Surveillance Bill Derailed After Chris Dodd Stands Tough Against Telco Immunity
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Mr. Dodd goes to Washington, and wins. The Connecticut senator and Democratic presidential candidate threatens to filibuster a bill giving immunity to telecoms that helped the government spy on Americans, prompting it to be dropped until next year.
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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 victory on Monday in the U.S. Senate.
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A bill authorizing the president's warrantless wiretapping program stalls in committee. Supporters charge election-year obstructionism, but opponents want tougher oversight on the executive branch.
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Vote effectively delays debate on whether to immunize telephone companies from lawsuits. But it's unclear whether the Senate will follow suit, and a veto threat is looming.
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Apparently not having tested the prevailing winds before trying to pull off a launch, the Senate Majority Leader changed course and withdrew the controversial pro-telco FISA amendment from the Senate floor late yesterday.
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Sweeping plans to reform the US spy network run into trouble after key Republicans in Congress object to the bill.
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Noise on the wire Opponents of the Bush administration's controversial warrantless wiretapping program have suffered a pair of defeats in their efforts to rein in the scheme.â¦
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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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Amid deep and growing divisions among Senate Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) last night abruptly withdrew legislation that would have changed surveillance law and granted the nation's telecommunications companies retroactive immunity from lawsuits charging they had violated...
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Democrats and Republicans take up fight over wiretapping measure.
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Editor and Publisher - NEW YORK Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) on Friday introduced a federal shield law that would provide an "absolute protection" for confidential sources. The legislation is in response to a slew of recent court actions demanding reporters reveal sources.
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This week's top-level spying spat hits on a legal gray area that may require new laws to resolve.
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Two bills designed to curb the proliferation of Internet "spyware" took another step toward law this week, but they are racing against the clock as Congress prepares to disperse for the November elections. -washingtonpost.com
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Senate Democrats and Republicans reached agreement with the Bush administration yesterday on the terms of new legislation to control the federal government's domestic surveillance program, which includes a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have...
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Congress fails to pass electronic-surveillance and phone-records-privacy legislation before recessing.
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Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is reportedly steering the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee to give retroactive immunity to telecoms that helped the government secretly spy on Americans. Coincidentally, contributions from Verizon and AT&T execs to him spiked in 2007.
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The Democratic-led House of  Representatives defied President George W. Bush on Friday and  recessed without replacing an expiring spy law with one that  would shield telephone companies from lawsuits.