Congress takes up surveillance bills
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The Bush administration gave guarded support to several terrorist surveillance bills Wednesday as Congress took up the sensitive issue of how to give legal backing to the president's warrantless wiretapping.
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The Bush administration is working to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies who aid the N.S.A.âs warrantless eavesdropping program.
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Congress to try for SPY ACT law by year's end.
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As Congress looks into "pretexting," CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh asks if politicos are really in favor of our privacy.
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(InfoWorld) - A group of civil liberties and other advocacy groups are urging supporters to contact the U.S. Congress as it moves ahead to approve an electronic surveillance program run through the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union, the First Amendment Foundation, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers are among the groups encouraging voters to voice opposition to two bills that would authorize the NSA program. Both bills are scheduled to be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday morning. Opponents say the program, reportedly used to spy on U.S. residents as well as foreigners, is illegal because the NSA has conducted surveillance without court-approved warrants. Officials in U.S. President George Bush's administration and some congressional Republicans contend that the program is legal and limited in scope. "This is an unprecedented expansion of government surveillance," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the EFF, which is spearheading a lawsuit against AT&T Inc. for allegedly participating in the NSA program. "We've encountered the ultimate nightmare scenario as far as electronic privacy is concerned -- an unchecked executive branch." U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the program in August, calling it effective and legal. "It is a very narrow program ... focused on communications with al Qaeda where one end of the phone call [or] communication is foreign, outside of the United States," he said in a press conference. "It has been reviewed by a number of lawyers within the administration, including lawyers out at the NSA, including lawyers at the Department of Justice." Numerous U.S. intelligence officials have said the program is effective in tracking terrorist activity, Gonzales added. The legislation in Congress to authorize the program isn't necessary, but the Bush administration is working with bill sponsors, he said. Both Judiciary Committee bills would establish congressional oversight for terrorist surveillance programs conducted by the NSA or other government agencies. One bill, sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and Judiciary Committee chairman, would largely give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court jurisdiction for any terrorist surveillance programs. The court would have to approve new surveillance programs, as it has for past U.S. government surveillance operations. The second bill, sponsored by Ohio Republican Senator Mike DeWine, would allow the U.S. president to authorize surveillance programs for up to 45 days without a court order. The U.S. attorney general can then review the program and continue it for another 45 days without a court order. The DeWine bill requires that the president report the programs to congressional subcommittees, but it also allows a 15-year prison sentence and a US $1 million fine to anyone who leaks the details of secret surveillance programs. DeWine, in an August statement, called the NSA program a "critical tool to prevent America from being attacked." The DeWine bill would retroactively approve the NSA program, while the Specter bill would not, Bankston said. Lawsuits targeting the program, now moving forward in Michigan and California, could be stalled if Congress passes a retroactive bill, he said. "Let's let the courts finish the job," he added.
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As government surveillance has increased, violations of federal wiretap law have become a regular if little-noticed occurrence.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union are among groups promoting opposition to bills that would create an NSA-run electronic surveillance program.
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The Senate Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to strengthen court oversight of government surveillance while protecting telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for tapping Americans' phones and computers without court approval.
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Companies and others that secretly install "spyware" programs on people's computers to quietly monitor their Internet activities would face hefty federal fines under a bill the House passed Tuesday.    The most egregious behaviors ascribed to the category of such software - secretly recording a person's computer keystrokes or mouse clicks - are already illegal under U.S...
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Congress is scrambling to pass long-delayed domestic and border security bills, as Republicans and the Democrats try to control the issues.
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Measures to curb the surreptitious tracking of people's online movements through "spyware"  could reach the president's desk before lawmakers break for the November election. -washingtonpost.com
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Democrats and Republicans take up fight over wiretapping measure.
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Two bills designed to curb the proliferation of Internet &quot;spyware&quot; took another step toward law this week with overwhelming approval from the House of Representatives, but supporters said
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Congress was pushing on Friday to finish legislation that would boost security at U.S. ports, but at the last minute lawmakers added provisions to prohibit Internet gambling.
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(InfoWorld) - When the U.S. Congress adjourned in the early morning hours Saturday, it left a number of technology-related bills unfinished, including two bills addressingÂ fraudulent access to personal telephone records. Despite pressure from members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, the full House failed to act on the Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act. The law would have allowed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to seek civil penalties against businesses that obtain personal data under false pretenses. The committee has been looking into privacy concerns related to so-called pretexting since early this year, but the issue came to a head last month, whenÂ Hewlett-Packard revealedÂ it had used questionable investigative techniques in the surveillance of board members, employees, and reporters. With pretexting, private investigators or identity thieves pretend to be customers of mobile phone carriers or other companies in order to gain access to personal records such as call logs. Congress still has more time to act on the pretexting legislation or six related bills this year, however. After a month-plus break allowing lawmakers to focus on the Nov. 7 election, Congress will return for a lame-duck session Nov. 9. Democrats last week complained that the House Republican leadership had held up the pretexting legislation, but Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and Energy and Commerce chairman, said he'd continue to push for the legislation. Congress alsoÂ failed to pass a wide-ranging broadband billÂ that would replace local franchise rules with a national system for telecom providers launching Internet Protocol-based television services in competition with cable TV. And although U.S. President George Bush called on Congress to pass legislation authorizing a controversial National Security Agency (NSA)Â surveillance program, two bills making it easier for the government to conduct surveillance without court-ordered warrants also stalled. One piece of Internet-related legislation did pass early Saturday. The Senate passed a bill providing money for seaport security, and added to the bill was a provision prohibiting U.S. banks and credit-card companies from processing payments to online gambling sites. A group of professional poker players had asked Congress to reject the bill, but a group of House Republicans pushed for the legislation, saying offshore gambling sites were breaking U.S. gambling-control laws. Bush had called for legislation to authorize the NSA program, which has listened in on the electronic communications of U.S. residents without court-ordered warrants, as a way to head off multiple lawsuits targeting the program. He has argued the program is necessary to help keep U.S. residents safe from terrorism. The HouseÂ passed one surveillance bill, but the Senate failed to act. The House bill would allow federal law enforcement officials to spy on U.S. residents for up to 90 days without a court order in the period after a terrorist attack. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a civil liberties and privacy advocacy group, said it was happy to see the surveillance and broadband bills stall. Republicans supporting the surveillance bill were pushing it as a way to show they were focused on national security during the last weeks of the congressional campaign, said Nancy Libin, a staff counsel at CDT. "Now that they've gone home, I'm not sure what kind of priority it will be when they come back," she said. Several civil liberties groups had opposed the broadband bill as it lacked protections for so-called net neutrality. Net neutrality advocates want a law that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing service to Web sites offering competing content, and they have successfully halted the Senate version of the broadband bill, despiteÂ heavy lobbying from large broadband providers.
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Under the guise of reining in the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program, the Senate Judiciary Committee approves a bill that would dramatically expand the government's domestic surveillance capabilities, and usher in a new age of rampant monitoring. By Ryan Singel.
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A Republican-led congressional  committee on Wednesday rejected concerns about civil liberties  and passed a bill to expand the U.S. government's power to  track terror suspects and deport people seen as a risk.