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Category Archives: Patriot Act

ACLU Continues to Battle Patriot Act NSL Letters

Press release: “The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union announced today that they have returned to court to challenge the constitutionality of the reauthorized Patriot Act’s National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The provision permits the FBI to prohibit anyone who receives an NSL from disclosing that the FBI has sought… Continue Reading

Judge Denies Government's Motion to Dismiss AT&T Case

Press release: “A federal judge today denied the government’s motion to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’s) case against AT&T for collaborating with the NSA in illegal spying of millions of ordinary Americans. This allows the case to go forward in the courts.” Related postings on domestic surveillance programs Continue Reading

Proposed FISA Legislation Supports Status Quo According to Recent Commentary

Follow-up to recents postings on FISA that include House Intelligence Hearing on Modernizing FISA and Draft Agreement With White House on Domestic Surveillance Oversight, see this new article on the subject by Edward Lazarus: Why The “Compromise” Foreign Surveillance Wiretap Legislation Pending in Congress Is No Compromise: The Bill, and Senator Specter’s Strange Reversal on… Continue Reading

House Intelligence Hearing on Modernizing FISA

House Intelligence to Hold Open Hearing on Modernizing FISA, July 19, 2006. Statement of Jim Dempsey, Policy Director, Center for Democracy and Technology, July 19, 2006 (13 pages, PDF) ABA President’s Testimony to House Intelligence Committee Hearing on Domestic Surveillance, July 19, 2006 Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy Executive Director Kim… Continue Reading

Oversight Hearing onTerror Finance Tracking Program

Follow-up to postings on terrorist financing programs, the House Committee on Financial Services hearing entitled “The Terror Finance Tracking Program,” Tuesday, July 11, 2006. Opening Statement of Full Committee Chairman Michael G. Oxley Prepared Testimony: Stuart Levey, Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Department of the Treasury: “…SWIFT is predominantly used for overseas transfers. It… Continue Reading

House Judiciary Committee Passes Resolution On NSA Phone Record Surveillance Data

Following up on Domestic Call Records Mined for Expansive Pentagon Database Program, today’s passage by the House Judiciary Committee, voice vote, on H.Res. 819, “Requesting the President and directing the Attorney General to submit to the House of Representatives all documents in the possession of the President and the Attorney General relating to requests made… Continue Reading

Phone Surveillance By State and Local Law Enforcement Uses Data Brokers

AP: “Federal and local police across the country – as well as some of the nation’s best-known companies – have been gathering Americans’ phone records from private data brokers without subpoenas or warrants. These brokers, many of whom market aggressively on the Internet, have broken into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information… Continue Reading

Federal Court Decision Facilitates Government Wiretapping of IP Services

CDT: “A federal appeals court today ruled 2-1 that telephone regulators and the FBI can control the design of Internet services in order to make government wiretapping easier. The decision (29 pages, PDF), which is damaging both to civil liberties and technology innovation, came in a case in which CDT joined with a coalition of… Continue Reading