The Honorable John Thune
Chairman, Senate Commerce Committee
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Bill Nelson
Ranking Member, Senate Commerce Committee
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
7 November 2017
Dear Chairman Thune, Ranking Member Nelson, and Members of the Committee,
We, the undersigned human rights and civil liberties organizations, trade associations, and individuals write to convey our significant concern with the Manager’s Amendment to S.1693, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which the Committee will…
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We recognise the concerns about difficulties in obtaining electronic data relevant for criminal investigations that motivates the EC’s initiative. Our overriding message is that as the EC considers its next step, it must ensure that protection of fundamental rights is front and centre. We refer to existing human rights principles on necessity and proportionality and ask that they be included in any initiative the EC puts forward.
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Privacy violations are by their nature contextual, making them difficult for individuals to evaluate and regulators to quantify. Two important elements should be included in the Commission’s consideration of information injury: first, user control, or lack thereof, should be an important component of the Commission’s analysis of unfair acts or practices. Second, while expanded individual rights to information could serve to counterbalance the risk of privacy violations, information asymmetries limit an individual’s ability to make informed decisions about privacy and security.
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Terms like Bitcoin, blockchain, and mining are entering the mainstream — but to the unacquainted, it can be hard to know where to start. How does it all work? On October 18, 2017, CDT fellow and political economist Benjamin Dean discussed the basics of crypto-ledgers, cryptocurrencies, and the associated policy issues. His presentation is available here.
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A coalition of civil liberties organizations, including CDT, wrote to the Department of Homeland Security to express concerns with the DHS System of Records Notice, issued on September 18, 2017 that states that DHS will now store social media information in ‘Alien Files’, which include the official record of an individual’s visa and immigration history. Alien registration numbers, and their related A-File, are assigned to people who plan to make the United States their home, and also to certain categories of non-immigrants who are granted employment authorization.
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The City of New York has an obligation to understand, scrutinize, and explain how its algorithms make decisions affecting New Yorkers. At minimum, the city should ensure and demonstrate to the public that NYC’s algorithmic decision-making tools (1) are aligned with the city’s policy goals and the public interest; (2) work as intended; (3) do not use data to marginalize minority or vulnerable populations and exacerbate inequality; (4) provide meaningful transparency to New Yorkers so that they can appeal and seek remedy for automated decisions that are incorrect, unjust, or contrary to law.
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CDT and dozens of other digital rights groups released a letter calling on Congress to improve the USA Liberty Act by closing the backdoor search loophole that the bill leavers open. Using this loophole, the US government searches the communications content of US persons without obtaining a warrant. It does this by combing through the millions of communications it seizes every year under the authority Congress gave it in Section 702 of FISA to conduct surveillance of foreigners outside the U.S.
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CDT joined 19 organisations, including European universities, libraries, research organisations, and businesses in co-signing an open letter on the Text and Data Mining (TDM) exception in the proposal for a Copyright in the DSM Directive.
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On 6 September 2017, the Digital Agenda Intergroup of the European Parliament and CDT held a closed roundtable on removing illegal content online while protecting human rights. This is a summary of the debate held under Chatham House rules. The event focused on challenges to existing intermediary liability limitations, and free expression, from the DSM Copyright Directive Art. 13, as well as the need for consistent and harmonized notice and action procedures across the EU.
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The undersigned civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and government oversight organizations write to urge you to vote “no” on reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act if it is not significantly reformed. While Congress had little information on how this program worked when it last voted on this law in 2012, the new disclosures we describe below underscore the need for amendments to better protect privacy and civil liberties.
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