Sen. Ron Wyden wants law enforcement officials to procure a warrant for GPS tracking & more.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) plans to offer an amendment to cybersecurity legislation that would require law enforcement officials to procure a warrant before obtaining location data from a person's cell phone, laptop or other gadgets.
The bill — called the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act — hasn't seen any action since Wyden introduced it last year with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). With the August recess and the presidential election on the horizon, the cybersecurity bill could be Wyden’s last chance to move the GPS measure through the 112th Congress.
The GPS Act aims to clarify how much evidence police and law enforcement agencies need to track someone remotely and access information about their movements. It would also specify when companies should respond to law enforcement requests for such information.
The Supreme Court ruled this year that police need to obtain a warrant before attaching a GPS device to a person's car, but didn't specify whether law enforcement would need to procure the same evidence when tracking a person's movements via other types of geolocation devices, such as a smartphone.
Since the Supreme Court ruling, Wyden has argued his bill is needed to clear up that confusion and ensure people's information is still protected with the advent of new location technology.
Wyden plans to file the amendment on Monday.
Lieberman's bill contains provisions that are intended to improve information sharing about viruses and other cyber threats between the government and industry so a cyber attack or intrusion can be thwarted in real-time.
A revised version of the bill included changes that narrowed the definition for what type of information can be shared with the government and ensures companies share this data with civilian, not military, agencies. Privacy groups had feared the original version of the bill would increase the pool of personal information flowing to the National Security Agency
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/240875-senator-wants-to-require-warrant-for-gps-tracking-in-cybersecurity-bill
Legislation seeks to limit warrantless wiretapping powers.
Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) introduced legislation Thursday that would provide limited privacy protections to the warrantless wiretapping program secretly adopted under the George W. Bush administration.
The proposal would amend what was initially called the Terrorist Surveillance Program the Bush administration secretly adopted in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks. Congress subsequently authorized much of the program, which allows the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans’ communications without normal court warrants if the government believes the person on the receiving end of an e-mail or phone call is overseas. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/warrantless-wiretapping-powers/
The program, now congressionally authorized under the FISA Amendments Act, expires at year’s end. Committees in the House and Senate (.pdf) have agreed to reauthorize it: http://intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs112th/112174.pdf