During her suspension last October, the complaints allege, Marya's direct supervisor had attempted to solicit one of her colleagues at UCSF to file an incident report against Marya 'to claim that she was posing a threat to patient safety.' The colleague ultimately declined the request, according to the suits. In filing the lawsuits, Marya and her attorneys said they also seek to uncover any possible collaboration between the Diller Foundation, other donors, lawmakers, and university officials in the school's crackdown on pro-Palestine speech. The federal complaint asks the court to prevent the University of California from affecting her ability to practice medicine and to bar the school from sharing 'any comments about Dr. Marya based upon anything other than her clinical competence' with other hospitals. She had originally intended to seek injunctive relief from the courts to prevent her firing, but she received a surprise notice for dismissal on May 20. Marya and her attorneys said the university violated its own bylaws in firing her without a hearing before the school's academic senate. Marya said her firing was was largely based on her various social media posts and Substack essays that referenced her advocacy for Palestinians, in which she at times called out her colleagues for their support of Israel's genocide in Gaza. Some of her Jewish colleagues have responded by accusing her of creating a hostile work environment. Marya and her supporters at UCSF, who include anti-Zionist Jewish colleagues, have dismissed the conflation of anti-Zionism — which critiques an ethno-nationalist political ideology — with antisemitism. Mark Kleiman, a member of Marya's legal team, said this conflation 'disenfranchises a vast number of younger Jews, medical students, residents and younger clinical faculty, all of whom are terrified of speaking out, but certainly have very very strong feelings that what's happening [in Gaza] is horrendous and is a war crime.' Marya said she hoped the lawsuit and her continued advocacy would draw attention back to the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. 'The real issue is that the entire health care system in Gaza has been destroyed, and health care workers have been kidnapped and tortured — some have been raped to death like Dr. Adnan Al Bursh, who's a professor of orthopedic surgeon surgery in Gaza,' Marya said. 'The real issue here is not whether what I said hurt the feelings of some people.' Join The Conversation
The Intercept
2 days ago
- The Intercept
Trump Puts Lives at Risk by Revoking Emergency Abortion Guidelines for Hospitals
The Trump administration rescinded Biden-era guidance that explicitly required emergency rooms to provide abortions to pregnant patients if such care would save their lives. Medical experts expect the policy shift to sow chaos in hospitals and endanger pregnant people throughout the U.S. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's move to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration issued guidance related to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, a federal law that requires health care providers that take Medicare to provide 'stabilizing' medical treatment to all patients experiencing medical emergencies. In a 2022 letter to health care providers, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccerra wrote that if a doctor believes a pregnant patient at an emergency room 'is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA, and that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment.' The memo also clarified that EMTALA preempts state law in cases where abortion is illegal with exceptions narrower than those in EMTALA. In a press release Tuesday, the Trump administration rescinded the older guidance, stating that the previous rules 'do not reflect the policy of this Administration.' The release noted that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 'will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration's actions.' 'In places where doctors and hospitals are being threatened with both criminal and civil penalties for providing abortion care, it will cause a delay.' Abortion providers and experts in reproductive health argue that the vagueness of the new guidance will create uncertainty in emergency rooms, denying pregnant people equal access to care and putting lives at risk in states that have restricted or banned abortion. 'The Trump Administration would rather women die in emergency rooms than receive life-saving abortions,' said Nancy Northup, President and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights. 'In pulling back guidance, this administration is feeding the fear and confusion that already exists at hospitals in every state where abortion is banned. Hospitals need more guidance right now, not less.' The Trump administration told The Intercept that the idea that the new guidance puts lives at risk is 'false.' 'CMS will continue to enforce EMTALA, which protects all individuals who present to a hospital emergency department seeking examination or treatment, including for identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy,' Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon wrote in a statement to The Intercept. Even before the Trump administration rescinded the Biden-era guidance, dozens of pregnant women reported being turned away for emergency medical care since the fall of Roe. A ProPublica report found that at least five women have died as a result of abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Most reproductive health care experts believe the number is far higher than what's been reported. 'We already know that women have died because physicians didn't act because of fear surrounding what they or couldn't do under certain state bans,' said Dana Sussman, senior vice president at Pregnancy Justice, a non-profit reproductive justice organization. 'We know that women have died because they have been scared to get care, because they self managed abortions. We know that more women will die, and we and there are probably women who have died, and we will never know their names.' Sussman said that the new guidance will only make it harder for hospitals to feel comfortable providing lifesaving care to pregnant people. 'I think inevitably it will create many more challenges when it comes to what hospitals are advising their physicians, what physicians feel comfortable doing in different states and and I do think that it's putting more lives,' she said. Last year, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by the Biden Administration challenging Idaho's abortion ban on the grounds that it violated EMTALA by prohibiting abortion care in too many circumstances. The court ultimately punted — refusing to add clarity — but allowing emergency abortions to go forward in the state. The Trump Department of Justice declined to continue prosecuting the Idaho case, an early signal that it planned to rescind the Biden guidance. Jamilla Perritt, an OB-GYN and abortion provider in Washington who is also president of the nonprofit Physicians for Reproductive Health, said it's important to clarify that EMTALA still stands, even if the administration has tried to muddy the waters. 'This does not change [providers] legal obligation to provide life saving care for people when they report to emergency rooms,' Perritt said. 'The other thing is that it does not change their moral and ethical obligation to do so.' The confusion caused by this announcement, however, will carry risks, argued Perritt. 'In places where doctors and hospitals are being threatened with both criminal and civil penalties for providing abortion care,' she said. 'It will cause a delay. It will give them pause.' It's striking, Perrit said, to see such policy come from an administration that has been masquerading as supportive of families. 'The federal government gets to decide who lives and who dies during pregnancy complications, during emergency events,' she said. 'The hypocrisy is really glaring, because this is the exact same government that's claiming to support children and families that want people to have more babies, but instead it is dismantling the system that protects the lives of pregnant people and their families.'
