Senate Authorizes Broad Expansion of Surveillance Act
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The Senate yesterday approved a sweeping measure that would expand the government's clandestine surveillance powers, delivering a key victory to the White House by approving immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that cooperated with intelligence agencies in domestic spying after...
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The Senate voted Thursday to give federal regulators increased authority to monitor electronic energy markets and protect against market manipulation.
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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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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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The Senate on Saturday approved legislation that would give rape victims and convicted felons greater access to DNA testing.
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Attorney General Alberto Gonzales expanded Congress' access Wednesday to classified documents detailing the government's domestic spying program but still didn't satisfy several lawmakers demanding information about surveillance.
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Security in America's courtrooms  would be bolstered in response to attacks on judges in recent  years under a measure approved on Wednesday by the U.S. Senate.
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The Senate on Tuesday approved new rules for government eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, giving the White House much of the latitude it wanted and granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped in the snooping after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday backed  a Democratic-sponsored measure that would give new labor  protections to airport screeners while seeking to address White  House concerns that federal authorities have flexibility to  respond to security threats.
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The Senate today approved landmark legislation to restructure the nation&#39;s intelligence community, creating a director of national intelligence and a counterterrorism center.
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(InfoWorld) - An advocacy group called a U.S. government surveillance authorization bill, approved by a Senate committee Wednesday, one of the worst bills imaginable for people concerned about civil liberties. The National Security Surveillance Act, one of three surveillance bills approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would give congressional authorization to a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program that critics have complained is illegal. The bill, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, "would radically undermine the privacy of innocent Americans," the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said Thursday. The Specter bill would allow the U.S. government to conduct surveillance programs without court warrants for individual cases as long as the surveillance program is approved ahead of time by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This court is sometimes called FISA after the legislation created it. Specter defended his bill as necessary to help the U.S. government fight terrorism. The bill addresses "a national security issue," he said after the committee vote. The Judiciary Committee also approved a second bill, sponsored by Ohio Republican Senator Mike DeWine, allowing 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. The CDT include the Specter bill on its list of nine legislation efforts that "must be stopped" this year. The bill will give the U.S. government "broader authority to spy on Americans ... without judicial review," the group said. "Cutting the intelligence agencies loose from any checks and balances in this way can actually harm national security, since unfocused fishing expeditions are likely to produce more false leaders than valuable intelligence." Other civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, have also raised privacy concerns about the Specter and DeWine bills. With U.S. President George Bush pushing for Congress to authorize the NSA program, the bill is likely to get action on the Senate floor this month, said Leslie Harris, CDT's executive director. "The FISA bill has taken on a political life of its own," she said. Congress may work to pass the FISA bills during the last weeks of the session as lawmakers up for re-election in November try to show their constituents they're tough on terrorism, Harris said. Bush has said he believes the NSA program is legal, but he's called on Congress to authorize the surveillance as a way to head off legal challenges to it. A third bill, which gives the FISA court more funding and resources, also passed out of the Judiciary Committee. Most civil liberties groups have not objected to that bill, sponsored by Specter and Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. TheÂ CDT's watch list of "dangerous" tech legislation is online. "We're trying to shame [lawmakers] to better behavior," Harris said. "Even if one of these misguided legislative gambits succeeds, we will all be the worse for it."
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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 controversial bill setting out the rules for the detention and prosecution of &quot;war on terror&quot; suspects headed for passage in the Senate, giving President George W. Bush's Republicans a boost six weeks ahead of legislative elections.
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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Wednesday approved bills intended to fight computer spyware and to protect wireless phone customers from potential privacy problems associated with a wireless phone number directory.
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WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to restructure the nation&#39;s intelligence agencies, sending the landmark legislation to the president&#39;s desk where it is slated to become law.
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The US Senate took a major step toward reorganizing the US intelligence network, unveiling groundbreaking legislation to strengthen the country's defenses against terrorism.
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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday  approved the most far-reaching overhaul of U.S. intelligence  agencies in more than 50 years, sending the post-Sept. 11  reform bill to President Bush for his signature.