CDT POLICY POST Volume 9, Number 18, August 5, 2003

A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online
from
The Center For Democracy and Technology

(1) Bills Introduced to Curb PATRIOT Act Powers

(2) Congress Expresses Concern About "Data Mining"

As Congress heads into its August recess, CDT recaps significant legislative developments over the past few weeks related to the USA PATRIOT Act and to data mining and other government uses of commercial data, such as the Total Information Awareness and CAPPS II.

(1) Bills Introduced to Curb PATRIOT Act Powers

On July 31, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the Protecting the Rights of Individuals Act (S. 1552), a bill that would place some modest checks and balances on the most troublesome provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. Cosponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the legislation's ten provisions leave in place expanded law enforcement and intelligence powers granted by the PATRIOT Act, but ensure that privacy and other civil liberties will be better protected when the FBI and other agencies exercise those powers.
Among other limits, the Murkowski-Wyden bill would:
- guarantee that Americans' homes will not be searched in secret unless necessary;
- limit the FBI's ability to look at sensitive, personal information, including medical, library and Internet records, without demonstrating specific suspicion to a judge; and
- increase judicial review for some telephone and Internet monitoring;
The bill is available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s1552:, and CDT's press release in support of the bill is at http://www.cdt.org/press/030801press.shtml.
In other PATRIOT Act developments, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to prohibit the FBI from spending any funds to conduct "sneak and peek" searches in criminal cases, rolling back a part of the USA PATRIOT Act that authorized the FBI to search peoples' homes and offices without telling them until weeks or months later. Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID) offered the amendment to the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill; it can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HZ00292:.
Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) introduced his Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act (S. 1507), which would limit the FBI's ability to obtain library, medical and other sensitive personal records in an intelligence investigation without individualized suspicion. The Feingold bill can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s1507:.

(2) Congress Expresses Concern About "Data Mining"

As the August recess loomed, congressional members also offered several measures demonstrating concerns about government data mining and other uses of commercially available data:

Use of Commercial Databases: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced legislation prohibiting use of funds to purchase commercial data for law enforcement and intelligence purposes unless the agency has first reported to Congress about its use of the data and the potential privacy implications. The bill, the Citizens' Protection in Federal Databases Act of 2003 (S. 1484), would also prohibit all federal agencies from conducting searches of commercial data based on purely hypothetical scenarios of future terrorist attacks. S. 1484 can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s1484:.
TIA: Both the House and Senate Defense Department appropriations bills, passed in July, contain limitations on DARPA's Total (now Terrorism) Information Awareness program. The House version extends to FY2004 the Wyden-Grassley amendment barring domestic deployment, while the Senate version zeroed out funding entirely for TIA. Conference action is still pending on the final version of the bill. For more on TIA: http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/datamining.shtml.
CAPPS II: The Conference Report on the FAA reauthorization bill, which almost certainly will become law, blocks deployment of the Transportation Security Administration's CAPPS II airline passenger screening project until DHS certifies that the program meets certain privacy standards. It also requires both a GAO report with privacy recommendations and a report from DHS on the privacy and civil liberties implications of CAPPS II. In addition, the Senate passed an amendment to the DHS appropriations bill offered by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) that would prohibit CAPPS II funding until GAO issued a report stating that CAPPS II had met certain privacy standards. For more information about CAPPS II, including the Interim Privacy Act Notice issued last week: http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_9.16.shtml; and http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/datamining.shtml.
DHS and Data Mining: The Senate passed an amendment to the DHS appropriations bill sponsored by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) requiring a GAO report on data mining activity at DHS.

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