 Hi, I'm Marianne Sasaki and you're watching Life in the Law. We air on Wednesdays between 1 and 1.30 on thinktecawaii.com, or thinktecawaii, not .com. We're so lucky today to have Mateo Caballero, the legal director of the ACLU here in Hawaii. And you know, the ACLU is just at the forefront of the news now with everything that's going on between the executive orders and, you know, now this national security issues with Russia. It's just incredible what's going on in the country. I never thought I would live to see days like this. So welcome, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So before we get into the, you know, our, you know, what I think about about 24 hours a day, Donald Trump and where this administration is going and where our country is going and the Constitution, just tell me a little bit about yourself and tell me a little bit about the ACLU locally here. What's it, you know? Sure. So I've been in Hawaii three years. I practice here for three years and in Washington D.C. for five before, you know, becoming the legal director of the ACLU just last September. And the local chapter of the ACLU is relatively small compared to, you know, Northern California or San Diego. We are seven employees, seven people, only two attorneys. Oh, really? Yeah. We work, most of the work we do, we do through cooperating attorneys, so we work a lot with local firms and, you know, they might take the lead on some of those cases or the smaller cases we do in-house. We also try to resolve most matters, you know, through demand letters, through just conversations with the government. Sure. Sure. Typically not involved, necessarily, in a lot of litigation on a day-to-day basis, though sometimes it is inevitable that there is litigation. And last year we were involved, I think the more important case was the Martin case. This was before I came into the ACLU, but essentially it's the case concerning how the city and county of Honolulu was conducting the city sweeps of the homeless and just taking the personal belongings and the homeless, their IDs, their medication, their toys, you know. Just unbelievable. Yeah. And throwing them away. Right. Storing them without following what the statute required or the ordinance required. And so we stepped in and we reached a settlement with the city, and now they have an entire protocol they have to follow by court order. Right. That's right. That's terrific. So okay, let's jump in. Let's jump into Trump. I mean, I think about him more than I think about my husband, they swear to God. So I guess we should, you want to start with the executive orders and the broad reach of executive orders now. And how did that evolve? I mean, I think it evolved since 9-11 that the executive orders became so broad in the use of executive orders by the president. So executive orders have existed for a very long time. And in fact, George Washington issued executive orders. So they have been around for a while. I think the scope and breadth of the executive orders has definitely been expanding over time. Right. And definitely since that 9-11, you have seen more executive orders concerning national security, concerning surveillance, concerning matters that typically Congress would have a say. Right. Interesting that, you know, and the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged this, that there is no definition for executive order. Essentially, an executive order is just a document that the executive branch signs and tells its administrative branches how to act, how it thinks it should act. And the legal significance of an executive order is always a little bit up in the air. And it really depends on the powers conferred to the executive, either by the Constitution or by Congress. So in places where either the Constitution or Congress has told the president, you have authority to act, then executive orders are legal and they have the power often of almost law. And that's in national security matters they have. Not necessarily always because, you know, Congress is supposed to pass statues that create agencies and tell the agencies, you know, this is your mandate, this is what you're supposed to do. Mm-hmm. So if an executive order goes beyond that mandate, then they are not necessarily legal. Oh, okay. And in the case of the executive orders that were issued just a few months, few weeks ago, particularly the one concerning immigration from the seven majority Muslim countries and also refugees from anywhere, those orders went against specific acts of Congress. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Yes. So in many of the cases that are moving forward in the courts, yes, they have constitutional challenges. They say these orders violate the due process clause, they violate equal protection, they violate religious freedom. But many of them, the first argument they make is actually that they violate an act of Congress. That Congress told the president, this is how you're supposed to execute immigration law. This is how you're supposed to administrate this area of the law and you're not following those directives. Well, that's interesting. So it's more blatant even than it appears at first blush because the president is willing to usurp the power of Congress or at least supersede the power of Congress in order to have his wishes enforced. You know, no one to the court, the court used such strong language when it struck down the ban. I mean, it was really pretty. And at this point there have been, last time I checked, and this was a week ago, 14 cases filed challenging the executive order, including one in Hawaii by Attorney General Chen, and so far every single judge that has heard the, you know, has had a hearing on a TRO, on a temporary restraining order concerning the executive orders has restrained the order. The judge has found that it's likely that the order violates the law or violates the Constitution. And again, if you read some of the opinions, it's in part because they contravene acts of Congress. Right. Wow. That's interesting. So what do you think that says about the way Donald Trump intends to govern or about his administration? I mean, what are the ACLU's fears about the Trump administration? Well, I would say there are two types of fears. There are the fears that we have had since 9-11 and even, you know, even sometimes before, which essentially is the expansion of executive powers when it comes to surveillance, when it comes to blacklists, when it comes to, you know, just the government apparatus aimed at its, at U.S. citizens, and that preceded Trump. And I think the scary thing is that now he has inherited that apparatus and he can use it not only to go against what he perceives are national security threats, but it could be against immigrants. It could be against, you know, racial minorities. Right. It could be against... Right. ...a personal bias, or a bias, or some bias he may have. So, and that's, you know, something the ACLU has been working on under a democratic precedence and under a Republican precedence, you know. We have always tried to keep that check, that, you know, the executive branch power checked. Well, it is stunning. I mean, the broadening of that power and what the kinds of surveillance that we're comfortable with now, you know, it just... I never really would have thought it would be allowable for any reason. In fact, somebody said something along the lines of, you know, you have to remember, you're doing these things for the good of the citizenry, you know. You can't do these things to the citizenry for the good of the citizenry, you know. You have to have a balance. You have to balance those values. And the balance is really found in the Constitution. I mean, the Constitution is, in that respect, an amazing document that has, you know, outlived some people by saying it's not perfect, it needs updating, but it has now been around for hundreds of years, and it does strike the balance between, you know, what types of privacy rights you expect, what First Amendment rights you have, and kind of like what is your relationship to the government. And what we have seen, again, since 9-11, but sometimes even before then, is kind of the government often trying to upset that balance and really push the limits. And so, you know, we're going to continue working on that at the ACLU, and we will hold the Trump administration accountable just as we did the Obama administration, where, as we know, because of this note and revelations, there were also serious abuses of the Fourth Amendment and right to privacy. So that's one thing, and we're heartened that people are starting to pay more attention to these issues, because I feel like when the president or the administration is one you agree with, or you voted for, it's kind of easy to think, okay, someone I trust is in power, therefore I don't have to care about this. Right, the population is more docile, they're more accepting, you know. And they kind of trust the government, and so under those circumstances, it's much harder to make the case for why these are very serious abuses. And then something— In Teo, if you're like me and you're from the 60s, you never trust the government. No, I shouldn't say that, but, you know, I live through Nixon, I live through Vietnam, and, you know, a healthy skepticism with respect to what the government's doing, could you awe some power of the government is, you know? It's very important, and I think we're getting that back. I think that healthy skepticism is coming back, at least from, you know, the Democratic Party and perhaps the more progressive side of politics. But then there are new issues, there are issues that did not exist under the Obama administration. And we have already talked about two of them. One of them is, you know, during the campaign, Trump made a number of promises that had really concerned ACLU and that affected civil liberties, or core civil liberties. So, and in fact, we had—this is one of the things we did during the campaign, and it was a little bit controversial, because we are nonpartisan. We are, you know, a nonpartisan organization, and as I said, we held the Obama administration in check. We are now holding the Trump administration in check, but we released what is called the Trump Memos, which had a very detailed legal analysis of some of the campaign promises made by then candidate Trump. Right. What he really meant, what he really meant, if you were to do the things that— Exactly. Everybody wants him to do, or he has a mandate to do. And so it goes, you know, promise by promise and explains why this raised very serious constitutional concerns. And to be fair, we did something similar for also Secretary Hillary Clinton, or candidate Hillary Clinton, and explained, you know, how we were concerned about her continuing some of the Obama presidency policies. Right. But some of the Trump campaign promises that concern us are the one about the Muslim ban, and now we see how that looks in practice. Right. Where, you know, the situation on the ground has been very chaotic. The implementation has been terrible. Just stunning. No judge, as I say, has found this to be constitutional. It has gone against, as a Congress, it goes against just core values that we all—essentially that would make America America. Right. That's right. Yeah, that's right. You know, we are supposed to be—to welcome immigrants, we're supposed to treat everyone equally and make determinations on a case-by-case basis, not on the basis of where you come from. Right. And here in Hawaii, we know, you know, the dangers of that, because during World War II, there was also an executive order that essentially made it legal to put Japanese Americans and people of Japanese origin in internment camps. Right. And Hawaii was one of the states that had the largest Japanese American population, and people here actually stood up for the neighbors. And we had, in Hawaii, a very, very small proportion of the population was putting camps as compared to the main— Right. That's great. Yeah. Well, you know, that's good that we have a—you know, we do the right thing. You know, I moved here from New York, and I was really concerned because I'd never lived anywhere else in New York, and I'm part of the liberal bubble and everything. But now I moved to Hawaii, and I'm very comfortable with the history and, well, there's certain things in the history that are problematic. But for the most part, it's in sync with my own political beliefs, you know. So I'm going to take a quick break, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about more fears, more fears. Hello. Thank you for watching Think Tech, Planet of the Courageous. I'm Dr. Dean Nelson, host of Planet of the Courageous. In Tibetan mythology, it's said that you pick this planet to learn something. You picked your birth on this planet to learn something. This planet is spinning and hurling through space at 67,000 miles up per hour, and it takes courage to not slip into fear and collapse into anxiety. One can find so many justifications for selfishness and prejudice, but we have two ears to listen to one another and one heart that can provide a common ground. But this takes courage to stay in that space. We've chosen the right planet for the opportunity to learn courage and try to solve so many challenges. Aloha. Thank you for watching. Looking to energize your Friday afternoon? Tune in to stay in the energy man at 12 noon. Aloha Friday here on Think Tech Hoy. You're watching Life in the Law. I'm Marion Sasaki. We've been having a really fascinating discussion with Mateo Caballero about our rights, the infringement of our rights, and the ACLU's fight to push back against infringement of our civil rights. And so we were talking about immigration, and it was an interesting thing that Mateo said during the break that the Obama administration deported a lot of people, 2.5 million people. Yeah, and those were record numbers. That's something we hadn't seen before. And many, many families were divided. It created a lot of chaos and it also created a lot of really bad consequences. The ACLU in fact has been fighting for the Obama administration and tried to get, for example, there was a nine-circuit case last year concerning the right to counsel for some of the minors that were coming from Central America seeking asylum that were essentially fleeing violence in places like Guatemala, Nicaragua, and they were coming to the U.S. seeking asylum and the government is not even giving them counsel so that they would be able to seek asylum. So for that case, we actually lost. But yes, the Obama administration took very harsh positions on immigration to be fair. The administration also tried to expand the DREAMERS Act or the DREAMERS program and also tried to expand it to the parents. And DACA was, as far as we can tell, very successful. DACA, unfortunately, was stopped by the courts. And that's kind of the flip side of what we're seeing right now, where the courts are also checking the Trump administration. But yeah, immigration is an area where we're going to continue to be working very hard. Do you think this national anxiety about immigration, what do you think it says about the United States? I mean, what... You're right, it's a verse to our fundamental, our core values, and is it the economy that makes people so afraid of other people coming into the... I mean, what does it say about us? You know, I don't know. I do think there is economic anxiety aspects. I do think that if most people look back at their history, pretty much everyone, with the exception of Native Hawaiians and Native Americans, will have someone that came to the U.S. seeking a better life, fleeing violence, chasing the American dream. So to me, it is a little bit baffling that we are where we are. You know, in sweeping the world, this national anxiety against immigration, it's happening in France, it's happening in England, it's Brexit. It seems like the world's tipped in a certain way and, you know... And these situations, I think, is where civil rights and civil liberties are very, very important because they are supposed to be there to protect us against these, sometimes, majoritarian... I don't think they're really majoritarian here in the U.S. but, you know... Right. Theoretically. Theoretically. It's supposed to protect us from some of democracy's ills, where a majority might try to suppress a minority. And that's exactly, I think, what we're seeing with some of these executive orders and what we're seeing with some of the changes to how the U.S. enforces immigration. And, you know, during the Obama administration, again, record numbers of people were deported, but there was a system. There were priorities. Right. And ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, they were supposed to not go to churches, not go to schools, not go to the place you work. But now the concern is that all of that is going out of the window and we will start seeing ICE being a lot more aggressive. Well, if church can't be a sanctuary, if school can't be a sanctuary, gee. Yeah. No, it's unprecedented and, you know, it's quite frankly scary. And in terms of the civil rights, though, our concern with immigration is particularly how immigration laws are enforced. Like, we understand that there are immigration laws and that there are people that in fact violate those immigration laws. But in the process of enforcing them, what happens is normally people are racially profiled. Sure. Targeted, absolutely. And not only targeted, but also when they go to their home, they show up without a warrant. They try to trick people to come out. They, you know, they often don't follow the procedures to arrest someone. They don't offer them due process in the process of deportation. So the entire process is just rife with constitutional violation. And so to me it doesn't make sense that if the argument on the other side is that we're a nation of laws, then you should be violating the laws in the process of enforcing immigration laws. Well, I couldn't agree more. And, you know, I have a little thing actually about constitutional rights being limited to you as a citizen. I think, you know what? If you believe in constitutional rights, you believe in human rights. You believe in constitutional rights for everyone, U.S. or not. But that's my own little. No, no. And they're not limited to U.S. citizens. You know, what we saw, again, after 9-11 was some litigation around that. And as we know, there were people detaining Guantanamo that the Bush administration took the position. They didn't have constitutional rights. And the U.S. Supreme Court came back and said, no, they are in your custody and they deserve a minimum of constitutional rights. So they do have rights. You know, and of course, the rights sometimes change depending on the circumstances, but still they are very meaningful. So that's another area we're going to be working on. There is also the issue of torture. You know, President Trump has talked in favor of torture. He seems to think that, you know, he will let it to the experts. And we're hopeful because at the very least, most experts, most people, both from the military, from the intelligence agencies, now say this didn't work. No, right. It's not a... It didn't make us safer. We didn't get intelligence. It just... It was a black high. It's a way to help, you know, terrorist organizations recruit. I was going to say it incites terrorist organizations, right, yeah. It's pragmatically doesn't work. I mean, obviously morally it's wrong. But pragmatically it doesn't work. And as you said, I mean, morally and legally, you know, it goes against agreements that the U.S. has signed international agreements and the idea that we are even considering torture is... It's barbaric. Yeah. It is absolutely barbaric. It really is. But it violates the state's amendment. It violates the process. Torture violates pretty much every, a lot of constitutional amendments. So we already made these commitments. We already made these decisions that torture is just not right. And we have to stick to those commitments. I just want to say one thing because I promised Jay I would say this is apropos of nothing that Puzner... What is... What's his first name? Do you remember? Oh... The Department of Labor... Yes, I don't remember his first name. ...has stepped down. I would be remiss if I didn't... I hate to interrupt you, Mateo, but I would be remiss if I didn't bring you the breaking news on Think Tech because we have the breaking news. So just everybody know that. Let's get back to some of them right now. So what other torture and other other things on the radar? There are a few others. So there has been talk about religious refusal, executive order, which is what people are concerned would allow discrimination by private citizens, particularly against the LGBTQ community. Right. Well, I think... I have to tell you, I'm very involved in the LGBTQ rights and I have to say that the administration I think is smartly steering clear of that and will smartly steer clear of that because that is just such a quagmire, not that immigration isn't a quagmire, it is, but the law is so far-settled in that area. Although I guess you could say it's so far-settled in the favor of abortion too and people are afraid. So... And we're hopeful that's the case during the campaign, the Trump campaign steers somewhat clear of LGBTQ issues, kind of not neither being in favor or against, and so we will see what happens, but that is a concern that essentially so-called religious freedom is going to be used to give license to people to discriminate. Right. Right. So tell me, does the ACLU or do you personally have any thoughts about the election in Brolio, the Russia interfering in our election, or how does the ACLU have a position about that or what's everybody talking about? So the ACLU, one of the first things it did, and this was our national office, when Trump took office, was send FOIA requests and the FOIA requests are supposed to show any conflicts of interest that the administration might have. It's freedom of information. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, yes. It's our freedom of information requests to the government, asking essentially for information about any form of potential conflict of interest that the Trump administration might have because he made the decision to continue running his business, essentially, or having his family continue to run his business as he's in office. And we know that he has businesses in a lot of places, and so the American public has the right to know what those businesses are and know how those might affect public policy. But they seem not to care, right? I mean, it's so blatant, I think, you know, if the president is talking about his daughter's clothing or his counselor, Kellyanne Conway, is discussing, it's so, people are complacent, you know, we said if people empower, we have a tendency to be complacent, but people seem to be complacent about this issue. I don't think they realize the magnitude of the problem that can emerge from such enmeshment, you know? Well, and I think, I'm hopeful that people are not so much complacent as perhaps they don't know, like the extent of those conflicts. Yeah, uneducated or doesn't, yeah, don't really realize the implications, ramifications. Exactly. So I think there's going to be a process, a learning process, both in terms of getting information out about, you know, what types of conflicts he has, you know, what the businesses are and how they're affecting public policy. And I think at that point, I wouldn't be surprised if people, in fact, demand changes and demand that the Trump administration does sell those businesses or invest itself in it. But, you know, there's so integral to who he is, there's so much, he's not merely, like, you know, a CEO or a captain of industry, his brand and his companies are so much his identity, you know? It's not like, you know, he can just step down and, you know, I don't want to serve as CEO anymore. He lives and breathes his businesses, his businesses are him. Well, and the ACLU's position on this is that, you know, that's something you give up when you run for president. I mean, that's kind of the price of becoming the U.S. president. It should be. That at that point, if you have anything that will be a conflict, and in fact, you know, the Constitution is silent and all the things about the presidency, but it does mention a few things. And one of them is the movements clause that we have heard after many years of not hearing anything about it. And the reason we haven't heard about it is because most presidents are very cautious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they haven't been up until now. So they are, you know, they best themselves months ahead. They really try to create, you know, walls around their administration and the movements clause shows that this was something that the founding fathers considered. Yeah, I find it very important. I don't want to cut you off, but we're running out of time. I could talk about the Emoluments Clause forever and ever. But this has been a riveting discussion. Thank you for your work. You know, I don't know what the country would be without the ACLU. One of the most important institutions we have. Thank you. No, thanks for having me.