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Maxine Waters: ‘I cannot be intimidated’

That was Rep. Maxine Waters’ response, fired back after Fox News host Bill O’Reilly mocked her hair Tuesday.

At 78, the California Democrat’s fierce opposition and one-liners dished out against President Donald Trump’s administration have made her a darling to liberals. She’s been called “the new first lady of throwing shade” and “Auntie Maxine” for her blunt, no-nonsense style — raising her profile in the age of Trump.

She slammed the Trump administration as a “Kremlin klan” over its alleged ties to Russia and two weeks into his presidency, called for his impeachment. Her unamused facial expressions and quotable lines have made her a fixture on social media and TV.

The Los Angeles-area Democrat hasn’t won many conservative fans.

O’Reilly comments on Waters’ hair

On Tuesday, O’Reilly mocked Waters’ hair, saying, “I didn’t hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig.”

O’Reilly apologized later for his comments — after making the comparison twice. “I love James Brown. But it’s the same hair!” he had said while appearing on “Fox & Friends.”

He later said: “Whatever she says, she believes. She’s not a phony, and that’s old school.”

O’Reilly later apologized for his wig comments in a statement.

“As I have said many times, I respect Congresswoman Maxine Waters for being sincere in her beliefs,” he said. “I said that again today on Fox & Friends calling her ‘old school.’ Unfortunately, I also made a jest about her hair which was dumb. I apologize.” He also brought it up during his show “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Waters told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that she didn’t care about O’Reilly.

“I’d like to say to women out there everywhere, don’t allow these right-wing talking heads, these dishonorable people, to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are! Do what you do! And let us get on with discussing the real issues of this country!”

She then accused Trump of wrapping “his arms around Putin” and called for an independent investigation into the President and his associates.

#BlackWomenAtWork

The hashtag #BlackWomenAtWork was trending after O’Reilly’s comments, as tweeters began discussing challenges that black women face at work.

As one of the 20 black women in Congress, Waters has been holding her own since her election in 1991, when the halls of government had not seen many women or minorities.

In her career, she has advocated for education, affirmative action and African-American issues.

Born in St. Louis as one of 13 children, Waters grew up in a housing project. She later moved to Los Angeles after getting married.

She worked in a garment factory, but later became part of Head Start, a federal program for children from poor families. It was from there that she jumped into local politics and became a strong voice on social issues, including civil rights, women and urban issues.

Waters made waves as a new congresswomen when she burst uninvited into a 1992 meeting held by President George H.W. Bush following the LA riots. She demanded to have her voice heard, as her district included South Central LA.

Over the years, she has remained popular in her district, winning re-election by wide margins.

She was the subject of a nearly three-year investigation after being accused of improperly seeking government assistance for OneUnited Bank, a minority-owned bank in which her husband held a financial interest, during the 2008 financial meltdown. The bank received $12 million in bailout funds.

Why is government searching phones?

These are some of the many American citizens re-entering the country who have been subjected to searches of their cellphones and questioning about their social media.

Such invasions of travelers’ private communications are extremely intrusive and have been conducted even when officials don’t apparently have reason to think the person has done something wrong. And the government has lately increased the practice dramatically â€” even though recent legal decisions raise serious questions about its constitutionality.

Because people keep ever more of their personal details on their phones and computers, it is particularly egregious that the government should claim some right to unfettered access to these devices simply because a person travels abroad.

On Monday, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University â€” whose mission is to defend free speech in the digital age â€” filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the government to release information on the number of travelers whose devices have been searched, the policies related to searching cellphones containing sensitive and confidential information, and the findings of internal audits about the device search program.

Border searches of electronic devices by the Department of Homeland Security have risen exponentially in recent years, from about 5,000 device searches in 2015 to about 25,000 in 2016, according to press reports that cited DHS data. During the Trump administration, the intrusions appear to have become even more frequent; in February 2017 alone, border officials searched 5,000 devices.

And why is this happening? A US Customs and Border Protection policy since 2009 authorizes officers to seize and search a traveler’s electronic devices even if the person is not suspicious. The policy was always legally dubious, but it has become indefensible in light of the Supreme Court’s 2014 landmark decision in Riley v. California.

The court held that police generally can’t seize a person’s cellphone as part of an arrest without first obtaining a warrant that is backed by evidence that the cellphone contains evidence of a crime and is signed by a judge.

A cellphone contains “the sum of an individual’s private life,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. The search of a smartphone is nothing like the search of a duffle bag. What people store on their cellphones — including Internet browsing history, medical records, family photos, GPS location data, financial information, and apps related to dating, addiction and hobbies — is vastly more sensitive than what people used to carry in their pockets, backpacks, or purses, or even keep in their homes.

Searches of electronic devices when there is no basis for suspicion to search them raise serious concerns relating to the freedoms of speech and association. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor observed in another recent Supreme Court case, “[a]wareness that the government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms.” Americans will be justifiably concerned about speaking freely if, simply because they travel internationally, the government is given unlimited authority to read through their emails, texts, social media posts and the like.

The implications may be especially significant for a free press. Suspicionless searches of cellphones threaten the ability of journalists and their sources to report on important international issues, which deprives the public of its right to know about those issues.

Numerous reports show that journalists, lawyers and activists â€” particularly those who cover civil wars and terrorism or travel to conflict areas â€” have had their cellphones and devices searched at the US border, where officers have demanded their passwords and read their communications with sources.

Those sources will likely be leery of sharing information with journalists and activists if their identities and reports may be revealed to the US government at the border.

Anecdotal evidence about how the government is using its authority to conduct suspicionless electronic device searches is disturbing but incomplete. The public has a right to see a fuller picture, as many civil liberties groups have asked the government to provide.

Our freedom of information lawsuit request seeks a range of information, but one of the items we seek may be especially revealing: We’ve asked for the database of the Treasury Enforcement Communications System that houses information about every device-search at the border, including the reason for the search, the country of origin of the traveler, and the traveler’s race and ethnicity.

The government created this database in response to concerns voiced by the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights office several years ago about the possibility that searches might be conducted in a discriminatory or otherwise unlawful way.

Disclosure of the database â€” perhaps with narrow redactions to protect legitimate national security and privacy interests â€” would help the public understand the answer to basic questions about the government’s program: How often do border officers search travelers’ cellphones and other devices, and for what reasons?

Why did the incidence of cellphone searches sharply increase in the past 15 months? Does the department follow its own rules for taking special measures to protect searches of privileged and other sensitive content stored on cellphones, and what are those rules?

The courts should require the government to disclose this information and quickly, and the practice of delving into travelers’ private lives at the border without reason to suspect them of wrongdoing should ultimately end. Everything we know about the government’s searches of devices at the border suggests the government is dramatically expanding an unconstitutional program.