House Judiciary Advances Judicial Redress Act, Applauded by Industry
The House Judiciary Committee passed the Judicial Redress Act unanimously without amendments, during a markup Thursday. HR-1428, to give citizens of countries allied with the U.S. some but not all of the same privacy protections as Americans, will go eventually the House floor. Its chances of passage there are seen as good, but time is short for a vote. Committee members and industry applauded the bill's passage, calling it a common-sense piece of legislation to rebuild trust between the U.S. and European allies after the NSA surveillance revelations by former government contractor Edward Snowden. CEA was among the backers.
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Though touted as a privacy bill with tech industry and privacy advocate backing, some like the Electronic Privacy Information Center don’t think it goes far enough. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, also raised concern that the bill to extend privacy protections to non-U.S. citizens was being considered before other pieces of legislation that grant privacy protection to American citizens.
The bill still has to make it through the House Oversight Committee before it can go to the House floor, said Computer & Communications Industry Association Public Policy & Regulatory Counsel Bijan Madhani in an interview. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who chairs the committee, hasn’t voiced any concerns with the bill to CCIA, Madhani said. It took several months for the bill to get through the Judiciary Committee, even though things sped up in the past few weeks, Madhani said, adding that things move slower in the Senate. Madhani noted that one of the European commissioners involved in the agreement, Věra Jourová, tweeted about the committee’s passage of the bill. “Europe is watching,” he said.
Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced the Judicial Redress Act in March, along with Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Chris Murphy, D-Conn. The bill would aim to restore U.S. allies’ faith in data privacy protections by allowing citizens of countries designated as trusted allies by the U.S. attorney general to correct flawed records, but only on data that has been shared with the U.S. The act is “critical to reestablishing trust and ensuring law enforcement cooperation and American companies’ ability to do business internationally," said Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. The bill is good for national security, privacy and business, Conyers said. It also facilitates information sharing partnerships with law enforcement agencies across the globe, Conyers said.
“Because we justifiably refuse to live in a world where nations simply close their borders,” Sensenbrenner wrote in a blog post for The Hill Thursday, “we have to be vigilant.” The purpose of the recently signed umbrella agreement between the EU and U.S. “is to ensure a high level of protection of personal information and enhance cooperation between the United States and the European Union and its Member States, in relation to the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offenses, including terrorism,” Sensenbrenner wrote.
The Snowden revelations damaged European allies’ ability to trust the U.S. and tech companies, Sensenbrenner said during the markup. Passage of the USA Freedom Act earlier this year was the first step toward normalizing relationships with U.S. allies, and passage of the Judicial Redress Act is an important next step, he said.
But in a letter to Goodlatte and Conyers Wednesday, EPIC said it has some concerns with the legislation that provides “limited” privacy protections such as its failure to adequately protect transborder data flows. EPIC repeated its calls for the public release of the text of the umbrella agreement (see 1509110039) and said the government needs to address increased concerns among the American public about whether personal information collected by U.S. federal agencies is adequately protected.
Poe said he is concerned that Congress was more supportive of bills to protect the privacy of non-U.S. citizens than of American citizens. Electronic Communications Privacy Act reform has been pending for three years, Poe said, noting that meanwhile the Senate has “charged ahead” on the issue. A number of reform bills sent to House Judiciary have been ignored, Poe said. The committee should look at the privacy violations that stem from intelligence agencies abusing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the End Warrantless Surveillance Act, and aerial surveillance with the use of drones, Poe said.
Goodlatte said he was interested in all of the bills Poe mentioned, saying a majority of the committee’s members would like to move forward with ECPA. Goodlatte said he's actively working to find a way to move ECPA forward.
The White House, Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies support the bill, as do several business interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Google, Facebook, IBM, the Information Technology Industry Council and Microsoft, Conyers said. After the committee passed the Judicial Redress Act, Yahoo tweeted its thanks, and included a link to its global public policy blog that had reblogged a post from Reform Government Surveillance encouraging support for the bill.