The House Judiciary Committee “absolutely” has prime jurisdiction...
The House Judiciary Committee “absolutely” has prime jurisdiction over any surveillance proposals, Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said during an episode of C-SPAN’s Newsmakers, which was to be telecast over the weekend. “Because of the civil liberties entailed that must be…
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protected under the Bill of Rights, this is very clearly the jurisdiction of this committee.” Judiciary is happy to work with the Intelligence Committee and President Barack Obama regarding other proposals out there, Goodlatte said. “We have a serious problem,” he said of surveillance, lamenting “an environment of great mistrust” following last year’s leaks about the National Security Agency programs. He declined to say whether Judiciary would proceed to mark up the USA Freedom Act, legislation introduced last fall that proposes strong curbs to surveillance programs. Goodlatte is working with the bill authors in the House and Senate “to find the appropriate way to move forward within the committee,” he said. Goodlatte also said he would accept only a “strong bill” out of the Senate to curb patent litigation abuse. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to mark up a compromise version of the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) after the April 14-25 recess, following a tentative agreement that the committee hopes will end weeks of negotiations on the bills’ language (CD April 11 p9). Goodlatte said he and other pro-revamp advocates in the House have told Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that “we want a strong litigation reform bill” and hope the Senate will produce a bill that is close enough to the House-passed Innovation Act (HR-3309) that they can “work out the differences” in conference. If the Senate doesn’t produce an acceptably strong bill, “we are not interested in taking up something that is weak and does not address the problems we have in this country” related to patent abuse, Goodlatte said.