Mea Culpa
Tracking back beyond the Register articles to the FOIA document release and Julia Angwin's ProPublica report, I see that the issue indeed has the appearance of inappropriate DHS action. The tone of SA Squire's email is that of an informal personal message, but its origin from an official DHS email address would be likely to convey the impression of a DHS anti-TOR policy, and might have been intended to do so. That impression might be incorrect, but surely would have been amplified when Thomas Grella forwarded it with a mild endorsement to the Lebanon police who raised the issue with the library. The library board later met publicly, and after discussing the issues raised, decided to reopen the relay, as they should. There does not seem to have been any significant degree of pressure in the episode.
Should the library employee have shut down the node before the board meeting? Probably not, since the board had approved it at a previous meeting.
Were the police out of line to raise the issue? I do not think so; their range of official action certainly would extend to making officials of the library and other public organizations aware of risks associated with their operations.
Did Tom Grella act inappropriately? Maybe; in choosing to forward Squire's email to the Lebanon police he probably should have provided more information than "this could become an issue."
SA Squire, however, should be counselled and possibly disciplined for one of two things. If he acted as a private citizen, he should have made that clear in the text of the message and sent it from a personal email account rather than his official DHS account, to avoid giving an incorrect impression that he was acting in his official capacity. Done that way he would have been entirely within his rights as a citizen. Hillary Clinton was criticised for using a private server to conduct public buisness; using public servers for private action is equally inappropriate. Alternatively, if Mr. Squire was expressing DHS policy, he should have worded his message more formally and referenced the specific policy.
Absent prior history of similar behavior, either offense warrants supervisory counselling, a review of the applicable laws and DHS policies and procedures, and possibly a temporary flag in is personnel record, to be removed after a year or so with no further issues of the type. In view of Lofgren's letter, however, they might be tempted to do more: federal agencies really hate to receive Congressional letters, and this event also brought them a good deal of bad PR.
Is Lofgren's letter a bit over the top? I think so, for the reasons I stated earlier, as modified above. It is not clear that either the DHS employee or the Lebanon, NH police actions constitute "interference," and whether or not by design, SA Squire separated himself, and DHS, from the actual conversations. While counselling certainly is in order for SA Squire, and clarification of the boundaries between official duties and private actions a good idea for all DHS (and other government) employees, Squire's only error probably was failing to state that he was acting as a private citizen, not as a DHS employee. Lofgren's letter suggests that she wants DHS to direct, or at least advise, employees to limit exercise of their constitutional rights, something that would be quite illegal.
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