Today Senator Patrick Leahy introduced a new version of the USA FREEDOM Act, which the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) strongly supports. This bill directly addresses many issues identified by CDT immediately after passage of the problematic House version of the bill, and includes many changes that CDT specifically recommended. Notably, the Senate bill prohibits bulk collection and creates new safeguards to limit large-scale surveillance of Americans. It also gives private parties greater ability to report on surveillance orders received and establishes a panel of external experts tasked with protecting privacy and civil liberties at the FISA Court.
See CDT’s comparison of the House and Senate versions of USA FREEDOM here.
“This new version of the USA FREEDOM Act would be a significant step forward in protecting Americans from unnecessary and intrusive NSA surveillance,” said CDT President and CEO Nuala O’Connor. “This legislation is a major improvement over the version that passed the House in June. The bill would end bulk collection and enact other important reforms, while also providing government with the necessary flexibility to protect national security. We encourage the Senate to pass this bill as is, and the House to quickly follow suit without weakening the bill.”
On other specific improvements to the bill, CDT’s Senior Counsel Harley Geiger said: “The Senate bill adds new back-end privacy protections such as new procedures requiring destruction of information about people not under investigation, and the bill provides private parties with significantly greater ability to publicly report on surveillance orders they receive. Still, there are many issues related to overbroad national security surveillance that this bill does not address, such as reform of surveillance under Section 702 of FISA and Executive Order 12333, and the undermining of encryption standards.”
CDT-led Coalition Calls for Transparency for White House AI Framework
CDT and Americans for Responsible Innovation led a broad, bipartisan coalition of over two dozen civil society groups in calling on the White House to release its Framework for review of frontier AI models.
CDT Amicus Brief Calls on Fourth Circuit to Rein In Geofence Warrants
Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled in Chatrie v United States that the Fourth Amendment protected all cell phone location information, which CDT lauded as a landmark decision, but sent the case back down to the Fourth Circuit to assess the propriety of the geofence warrant at issue.
CDT and Partners Post Floor Alert Opposing CA SB 1013 Automated License Plate Readers Bill
The best way to ensure that Automated License Plate Readers are not abused is to limit the retention of stored data and to keep loopholes to lawful process closed. CA SB 1013 is a step in the wrong direction, and we urge the California legislature to reject this approach.
British Public Oppose Secret Surveillance Powers and Want Strong Protections for Encrypted Communications
CDT released nationally representative polling data revealing that a the British public are broadly concerned about the security, privacy, and free speech consequences of allowing law enforcement to access encrypted communications.
