Washington — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich), with 11 bipartisan cosponsors, introduced the USA Liberty Act (H.R. 3989) on Friday. The bill is intended to reauthorize and reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which set to expire at the end of this year. Section…
Washington — Congress finally has an opportunity, though narrow, to block or limit a proposal to expand government and law enforcement’s power to search and manipulate computers. Last week the Supreme Court approved and forwarded to Congress the Department of Justice’s proposed changes to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which governs…
Washington — House Judiciary IP & Internet subcommittee chairman Darrell Issa opened Tuesday’s hearing titled “International Data Flows: Promoting Digital Trade in the 21st Century” by saying policies blocking data flows could lead countries to other unfair trade practices like demanding source code or trade secrets. He said restricting Internet data from flowing across national…
On Wednesday, President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, a legislative package of long-awaited mass surveillance reforms that passed the House and Senate after years of false starts and negotiations. The USA Freedom Act contains provisions that permanently end the bulk collection of call records and electronic metadata by the NSA and will provide greater…
President Obama quickly signed surveillance reform legislation after the Senate passed the USA Freedom Act Tuesday evening. The Act ends the bulk collection of phone and other records and offers better transparency and oversight for existing surveillance programs. What will this mean for surveillance reform in the U.S. – and what will it mean for…
Washington — After years of controversy over mass surveillance by the U.S. government, and lengthy negotiations on the reform of those practices, the Senate has passed the USA FREEDOM Act with a 67 to 32 vote. This legislation permanently ends the bulk collection of phone records by the NSA and will provide greater transparency and…
Washington — In a 77-17 vote to invoke cloture, the Senate has paved the way for the passage of the USA FREEDOM Act later this week. Today also marks the the expiration of several provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act that currently enable bulk surveillance of call records, which should provide the impetus necessary for…
Washington — CCIA joined companies, technologists, and civil liberties groups in a letter to President Obama Tuesday requesting the Administration reject proposals that would require companies to build technical weaknesses or backdoors into encryption in their products. Strong encryption helps protect the public against the ever-growing threats from identity theft to mobile device theft to…
Washington — The House of Representatives has passed the USA Freedom Act (H.R. 2048) by an emphatic 338-88 vote. The Act would limit the government’s surveillance abilities by eliminating bulk metadata collection across a range of authorities and institute improved transparency and oversight mechanisms for other surveillance practices. The Senate is expected to take up…
