Proposed surveillance legislation on the table this week...
Proposed surveillance legislation on the table this week has spurred statements of backlash and support among different groups and observers. Demand Progress slammed a proposal by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., describing it as “legislation that would whitewash…
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but preserve the illegal domestic surveillance of the National Security Agency,” said a Friday news release announcing its opposition. “A meaningless bill to calm angry Americans while doing nothing to meaningfully reform the agency is disingenuous and counterproductive,” Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal said of the proposed changes, which would update the rules surrounding bulk phone metadata collection. Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, took a swipe at legislation proposed by four other senators, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Mark Udall, D-Colo., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Wyden and Udall belong to Feinstein’s committee. In a Monday blog post (http://bit.ly/1fX4dfT), Granick applauded the parts of that proposal that would end Patriot Act Section 215 bulk collection of phone records but criticized Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 changes, which do “not go far enough to reassure other nations that their average citizen -- someone disconnected from official government policy, terrorism or other dangers to the U.S.’s national security interests -- will not be lawfully targeted by the NSA.” Also on Monday, the Center for Democracy & Technology sent a letter (http://bit.ly/18l6nSj) to the Senate and House Judiciary committees supporting proposals from Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who backs the Surveillance Transparency Act, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who backs the Surveillance Order Reporting Act. CDT sent the letters on behalf of Internet companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Mozilla, Twitter and Yahoo, as well as organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, TechFreedom and TechNet. “Such transparency is important not only for the American people, who are entitled to have an informed public debate about the appropriateness of that surveillance, but also for international users of US-based service providers who are concerned about privacy and security,” the letter said.