Does Social Networking and Technological Innovation Represent the End of Privacy?

I know, that's a loaded question that deserves a lot more than a yes or no answer. One thing is certain however, with the explosion in popularity of social networking sites like Facebook (and that's to say nothing of company's like Google and the array of privacy challenges many of its products represent), the ability to protect ones personal privacy has become increasingly challenging.

As I have asserted here in the past, it goes without saying that tools like Facebook reveal a considerable amount of information about a user's lifestyle, interests, and goals. Depending on the user's settings, co-workers, employers, and certain family members could have access to information about the user that may be better left unknown.

Recent Facebook flaps highlights growing concerns about the increasingly sophisticated technologies used to track online activities in an effort to more precisely target advertising. What has also become apparent is that these social networking sites have not exactly been forthcoming about how much user information they harvest, share, and with whom.

However, in recent months users have been becoming more and more conscious of privacy concerns, as Facebook has been criticized for not allowing people to permanently delete their accounts and personal information from the site as well as their use of "Beacon" (no longer in use) - a technology that tracks user's online purchases and informs their friends.

The controversy raised by Facebook's use of the Beacon technology - and the subsequent victory of privacy advocates - has helped ignite a larger debate regarding the largely hidden and growing problem of online consumer-tracking and information-sharing.

And this larger discussion - like what does the loss of privacy mean in the age of Facebook - was addressed yesterday in the New York Times by Miyase Christensen, an associate professor of media and communication studies at Karlstad University, Sweden.

The article is entitled "Watching You Watching Me":

New research suggests that 25 percent of people in Britain suffer from some form of paranoia, probably because of a combination of urbanization, globalization, migration, wealth disparity and the media. So would it be right to assume that paranoia will worsen as we move toward complex personal surveillance, the result of the heavy use of social networking sites such as Facebook?

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On the Internet, surveillance is commerce. The number of Facebook users has soared, followed by MySpace and Twitter, to the joy of marketers. Online industries look for new trends and respond by incorporating social networking features, such as personal profiles, into sites such as YouTube.

The popularity of social networking may be simply a fraternal exchange, or innocent “friendly encounters of the voyeuristic kind.” But it can also be “complicit surveillance” committed by the individual and sinisterly co-opted.

With about 300 million users, a speculative value of $15 billion and advertisers eavesdropping on every move of members, Facebook deserves special attention in the Net-watch society. People use it for everything from political campaigning to post what they ate for dinner. Many users may object to Facebook’s exploitation of their content for commercial purposes, but most go on using it anyway for personal or practical reasons.

Not all. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a public interest research group in Washington, threatened earlier this year to file a formal complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission about a change in the terms of use that Facebook had secretly implemented, which included rights to information even from cancelled accounts.

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Yet the actual extent of commercial surveillance on Facebook remains murky. According to its privacy policy, Facebook retains the right to collect information about members from other sources such as newspapers, instant messaging services and blogs — “to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.”

Most usersaccept Facebook’s default settings without considering what this means in terms of privacy and or data use. One survey suggests that 45 percent of employers in the United States admit to checking social-networking-site profiles of prospective employees. The actual number might be higher.

By using Facebook, non-American users also consent to have their personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Users are not notified when and how their data is used. In 2008, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, a privacy group, filed a complaint against Facebook for violating Canadian privacy laws. In the United States, some schools and colleges now try to control content on their students’ personal blogs or Facebook pages, raising new questions about freedom of speech.

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Yet in the absence of effective regulatory mechanisms, using online social media can be risky. The European Commission warned this year that data collection from such sites might lead to a flood of unsolicited advertising or the use of by the governments in ways that compromise civil liberties. There is a complex, multi-layered interplay between the surveillance embedded in communication technologies and everyday personal communications. This is giving way to a new surveillance, where the act is consensual and the guilt (of convenience and pleasure with a cost) is shared.

Click here to read more.

It appears, as the author asserts, and that I have many times here, regulation simply has not kept up with technologically innovation. I think we can all agree that on their own, it is highly unlikely that politicians will lead the charge to regulate big business in order to protect consumer privacy - thus the responsibility for raising awareness and demanding action falls on advocacy groups.

This is no major revelation of course, but it is worth reminding ourselves of on a regular basis because there are an increasing array of ways in which our privacy can be violated, and no one will protect us unless we demand it first.

Obama Administration Using State's Secret Privilege to Protect Illegal Surveillance Program

I think it has become an accepted fact now among privacy advocates and civil libertarians that President Obama has been a grave disappointment on a whole host of issues. This disappointment is not based on some impossible or unrealistic ideal placed upon him.

I'm talking about a now series of positions (and aggressive actions) taken by the Administration that are the absolute opposite of those the President so eloquently and forcefully took as a Senator and candidate be it preventive detention, warrantless wiretapping, the states secrets privilege, and others.

The Administration's recent, and radical interpretation and use of the "state secrets" privilege to block courts from ruling on the legality of the government's domestic surveillance activities only serves to reinforce this feeling of betrayal.

Let's consider the context too: it was just six weeks ago that the DOJ announced voluntary new internal guidelines which, it insisted, would prevent abuses of the state secrets privilege.

Yet here we are with the DOJ embracing Bush "state secrets" theories for the sole purpose - in this particular case - of protecting those that committed crimes that the President vehemently criticized as a Senator and promised to address as a candidate.

Worse, if the Administration is successful in broadening the scope of this "privilege", the Executive Branch will become even more powerful and unaccountable than it already is - serving to validate and reinforce Vice President Cheney's "unitary executive" theory that gained such traction during the Bush years.

Do we really want our Presidents shielded from judicial review or accountability when he/she is accused of breaking the law? Should entire cases be thrown out simply because the Executive Branch claims that there is something in some document that is so secret it will threaten our national security?

It's not as if this latest Administration interpretation of the state secrets privilege should be a surprise to any of us. As a New York Times Editorial noted just five weeks ago (and that I posted about on this blog):

...Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. issued new guidelines for invoking the state secrets privilege in the future. They were a positive step forward, on paper, but did not go nearly far enough. Mr. Holder’s much-anticipated reform plan does not include any shift in the Obama administration’s demand for blanket secrecy in pending cases. Nor does it include support for legislation that would mandate thorough court review of state secrets claims made by the executive branch.

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In any event, while more stringent self-policing of executive branch secrecy claims is welcome, it is hardly a total fix. Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, noted that without a clear, permanent mandate for independent court review of the administration’s judgment calls, Mr. Holder’s policy “still amounts to an approach of ‘just trust us.’”

If the Obama team is sincere about wanting to end state secrets abuses, it will support the State Secrets Protection Act sponsored in the Senate by Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, and in the House by Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat of New York. The measure contains safeguards to ensure protection of legitimate secrets. But before ruling on a secrets claim, and possibly dismissing a lawsuit, judges would be required to review the documents or evidence in question instead of just accepting assertions in government affidavits.

I suppose we can take some solace that there's also a bill recently introduced by Democrats Chris Dodd (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), which, if passed, would repeal the legal immunity afforded the telecommunications industry for their participation in President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

The Obama Administration, as alluded to, has remained mum on both of these bills, each of which are identical to the positions taken by him as both a Senator and Candidate. Of course, not taking an official position on these bills does not indicate neutrality. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce - and thus the Democrats in Congress have received the message loud and clear - that the Administration is very much against both reforms.

Now let me get to Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald - my most reliable source of analysis, insight, and expertise on all kinds of critical issues - most notably those related to privacy and the Constitution.

Before I get to his article, check out the interview he did with Bill Moyers last Friday in which he discusses government war propaganda, preventive detention, the freedom of information act, the states secret privilege and much more:










Now here's his article on the latest Administration efforts to protect Bush Administration surveillance activities. He writes:

The case of Shubert v. Bush is one of several litigations challenging the legality of the NSA program, of which the Electronic Frontier Foundation is lead coordinating counsel. The Shubert plaintiffs are numerous American citizens suing individual Bush officials, alleging that the Bush administration instituted a massive "dragnet" surveillance program whereby "the NSA intercepted (and continues to intercept) millions of phone calls and emails of ordinary Americans, with no connection to Al Qaeda, terrorism, or any foreign government" and that "the program monitors millions of calls and emails . . . entirely in the United States . . . without a warrant" (page 4). The lawsuit's central allegation is that the officials responsible for this program violated the Fourth Amendment and FISA and can be held accountable under the law for those illegal actions.

Rather than respond to the substance of the allegations, the Obama DOJ is instead insisting that courts are barred from considering the claims at all. Why? Because -- it asserted in a Motion to Dismiss it filed on Friday -- to allow the lawsuit to proceed under any circumstances -- no matter the safeguards imposed or specific documents excluded -- "would require the disclosure of highly classified NSA sources and methods about the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program] and other NSA activities" (page 8). According to the Obama administration, what were once leading examples of Bush's lawlessness and contempt for the Constitution -- namely, his illegal, warrantless domestic spying programs -- are now vital "state secrets" in America's War on Terror, such that courts are prohibited even from considering whether the Government was engaging in crimes when spying on Americans.

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If the President can simply use "secrecy" claims to block courts from ruling on whether he broke the law, then what checks or limits exist on the President's power to spy illegally on Americans or commit other crimes in a classified setting? By definition, there are none. That's what made this distortion of the "state secrets" privilege so dangerous when Bush used it, and it's what makes it so dangerous now.

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Yet here is Obama doing exactly the opposite of those claims and assurances: namely, he's now (a) seeking to immunize not only telecoms, but also Bush officials, from judicial review; (b) demanding that courts be barred from considering the legality of NSA surveillance programs under any circumstances; and (c) attempting to institutionalize the broadest claims of presidential immunity imaginable via radically broad secrecy claims. To do so, he's violating virtually everything he ever said about such matters when he was Senator Obama and Candidate Obama. And he's relying on the very same theories of executive immunity and secrecy that -- under a Republican President -- sparked so much purported outrage. If nothing else, this latest episode underscores the ongoing need for Congressional Democrats to proceed with proposed legislation to impose meaningful limits and oversight on the President's ability to use this power, as this President, just like the last one, has left no doubt about his willingness to abuse it for ignoble ends.

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

And just a quick note on the actual efficacy of such warrantless wiretapping: NOT ONE instance could be cited in a recent Inspector General report that the wiretapping program prevented any attack of any kind, ever. Nor did it lead to the capture of any terrorists.

In light of these facts, one would think that the Obama Administration would come down somewhere at least close to the position that candidate Obama espoused on the campaign trail. Sadly, the opposite has been true.

I'll be back with updates on this case and the legislation in Congress.

The Privacy Minefield of Online Data

Little time to pontificate today, so let me get right to the article by NPR's Martin Kaste entitled "Online Data Present A Privacy Minefield". In it, one of my "go to" privacy experts - Chris Hoofnagle of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law - is featured.

Kaste writes:

Is privacy still possible? For a lot of people, the answer is no, as companies collect personal data in ever-increasing volumes. Take a site like NextMark.com.

It's a sort of "Google" for mailing lists, where more than 1,400 data vendors offer lists of names — hundreds of thousands of names at a time — all sliced and diced and searchable. If you're looking for a list of people with heart disease, you can find it here. Heart disease plus Hispanic plus over 50? Also available.

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Even medical data. Federal law prohibits doctors and hospitals from selling health records, but if people voluntarily answer questions on an online health survey, that information is fair game.

The law doesn't restrict what kind of information companies may ask for, and the data industry says more regulations aren't necessary. Industry officials say reputable companies are careful with the information. Companies going through NextMark will "rent" their data through trusted third parties to prevent uncontrolled copying of their lists.

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...there are also plenty of people who do more than just rely on their gut instincts. They read the privacy policies and the fine print, and try to control who gets their information.

But Chris Hoofnagle says that may be futile. As the head of the privacy programs at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, he's been tracking the information economy for some time, and he says it's getting harder to make informed decisions.

"As there's been growing awareness of how commercial data brokers operate, they've become more secretive," Hoofnagle says. He says big data brokers are telling the public less about the provenance of their data — where they're getting their information — and he's been tracking this change by saving screenshots of those companies' Web sites.

Data Companies Go Private

As an example, Hoofnagle pulls up screenshots of a big database called Batch Trace, now owned by LexisNexis. As recently as 2002, he says, the site listed the kinds of business that supplied it with data, such as call centers and pizza delivery companies. "As time goes on, this gets thinner and thinner," Hoofnagle says. "By 2006, the provenance is gone."

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

This article brings up that issue I discussed a few weeks back, that being, once people UNDERSTAND what's being done with their data, how its collected and then sold or profited off, we would see a significant outcry...and certainly a demand for increased privacy protections and safeguards.

As I mentioned in that post, a recent survey found 75 percent of Americans said they were opposed to tailored advertising if it meant their behavior surfing the Internet was being tracked. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania who surveyed 1,000 Americans from June 18 to July 2, concluded there was a deep concern that tracking Internet habits for tailoring ads was wrong.

As it is now, the public is largely unaware of what's really going on out there in cyber space...

Truthout op-ed: "The Death of Privacy: Technology and the Challenge for Social Activists"

An op-ed today on Truthout.org delves into both the pro's and con's of our rapidly advancing information and communication based culture, and the increasingly difficult challenge that this advancement presents privacy and social advocates with. As I have often written here, our regulatory framework simply has not kept pace with technological innovation, and this has left gaping holes in our privacy protection infrastructure...leading to a vast array of threats to our civil liberties and more general freedom(s).

At the same time, these technological innovations have also led to a host of positive developments. In the case of Web 2.0 for instance, outside of the obvious benefits of social networking, we have also seen how it helped circulate abuses by the Iranian government during their recent election protests. Similarly, as the author also notes, the ability to film live action with our phones led to a much better understanding of the incident at an Oakland BART station in which police shot and killed a youth in what appears to be in an almost execution style manner (the courts will decide this still).

Another example cited by the author, and with which I agree (though there is a downside too), is the way in which these video technologies have allowed the public - in a number of instances - to document evidence of our political leaders "saying what they think" while not realizing that it would show up on computers around the country within hours.

Examples include McCain's "Bomb Iran" and former disgraced Senator Allen's use of a racist slur in describing a non-white individual in the crowd. Certainly in the case of Allen this helped ensure he was not re-elected...and our nation is better off because of that.

As this article delves into, this conflict between the pro's and con's of technological development is a complicated one, and the very definition of privacy in today's world is changing...as well as making life more and more difficult for privacy advocates.

For instance, on the flip side, we've got this news: In-Q-Tel, "the investment arm of the CIA", has a program that crawls "over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon...Then Visible "scores" each post, labeling it as positive or negative, mixed or neutral. It examines how influential a conversation or an author is."

Uh oh...

Tolu Olorunda, a cultural critic whose work appears regularly on BlackCommentator.com and TheDailyVoice.com, writes:

There is something immeasurably insidious about a government that spies on its citizens. And if there is one universal truth, it is that no country has a monopoly on such activities. Whenever a ruling class, from whatever region, begins to feel threatened by the unforeseen, emerging independence of the underclass, one of the next steps taken is to monitor conversations, document strategies and invade privacies. It's an inevitable impulse that bears witness to the fierce determination of Struggle.

So, it should surprise no one that In-Q-Tel, "the investment arm of the CIA," is enlisting the services of Visible Technologies, a software firm notorious for monitoring social networking activities. Noah Shachtman, contributing editor to Wired magazine, reported this new discovery last week.

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It's key to reject the politics of fear at a critical time such as this. Activists, throughout history, have always understood that fear is perhaps the single most destructive force in any movement. Fear of surveillance, fear of coercion, fear of arrest can extinguish all moral vigor from the most courageous of men and women.


It's easy, following news of the CIA's latest intentions, to shut down one's social networking accounts, or begin engaging in self-censorship. It's easy to cower before the great walls of intrusion. But it's also easy to see this for what it is: a desperate attempt to keep track, and possibly mitigate, this prestigious moment in history - when a growing, global citizenry is beginning to understand that information shouldn't always be funneled to fit a particular narrow interest, that, as Patti Smith once sang, "people have the power" to change the conditions that surround them; that without engaged activism, without accountability brought to bear, without a demand, power would concede nothing - not even the privacies of everyday people.


Click here to read the article in its entirety.

Los Angeles Times Editorial: Privacy and the Patriot Act

Some good news on the media front to report. The Los Angeles Times editorialized on Sunday in support of Patriot Act reforms that would increase protection of individual privacy and civil liberties. Now, the paper doesn't go as far as I have, but they do make a solid case for some important improvements to the Act that somehow didn't survive the Senate Judiciary a few weeks back, but have been resurrected in the House by Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Bobby Scott.

To get a comprehensive breakdown of the PATRIOT Act provisions currently being debated in Congress as well as other important reform proposals being proposed, check out some of my past posts regarding the disappointing legislation that came out of the Judiciary Committee as well as the vastly superior legislation proposed in the House.

Specifically, click here for more about Feingold's Justice Act, click here for more about Obama's broken promises on this issue, click here for my discussion of the "sneak and peak" provision, and click here for more on the "Lone Wolf" provision, and click here for a detailing of the House bill.

Now to the Los Angeles Times Editorial entitled "Privacy and the Patriot Act":

Some parts of the original act were relatively uncontroversial, including those permitting the CIA and the FBI to share information more freely and allowing investigators to seek warrants for "roving wiretaps" targeted at individuals rather than telephone numbers. Others, however, unjustifiably eroded privacy rights. Particularly troubling were rules governing the acquisition of financial and other records that allowed investigators to conduct fishing expeditions -- as long as the documents were deemed "relevant" to a search for terrorists.

In December, three provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire: those dealing with roving wiretaps and the acquisition of records, and another (added in 2004) that allows surveillance of what are known as “lone wolf” terrorist suspects. All three extensions strike us as reasonable, though in one case further privacy protections are essential.

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More problematic is the provision allowing court orders for business records and other "tangible things" -- popularly known as the "library records" provision because of fears that investigators would monitor the reading habits of citizens (even though the law doesn't mention library records specifically). The Judiciary Committee bill explicitly makes it harder to obtain library records and requires investigators to show a court that the material sought is reasonably likely to be relevant to an intelligence investigation. Under current law, by contrast, a judge is supposed to presume that the materials are relevant. Even with that refinement, "relevance to an investigation" is too loose a standard for a court order. As Sens. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed, the bill should be revised to require a tighter connection to a particular foreign agent or terrorist.

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The Patriot Act's greatest threat to personal privacy lies not in any of the provisions set to expire but in the law's expansion of the use of national security letters, subpoenas that allow the FBI to obtain records without a warrant. In 2008, the FBI issued 24,744 letters involving the records of 7,225 people. Not surprisingly, there have been abuses. In 2007, after an investigation of four FBI offices, the Justice Department's inspector general found irregularities in 22% of documents related to the issuance of national security letters. Last year, he found that the FBI had made "significant progress" in correcting violations.

Even so, the criteria for issuing the letters are too vague. At present, the government must merely certify that the information sought is relevant to an authorized investigation. The bill approved by the Judiciary Committee would increase the burden on the government slightly by requiring a written statement of specific facts demonstrating relevance. A narrower amendment by Feingold and Durbin -- which would have required issuance of national security letters to be related to a suspected foreign agent or terrorist or a possible confederate -- was rejected by the committee. It should be added on the Senate floor or in an eventual conference with the House.

Click here to read the entire editorial.

While I disagree with the Times support of the "Lone Wolf" provision, there's a lot here to like...and we need all the help we can get if we are to persuade enough lawmakers to stand up to the fearmongers and defend the Constitution against the full frontal assault the PATRIOT Act represents. If newspapers continue to take a strong stand for PATRIOT Act reforms designed to re-institute some basic protections against government abuse we will all be the better for it...and perhaps some of those frightened lawmakers that worry about being called "soft on terrorism" will find their spines and do what's right.

Where's the Privacy and Civil Liberties Watchdog?

At least, that's the question posed in today's Washington Post by Alan Charles Raul, former vice chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2006 to 2008.

I know little of the board Mr. Raul is referring, or the fact that the 9/11 commission recommended its creation, or that it has received little to no attention by either the Executive or Legislative branches since that time.

So, I'll let Mr. Raul do the explaining...as I do find it to be an interesting topic:

In December 2004, Congress implemented many recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, which acknowledged that effectively combating terrorism "call[ed] for the government to increase its presence in our lives -- for example, by creating standards for . . . identification, by better securing our borders, by sharing information gathered by many different agencies." The panel recommended a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board "to oversee . . . the commitment the government makes to defend our civil liberties" by advising the president and Cabinet.

Just six months after the legislation was enacted, President Bush announced his plans to nominate former deputy attorney general Carol Dinkins as chairman and me as vice chairman, and to appoint as board members former solicitor general Ted Olson, former assistant secretary of state Frank Taylor and former Clinton White House special counsel Lanny Davis. After the Senate confirmed Dinkins and myself in February 2006, the board was staffed and fully operational the next month. Yet the administration was accused of undue delay in getting the board up and running. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) repeatedly made comments such as "they have stalled in giving the board adequate funding. They have stalled in making appointments. It is apparent they are not taking this seriously."

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Unfortunately, in January 2007, the new congressional leadership decided to "reform" the board by reconstituting it as an independent agency, relocated outside the White House. Lawmakers thought the board needed subpoena power to provide its advice and that each member, not just the chairman and vice chairman, should be subject to Senate confirmation. These "reforms" rendered the board a lame duck, and the members and staff who had been painstakingly vetted and briefed were allowed to serve only six more months.

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While Congress has not pressed President Obama on this, his White House "Cyberspace Policy Review" recognized in May that "[i]t is important to reconstitute the [board] . . . accelerate the selection process for its board members, and consider whether to seek legislative amendments to broaden its scope to include cybersecurity-related issues." Still, the president has not nominated a chairman or members, set aside space, or publicly moved to revitalize oversight of privacy and civil liberties in the fight against terrorism.

The law requires that the board be operational, and prudence suggests that this administration, like the last, could use the oversight. Surely the administration is debating and executing many "close calls" to protect American lives and interests. Surely the president is still authorizing surveillance of possible terrorists who are in this country (like, allegedly, Najibullah Zazi) or their domestic associates; the FBI is still demanding information from businesses about suspicious activity; the National Security Agency must consider data-mining communications and monitoring the Internet; the Treasury is still tracing terrorist finances; the Department of Homeland Security is still searching backgrounds, bodies and laptops at our borders and using domestic satellite imagery to anticipate threats; and more.

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

At first glance, my instinct is to say yes, of course we should have an independent body "to oversee . . . the commitment the government makes to defend our civil liberties" by advising the president and Cabinet. But, I don't want to go further than that at this point until I know more about how this board has, or could, function in actual practice.

The last thing we'd want is a rubber stamp that gives undeserved legitimacy to policies that violate our privacy and civil liberties. However, if there is real potential here to create a check on "Executive Branches Go Wild", them I'm all for it.

Bill Introduced by House Democrats would Reform Patriot Act

Before I get to the good news regarding yesterday's introduction by Democratic Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Bobby Scott of their own PATRIOT Act reform legislation, let me briefly summarize why this action is so needed, and why it was likely undertaken.

As most are now aware, two weeks ago the Senate Judiciary Committee forwarded legislation to the full Senate that would reauthorize three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act adopted just after the September 11th attacks. The measures greatly expanded the government’s ability to spy on Americans in the name of national security.

Though Senators Feingold and Durbin put up an admirable fight on a variety of fronts, the committee approved allowing broad warrants to be issued by a secretive court for any type of record, from financial to medical, without the government having to declare that the information sought is connected to a terrorism or espionage investigation. A proposal that would put limits on such requests was defeated.

Members also renewed the so-called “roving wiretap” provision, allowing the FBI to obtain wiretaps from the secret court, known as the FISA court, without identifying the target or what method of communication is to be tapped.

Finally, the committee renewed the so-called “lone wolf” measure that allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of a person for whatever reason — even without showing that the suspect is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.

For some of my past posts on the debate in the Judiciary Committee, click here for more about Feingold's Justice Act, click here for more about Obama's broken promises on this issue, click here for my discussion of the "sneak and peak" provision, and click here for more on the "Lone Wolf" provision.

Now let's get back to the new bill — the USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 (HR 3845) - submitted yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee.

As rightly noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, this is fantastic news:

...the new bill is a significant improvement over the deeply flawed Senate bill, containing a substantial number of significant new checks and balances to the government's spying authorities under the PATRIOT Act — much like Senator Feingold's JUSTICE Act in the Senate, which was supported by EFF.

Not only have Representatives Conyers, Nadler, and Scott introduced a strong PATRIOT reform bill, but they've also gone even farther in seeking to protect their constituents' civil liberties by introducing a second bill (HR 3846) directed at reforming last year's FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which broadly expanded the government's authority to wiretap Americans without warrants and granted immunity to telcos that broke the law by assisting in the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

The second bill introduced today — which, amongst other reforms, would prohibit the "bulk collection" of Americans' emails and phone calls under the FAA and would repeal the FAA's telco immunity provision — is available here [PDF], with a section-by-section summary here [PDF]. A press release from House Judiciary describing both bills is available here.

Now let's get to more of the legislation's details, as reported by the Associated Press:

The proposal would eliminate the government's authority to spy on a "lone wolf," a non-U.S. citizen suspected of terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group. The Justice Department said the government has never used this authority but wants to keep it available.

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Roving wiretaps still would be allowed, to permit surveillance on multiple phones when a suspect keeps switching cell phones. The bill would restrict surveillance to a single, identifiable target.

And the government still could obtain a court order to seize documents and other tangible items, including business records. The bill would require the government to produce specific facts, to show the items are relevant to an authorized investigation. Recipients of the search orders would be able to immediately challenge them and any gag order preventing disclosure.

The legislation would increase protections for libraries and bookstores. Records seizures would be prohibited if the material would identify patrons.

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The proposal would repeal the retroactive immunity given to telephone companies, who complied with a Bush administration warrantless wiretapping program. Courts would have to determine whether the complying companies acted properly under laws in effect at the time.

Clearly, there's a lot here for civil libertarians to like. Click here for EFF's section by section review of the bill.

Here's what the three bill authors had to say:

"Over the past eight years, Americans grew tired of the same old scare tactics, designed to fool the public into believing that we needed to give up freedom to be safe from terrorism," said Conyers. "It is a new day and an opportunity for reform." The truth is that we can protect our nation from terrorist threats by giving our government the tools it needs while also ensuring there are checks and balances to protect against abuses."

"This legislation is borne of the necessity to reign in the overbroad provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and ensure that the law is consistent with constitutional standards," said Nadler. "As we reauthorize expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, it is essential that we protect our homeland without abusing executive power or unnecessarily compromising the privacy of American citizens. In particular, this bill includes provisions of my legislation to reform National Security Letters — the National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009 – which are critical for protecting Americans against government invasion of privacy and, generally, for restoring critical checks and balances to our government. Notably, the bill would allow Americans to use libraries and bookstores without fear that their choice of books will be monitored by overzealous federal agents."

"Benjamin Franklin got it right when he said, ’those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,’" said Scott. "These bills assure that we secure our liberties and our freedoms without diminishing either."

I'll be following the progress of this legislation VERY closely here in the coming weeks.