Senate committee approves surveillance bills
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The government surveillance authorization bill approved this week by a Senate committee Wednesday "would radically undermine the privacy of innocent Americans," according to tech experts scrutinizing the legislation.
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The White House is nearing an agreement with Congress on legislation that would write President Bush&#039;s warrantless surveillance program into law, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday.
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President George W. Bush's demand for immunity for telephone companies that participated in his warrantless domestic spying program won an initial vote on Monday in the Senate.
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A White House-backed bill that would   enable a secret court to review President George W. Bush's   warrantless domestic spying program won approval on Wednesday   from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
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The US Senate passed legislation to reorganize the nation&#39;s intelligence agencies and create a national director of intelligence to oversee efforts to prevent terrorist attacks.
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A bill backed by President George W.   Bush to enable a court review of his domestic spying program   won the approval on Wednesday of a U.S. Senate panel under   election-year pressure to safeguard civil liberties.
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SECURITY REFORM: The bill, which adopts many of the findings of the Sept. 11 commission, was also expected to pass the Senate, despite a few remaining conflicts.
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A Senate committee voted to approve subpoenas to the White House and Justice Department for warrantless wiretapping records. The administration has refused to provide many records to Congress about the spy program, and the vote portends a high-stakes showdown.
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Certainly no one likes spyware so since mid-May, a trio of bills have been introduced before Congress.  All three will face the Senate next week, including two competing versions passed by the House, and an entirely new Senate bill whose ink isn't even dry enough for its prototype language to enter the Congressional Record.
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(InfoWorld) - Members of the U.S. Congress introduced a flurry of new technology-related bills this week, including two bills that would require companies with data breaches to notify affected customers. Senators Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, introduced the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act. In addition to requiring data breach notification, the bill would also require data brokers to disclose what information they hold on individuals. The bill would allow individuals to correct information held by data brokers, and it would require companies that have databases with personal information on more than 10,000 U.S. residents to implement data privacy and security programs. Representatives Bobby Rush, a Illinois Democrat, and Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican, introduced the Data Accountability and Trust Act this week. Their bill, with 24 co-sponsors, authorizes the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to draw up data privacy requirements for businesses, including requirements that they have vulnerability assessments and policies for disposing of obsolete data. After a company reports a data breach, the FTC would conduct an audit of its security practices, and, like the Leahy-Sanders bill, the bill would require data brokers to disclose the information they hold on individuals and allow individuals to correct wrong information. Organizations have lost 100 million personal records belonging to U.S. residents in data breaches since 2005, Leahy said in a speech on the Senate floor. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, singled outÂ data breaches at the U.S. Department of Veterans AffairsÂ last May andÂ retailer The TJX Companies,Â announced in January, in his speech. "These data security breaches are compelling examples of why we need strong federal data privacy and security laws to protect Americansâ personal data and to address the ills of lax data security," he said. "In the information age, any company that wants to be trusted by the public must earn that trust by vigilantly protecting the databases they use and maintain." Members of Congress introduced about a dozen bills requiring data breach notification after a series of breaches in early 2005, but legislation stalled largely over committee jurisdictional wrangling. About 30 states have passed breach notification laws, most of them since 2005. The Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a trade group of IT security vendors, in January called on Congress to pass a comprehensive data protection bill, including breach notification. But some groups, including conservative think tank the Progress and Freedom Foundation, have questioned the need for a breach notification law, saying the cost to businesses may far outweigh the benefits to consumers. Other tech-related bills introduced this week: -- Two bills allowing the FTC toÂ investigate the practice of pretexting, when an investigator assumes a false identity to gain access to a person's telephone records. President George Bush signed a bill creating penalties for pretexting in January, but the two new bills would give the FTC the authority to investigate and prosecute pretexters. Many lawmakers became interested in the issue afterÂ Hewlett-Packard disclosedÂ in September that investigators it had hired used pretexting in an attempt to gain access to board members' and reporters' phone records. -- A bill targeted at spyware by establishing criminal penalties for a number of actions. The bill would prohibit keystroke logging, taking control of a computer without the user's consent, diverting Web browsers, using computers to create botnets and modifying a computer users' browser and security settings without permission. Two spyware bills passed the House of Representatives by overwhelming majorities in March 2005, but the Senate didn't act on them. Â
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A Senate committee voted yesterday to transfer airwaves used by dozens of television stations to spectrum-starved public safety organizations but included a provision that critics say
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Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist introduces a bill that combines the controversial military commission bill with a bill radically expanding government spying power. But has this election year strategy been torpedoed by rogue Republicans? In 27B Stroke 6.
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A bill to protect companies from lawsuits for cooperating with the N.S.A. eavesdropping program advanced in the Senate.
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The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a   bill setting rules for interrogations and prosecutions of   foreign terrorism suspects, sending it to President George W.   Bush to sign into law.
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Blog: A Senate panel has approved subpoenas compelling the attorney general and the president to turn over all materials related to a once-secret electronic snooping program, but will it get what it wants?
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Bloomberg - Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- A group of 21 U.S. House Democrats said they would support a Senate measure that shields phone companies from privacy lawsuits for helping the government eavesdrop on suspected terrorists.
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A Senate committee voted Thursday to give airport screeners the collective bargaining and whistleblower protection rights that most other federal employees have.