The surveillance overhaul that House Judiciary Crime and...
The surveillance overhaul that House Judiciary Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., plans to introduce is called the USA FREEDOM Act. Sensenbrenner authored the Patriot Act, and the new bill would amend many critical provisions of the act’s…
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Section 215, which authorizes the government’s bulk collection of phone metadata, said a three-page outline of the bill provided by Sensenbrenner’s spokesman. Sensenbrenner will introduce the proposed legislation in the House, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., will introduce it in the Senate, the spokesman told us. It would end bulk phone record collection, as both Leahy and Sensenbrenner have advocated. Leahy has described collaboration with Sensenbrenner on multiple occasions in the last two weeks. The bill’s full title is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet Collection, and Online Monitoring Act. The purpose of the USA FREEDOM Act, according to the outline, is “to rein in the dragnet collection of data by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies, increase transparency of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), provide businesses the ability to release information regarding FISA requests, and create an independent constitutional advocate to argue cases before the FISC.” The government would also have to “more aggressively filter and discard information about Americans accidentally collected through PRISM and related programs,” the outline said. Any metadata the government seeks would need to be “relevant to an authorized investigation into international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities” as well as pertain to a foreign power or its agents, the activities of a suspected agent of a foreign power being investigated or someone in contact or known to such a suspect, said the document. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board would have subpoena power, it said, also laying out new reporting requirements for the intelligence community. The bill calls for “the Attorney General to publicly disclose all FISC decisions issued after July 10, 2003 that contain a significant construction or interpretation of law,” the document said. Internet companies and telcos also would be allowed to report on the requests for data they receive and comply with, under the bill. It would adopt one standard for Section 215 and National Security Letters protection to make sure the government does not tap different authorities for its bulk record collection. It would provide a sunset date for the National Security Letters.