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Secret Text In Senate Bill Would Give FBI Warrantless Access To Email Records (theintercept.com) 157

mi quotes a report from The Intercept: A provision snuck into the still-secret text of the Senate's annual intelligence authorization would give the FBI the ability to demand individuals' email data and possibly web-surfing history from their service providers using those beloved 'National Security Letters' -- without a warrant and in complete secrecy. [The spy bill passed the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, with the provision in it. The lone no vote came from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who wrote in a statement that one of the bill's provisions "would allow any FBI field office to demand email records without a court order, a major expansion of federal surveillance powers." If passed, the change would expand the reach of the FBI's already highly controversial national security letters. The FBI is currently allowed to get certain types of information with NSLs -- most commonly, information about the name, address, and call data associated with a phone number or details about a bank account. The FBI's power to issue NSLs is actually derived from the Electronic Communications Privacy Act -- a 1986 law that Congress is currently working to update to incorporate more protections for electronic communications -- not fewer. The House unanimously passed the Email Privacy Act in late April, while the Senate is due to vote on its version this week. "NSLs have a sordid history. They've been abused in a number of ways, including targeting of journalists and use to collect an essentially unbounded amount of information," Andrew Crocker, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote. One thing that makes them particularly easy to abuse is that recipients of NSLs are subject to a gag order that forbids them from revealing the letters' existence to anyone, much less the public.]
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Secret Text In Senate Bill Would Give FBI Warrantless Access To Email Records

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    We should all be ashamed. We don't deserve freedom.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by whoozwah ( 4223029 )
      I disagree. Those that didn't oppose this don't deserve freedom.
      • by thaylin ( 555395 )

        I am sure the majority oppose this, it is just the leaders, who are power hungry, who do not. then again certain parties and their "if you got nothing to hide" and "there has to be a balance" arguments have fooled me before.

        • by NatasRevol ( 731260 ) on Friday May 27, 2016 @08:41AM (#52194467) Journal

          Bullshit.

          The majority hears 'it's for safety, you wouldn't want to help the terrorists kill children, would you' and, without a critical thought in their head, vote it and those leaders all the way to the courthouse.

        • Talking about the majority opinion as if it matters hurts individual liberty. The majority is irrelevant when we are talking about individual rights.

        • They don't actually read the bills. That's why the FBI buries the clause deep in the bill. Thank god for Ron Wyden, that man has protected the public numerous times and I hope he's able to block this.

    • by mi ( 197448 )

      We should all be ashamed. We don't deserve freedom.

      Should not it be passed by both Senate and Congress first? And then be signed by the President before we bury the country?

      • by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday May 27, 2016 @08:48AM (#52194511) Journal

        Do you really think that those things aren't going to happen? Have you seen anything in the post- USA PATRIOT Act Congressional history that says that this won't become law except for the loud noises made from a few 'fringe' Senators that actually give a damn about the Bill of Rights?

      • What, exactly, do you believe the (D) and (R) parties differ on, in areas like this? There are a few people on both sides that vehemently oppose laws like this, and are summarily pushed to the edge and called "kooks", and "extremists". And it works, because too many politicians are more concerned with getting reelected than doing what is right for our country.

        The problem is, we keep trading in our liberties, for the illusion of security, creating a monster state that has limitless power to enslave us all. I

        • by Anonymous Coward

          My wish is that the exemption of congressional staff is secretly removed at some point and our political leaders get to eat their own dog food. Who needs to be tracked more than those with the most money and power?

    • I hear the libertarians are against this kind of things, it's almost as if voting for them is the only way to stop this kind of foul behaviour.
  • National Broccol day bill.

  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday May 27, 2016 @08:33AM (#52194423)
    Any rider that is unrelated to the title or purpose of a bill should be automatically struck out. Maybe someone should slip this law in as a rider to another bill in order to make the point.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Never going to happen because the people who could slip it in have a vest interest in keeping things the way they are.

    • Meh. Even IF it passed, it would never be used. That is part of the whole handshake deal of how laws get passed. Group A puts up a bill that group B is slightly against or doesn't care about. Group B whats a different law that A doesn't really like, so B tells A they will only vote for the bill if B's provision is inserted. The enforcement of the deal is in the fact that you are voting for both provision at the same time. BTW It is already part of the constitution of MN. The only time I've ever seen
      • It won't be used until it is needed by the Government to suppress the will of the people, and then it will be used against the enemies of the state (aka us citizens).

        That is how all these things work. And instead of preventing abuse by not allowing it in the first place, people (I'm guessing you're okay with this) like you allow such things to go through, under the illusion that they won't ever be abused. Naive at best, delusional at worst.

        • Where did you get the idea that I'm okay with "this" (whatever "this" is)? Are you talking about the handshake deals or the single subject bill requirement? I am unhappy that the single subject law in MN is largely unenforced. If single subject isn't going to be consistently enforced (I don't believe it will be) then get rid of it rather than selectively enforcing it. I'm merely pointing out that the single subject rule won't work for the reasons I stated. It won't achieve the desired goal.
    • Can't really do this, people find a way to claim it is related to anything.

      What they CAN do is give the original submitter of a bill veto power over all riders.

      • by tnk1 ( 899206 )

        Yes. If they want to get a provision in, they should write their own bill to do so. Or at the very least, have an extremely strict and difficult process for unfriendly amendments.

        Unfriendly amendments do have a place, but the completely unrelated nature of a lot of amendments out there just shits all over the value of the concept.

    • Under trump we will not let stuff like Warrants, due process, jury's, bans on waterboarding, etc get in our way.

      • by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Friday May 27, 2016 @09:43AM (#52194925) Journal

        Yes and under Hillary we just won't worry about words mean so any existing law can be used however she wants and rules won't apply to herself and people she likes. That sounds so much better sign me up.

        Honestly I don't understand how ANYONE can make the case the Hillary is different than Trump other than what "team" she purports to be playing for.

        Hillary contradicting herself for 13min on just about every current issue:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        Look the only questions in this election are do you like the list Trump put forward for the SCOTUS candidates and do you want people like Paul Ryan to get legislation passed. If the answer is yes then vote for Trump because he isn't any worse than Hillary. The polls indicate he can actually win. If you abstain or vote for a third party you are effectively voting for Hillary that is the reality of the system.

        If you like what his happen in Washington right now vote HRC, but don't think for a second that makes you a more responsible person or anything of the sort. She isn't by any measure more qualified to be president than he is. She was unaccomplished as a Senator, and her tenure as sec State was nothing other than a string of failures and scandals. Having had an important job before that you performed terribly at isn't a qualification for promotion.

        • Honestly I don't understand how ANYONE can make the case the Hillary is different than Trump other than what "team" she purports to be playing for.

          The difference is this: under president Hillary nothing changes at all from what we have now, and under the Donald it's looking very likely to get worse but with a remote possibility that some small things might actually change.

          Frankly, I don't know if I can bring myself to vote for either one of them, not even in protest of the other. It's fucking ridiculous, the Republicans are running a "Man of the People" who's a billionaire, and the Democrats are running the one single person in America so hated she c

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Oh, I agree entirely.
      Argument over transgender rights has killed a major spending bill in Congress [businessinsider.com]

      The rancorous political debate over sexual identity unexpectedly prompted the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to rejected an energy and water spending bill on Thursday after Democrats attached an amendment to protect the rights of transgender people

      However, your point is not applicable in this case because the so-called "snuck in provision" is part of the Senate's INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016 [congress.gov] and is related to the FBI's counterintelligence duties which falls under purview of national security.

    • You do know who writes the law, right? To change the law in our favor will require a voter referendum. I don't know if the feds recognize those things.

      • by tnk1 ( 899206 )

        You start a movement to elect people who promise to eliminate riders and punish those who do not. And maintain consistency. There are groups out there that can be that insistent and get what they want (NRA, Norquist, etc), no reason that you can't get what you want... eventually.

        I do wish we could have some sort of referendum process for overriding Congress, though. Eliminating riders would be an excellent first step.

    • Amen. Not that I expect it to go anywhere, it may even already be dead, but Rep Mia Love of Utah has proposed H.R. 4335, or The One Subject at a Time Act that strives to do just that. Return some sense to the lawmaking process. and end these massive all inclusive bills with all their totally unrelated riders and amendments.
    • by tnk1 ( 899206 )

      I agree. More than anything, if you want to hold your representatives accountable, I think a political movement to end riders is possibly one of the best ways to do so. I feel it is on the same level as term limits. Indeed, it may be more important than term limits.

      Adding riders to otherwise vital bills has both the effect of ensuring that bad provisions are passed when they wouldn't have on their own merits, but also, it implicates legislators in decisions which they may not have supported if it had bee

  • . . . .but J. Random User out there doesn't know of, much less use PGP or Gnu Privacy Guard. . .

    • by CimmerianX ( 2478270 ) on Friday May 27, 2016 @08:53AM (#52194539)

      I've had PGP for 7 years. In that time I've exchanged 2 keys..... and 1 belonged to my wife which I setup for her.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      J Random User doesn't really care either. In fact, there are many people out there who have zero cares about privacy, saying, "I have nothing to hide", even posting his life onto social networks.

      The funny thing is that stuff gets saved forever. I personally have had to talk about USENET posts I made in sci.crypt back in 1991 when an interviewer asked about that (although it wasn't a bad thing.) What would be concerning is if some law came around that made the statute of limitations null for any crime tha

    • PGP doesn't protect the metadata nor even email subject. Also, it isn't popular even among highly technical crowd. Right now, among 704 mails in my INBOX there's just two encrypted (despite 86 being signed).

      A good idea for privacy for mainstream users would be deploying DANE. It provides transport encryption that's not vulnerable to MITM -- and some ISPs already MITM all SMTP [techdirt.com].

      Obviously, transport encryption doesn't protect you against the server reading your mail. The likes of Gmail read your mail thems

      • by mlts ( 1038732 )

        PGP is needed, because it does something few applications do -- it works regardless of the transport layer. I can PGP encrypt a document, E-mail it, or I can send it via SMS, MMS, copy it to a SD card and put it in a dead drop, post to alt.anonymous.messages, or any number of ways. In any case, the document will be encrypted, and signed, so the receiver is assured of its security, no matter how public the transportation is.

        Of course, PGP isn't perfect... it is a standard made in 1993. It needs forward se

  • And that is more important than the constitution?
  • This is the problem the world seems to be overlooking. The absurd assumption is that we'll willingly give our most personal data away; we've evolved to a bizarro state where we must hand over our content to strangers in order for it to be useful to us. Email is just one example but it's the same across all vectors of your personal data corpus, including social, messaging, video, files, etc., etc., etc.... not to mention the "data exhaust" from your browsing, GPS, and commercial interactions.

    The only so
    • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      So a "cloudspace" is something both no one can see (because privacy) but everyone can see (to inter-operate with other 'cloudspaces')? Might as well call it "Schroedingers Space"
      • But I think we're really talking about controlled (and in this example, authenticated) access. That's not so revolutionary. You can see everything as data owner, but you only share with me what you want me to see. Just like every service out there now, except there's no middleman with uber-access to everything.

        I'd really be interested in a technical argument why this is un-doable. Or your alternative to the mess we've got now.
    • "we've evolved to a bizarro state where we must hand over our content to strangers in order for it to be useful to us. "

      Yes. Like the Postal Service. Telephones.

      • Neither of which requires you to grant access to the actual content, unlike Gmail which accesses it to sell you stuff, as do virtually all social networks. And, relevant to the OP, snail mail and phone content never could be intercepted without a warrant.

        I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not ok with the way things are going privacy-wise. Would you do anything to change it?
  • There's no way that this can be constitutional.

  • by darthsilun ( 3993753 ) on Friday May 27, 2016 @09:05AM (#52194635)
    If only there was an organization that was as rabid about upholding the Fourth Amendment as the NRA is about the Second Amendment.
    • There is no big industry that depends on the 4th like there is for the 2nd. No money, no lobby

    • If only there weren't people who consider the Second Amendment obsolete/optional/meaningless, because encouraging lawmakers to ignore the parts you don't like just encourages them to ignore the parts you like....
    • by rickb928 ( 945187 ) on Friday May 27, 2016 @10:50AM (#52195489) Homepage Journal

      Amen.

      EFF, EFA, BMLP, RT4CHICAGO, ICANN, there are others. Know, understand, and support them.

    • by kqs ( 1038910 )

      ACLU is quite rabid about protecting the Fourth, First, etc. The problem is that they have a tiny fraction of the NRA's budget. The problem is that people like talking but aren't so fond of putting money where their mouth is.

      • by Agripa ( 139780 )

        They would have even less money or a lack of existence if they had protected the 2nd Amendment as well; when the ACLU was founded, one of the major monetary contributors made that stipulation. They continue to support the collective interpretation undermining their own position on individual rights belonging to "people".

        • by kqs ( 1038910 )

          Why would they spend to protect the 2nd amendment, when it is well protected by the NRA? The NRA has about 10x the resources and cares about 1/10 as much of the Bill of Rights. I have no real problem with the NRA, but if you give money to it but not to the ACLU, EFF, or some similar organization, then you can't really complain when the First or Fourth amendments are endangered.

          • by Agripa ( 139780 )

            I just gave the reason; when the ACLU was founded, a stipulation from one of the major donors was that they *not* protect the 2nd Amendment.

            And in 1920, what was the NRA doing? When the NRA got involved, which did not happen until after the NFA in 1934, up until the 1970, it supported gun control.

  • My email provider, fastmail is in Australia so that should make it a little more difficult for them.
    • You think they would resist? The FBI is a world cop.

    • I'm contemplating subscribing to Fastmail and have specifically looked into their privacy policy regarding NSLs, warrants, etc. Fastmail is in an interesting position legally - yes, they are an Australian company and are subject to Australian laws, but their primary mail servers are located in New York (there's a backup in...Amsterdam?). I'd like to think that they will be safe from the US government accessing your account data, but I don't know how that will hold up to the FBI/NSA if the servers are physic
  • All the more reason to switch your e-mail off the Google or any other American host company and over to Ghostmail or Protonmail.
    The Swiss are serious about privacy.

  • by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Friday May 27, 2016 @09:26AM (#52194799) Journal
    Congress is not empowered by the Constitution to bypass the requirement of a warrant under any circumstance. A member of congress having any part of this bill is treason.
    • Well, until there is sufficient demand to bring up charges, we'll just have to sit and watch the disaster unfold.

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Treason is rather specifically defined in the Constitution. This is not treason. Malfeasance, yes, and violation of their oath of office, etc., but not treason.

      • I assume you are referring to Article 3 Section 3 which defines treason against the United States. This is treason against the people. The war on terror is a codename for a war against the people.
  • So we have some secrete text in a bill that may be come law that supposedly allows my government to avoid going to a secrete court to get a secrete warrant to spy on me and instead just secretly spy on me. At this point it seems that it should be a perfect acceptable defense to state that one is ignorant of the law as there is so much effort being put into keeping the law from the governed. Hammurabi's code was put up in public so that people would know what the law was, now it is secretes the whole way dow
  • Since when can Congress bypass a Constitutional amendment with a mere law?
  • So many deluded people in our government who don't know the first thing about America.

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