InvestMacro

By Clark D. Cunningham, Georgia State University 

The FBI recovered confidential and top-secret items from Mar-a-Lago during its Aug. 8, 2022, search of the estate – pointing to former President Donald Trump’s potential violation of several federal laws.

A Florida federal judge – the same one who issued the warrant to search Trump’s estate – ordered on Aug. 12, 2022, that the document be made public – along with an inventory of items seized during the FBI’s raid.

The unsealed documents seem to indicate that the U.S. Department of Justice believes Trump may have violated the Espionage Act, as well as other criminal laws relating to the handling of public records.

Clark Cunningham, Georgia State University legal scholar and an expert on search warrants, explains how this new information connects to possible criminal wrongdoing by the former president.

These laws were potentially violated

The released warrant authorized the FBI to search for evidence that Trump has violated three key laws.

First, there is the Espionage Act, which applies to possession of information related to the national defense that could be used to harm the U.S. or aid a foreign adversary. This law applies to someone who, like Trump, initially had lawful possession of such information but who, after their time in office ended, refuses to return it to the government.

Then, there is obstruction of justice, which includes concealing documents to obstruct a federal investigation.

Finally, there is the Public Records statute, which prohibits someone entrusted with a public record from “concealing” that document.

What’s in the inventory

The inventory of items taken by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago apparently shows Trump may have violated these laws in a number of different ways.

The inventory shows that FBI agents seized documents designated “SCI,” which refers to Sensitive Compartmented Information. In simple terms, this is classified information that comes from intelligence sources – and must be handled only within secured government locations.

Because this kind of sensitive information can reveal both methods and procedures for collecting intelligence – including the identity of undercover agents in hostile countries – the presence of such materials at Mar-a-Lago may be a violation of the Espionage Act, if Trump was willfully retaining this information after the government demanded its return.

The inventory also refers to numerous “top-secret” documents. Federal law defines this as “information or material which requires the highest degree of protection” and could threaten national security. The FBI’s discovery of top-secret documents could corroborate The Washington Post’s report that the FBI search included classified documents related to nuclear weapons. The FBI also seized documents designated “secret” and “confidential.”

All told, the FBI removed 27 boxes and other individually listed items, including photographs.

Trump received a federal subpoena in the spring of 2022 to return documents taken from the White House.

So if the inventory includes items that should have been returned in response to the subpoena, but were not, that can be evidence of obstruction of justice and concealment of public records.

A defense that might not hold

Trump has suggested that the FBI may have planted evidence during its search.

However, federal rules about search warrants provide strong protection against such a possibility, by requiring that a government officer present when a search warrant is carried out “prepare and verify an inventory” of property seized in the presence of “another officer” and “the person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken.”

The officer must then “give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken to the person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken,” according to these rules.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said during his Aug. 11 statement about the search that these procedures were followed. “Copies of both the warrant and the FBI property receipt were provided on the day of the search to the former president’s counsel, who was on site during the search,” Garland said.

The federal rules say that if the owner of the premises is not present, another “credible person” can verify the inventory – in this case, the unsealed records confirm that Trump’s attorney, Christine Bobbs, acknowledged receipt of the inventory at 6:19 p.m. on Aug. 8, 2022.

Limited precedent for unsealing these types of documents

It’s relatively rare for a judge to unseal court records of a search warrant, unless an actual criminal prosecution is underway and the record is needed in court.

One other notable exception occurred in December 2016 when a New York federal court issued an unsealing order for the Oct. 30, 2016, search warrant requested by former FBI Director James Comey to investigate emails improperly stored by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Unlike the Justice Department’s Aug. 12, 2022, order regarding Trump, the unsealing of the Clinton-related warrant included the underlying affidavit. An affidavit is a statement made under oath to the issuing judge to obtain the warrant.

Disclosure of these documents provided the basis for a firestorm of criticism by Clinton allies that there was insufficient evidence to support the FBI’s warrant application.

As explained in a judge’s October 2016 order to make the search warrant for the Clinton investigation public, warrant application proceedings “have historically been highly secretive in nature and closed to the press and public.” In that case, the judge said that in deciding whether to unseal, courts must consider both the government’s interest in not compromising an ongoing criminal investigation and the need to protect the privacy and reputation of the person subject to the search who may never be charged with a crime.

However, for the Mar-a-Lago warrant, both the government and Trump, the subject of the search, consented to the unsealing.

True to his reputation for careful judgment, Garland went by the book in response to an avalanche of attacks from Trump allies demanding transparency about the search. The warrant and inventory have now been released for all to see through a proper court procedure – which Trump publicly endorsed.

About the Author:

Clark D. Cunningham, W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics; Director, National Institute for Teaching Ethics & Professionalism, Georgia State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

By Abdul Salam, Purdue University 

Water is the most essential resource for life, for both humans and the crops we consume. Around the world, agriculture accounts for 70% of all freshwater use.

I study computers and information technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute and direct Purdue’s Environmental Networking Technology (ENT) Laboratory, where we tackle sustainability and environmental challenges with interdisciplinary research into the Agricultural Internet of Things, or Ag-IoT.

The Internet of Things is a network of objects equipped with sensors so they can receive and transmit data via the internet. Examples include wearable fitness devices, smart home thermostats and self-driving cars.

In agriculture, it involves technologies such as wireless underground communications, subsurface sensing and antennas in soil. These systems help farmers track conditions on their land in real time, and apply water and other inputs such as fertilizer exactly when and where they are needed.

In particular, monitoring conditions in the soil has great promise for helping farmers use water more efficiently. Sensors can now be wirelessly integrated into irrigation systems to provide real-time awareness of soil moisture levels. Studies suggest that this strategy can reduce water demand for irrigation by anywhere from 20% to 72% without hampering daily operations on crop fields.

What is the Agricultural Internet of Things?

Even in dry places such as the Middle East and North Africa, farming is possible with efficient water management. But extreme weather events driven by climate change are making that harder. Recurrent droughts in the western U.S. over the past 20 years, along with other disasters like wildfires, have caused billions of dollars in crop losses.

Water experts have measured soil moisture to inform water management and irrigation decisions for decades. Automated technologies have largely replaced hand-held soil moisture tools because it is hard to take manual soil moisture readings in production fields in remote locations.

In the past decade, wireless data harvesting technologies have begun to provide real-time access to soil moisture data, which makes for better water management decisions. These technologies could also have many advanced IoT applications in public safety, urban infrastructure monitoring and food safety.

The Agricultural Internet of Things is a network of radios, antennas and sensors that gather real-time crop and soil information in the field. To facilitate data collection, these sensors and antennas are interconnected wirelessly with farm equipment. The Ag-IoT is a complete framework that can detect conditions on farmland, suggest actions in response and send commands to farm machinery.

Interconnecting devices such as soil moisture and temperature sensors in the field makes it possible to control irrigation systems and conserve water autonomously. The system can schedule irrigation, monitor environmental conditions and control farm machines, such as seed planters and fertilizer applicators. Other applications include estimating soil nutrient levels and identifying pests.

The challenges of putting networks underground

Wireless data collection has the potential to help farmers use water much more efficiently, but putting these components in the ground creates challenges. For example, at the Purdue ENT Lab, we have found that when the antennas that transmit sensor data are buried in soil, their operating characteristics change drastically depending on how moist the soil is. My new book, “Signals in the Soil,” explains how this happens.

Farmers use heavy equipment in fields, so antennas must be buried deep enough to avoid damage. As soil becomes wet, the moisture affects communication between the sensor network and the control system. Water in the soil absorbs signal energy, which weakens the signals that the system sends. Denser soil also blocks signal transmission.

We have developed a theoretical model and an antenna that reduces the soil’s impact on underground communications by changing the operation frequency and system bandwidth. With this antenna, sensors placed in top layers of soil can provide real-time soil condition information to irrigation systems at distances up to 650 feet (200 meters) – longer than two football fields.

Another solution I have developed for improving wireless communication in soil is to use directional antennas to focus signal energy in a desired direction. Antennas that direct energy toward air can also be used for long-range wireless underground communications.

What’s next for the Ag-IoT

Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important for the Ag-IoT as it matures. Networks on farms need advanced security systems to protect the information that they transfer. There’s also a need for solutions that enable researchers and agricultural extension agents to merge information from multiple farms. Aggregating data this way will produce more accurate decisions about issues like water use, while preserving growers’ privacy.

These networks also need to adapt to changing local conditions, such as temperature, rainfall and wind. Seasonal changes and crop growth cycles can temporarily alter operating conditions for Ag-IoT equipment. By using cloud computing and machine learning, scientists can help the Ag-IoT respond to shifts in the environment around it.

Finally, lack of high-speed internet access is still an issue in many rural communities. For example, many researchers have integrated wireless underground sensors with Ag-IoT in center pivot irrigation systems, but farmers without high-speed internet access can’t install this kind of technology.

Integrating satellite-based network connectivity with the Ag-IoT can assist nonconnected farms where broadband connectivity is still unavailable. Researchers are also developing vehicle-mounted and mobile Ag-IoT platforms that use drones. Systems like these can provide continuous connectivity in the field, making digital technologies accessible for more farmers in more places.

About the Author:

Abdul Salam, Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.