Reps. Ted Poe, R-Texas, Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Tuesday introduced the End Warrantless Surveillance of Americans Act (HR- 2233), which mirrors an amendment they offered to the USA Freedom Act, a joint news release said. The bill would prohibit warrantless searches of government databases for information about U.S. citizens and would forbid government agencies from mandating or requesting “back doors” be put into commercial products that can be used for surveillance, the release said. Though Poe said the USA Freedom Act that passed last week out of the House Judiciary Committee is an improvement, he said Congress must stop warrantless searches under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702. “Right now, under Section 702 the government is allowed to snoop and spy on the content of a citizen’s phone calls, texts and emails -- all without a warrant,” Poe said. “Failure to address this gaping loophole in FISA leaves the constitutional rights of millions of Americans vulnerable and unprotected,” he said. “If Congress truly wants to end bulk collections of U.S. persons['] data, then we must also look at the warrantless surveillance occurring under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333,” Lofgren said. “Failing to do so all but ensures the nation’s spy agencies will continue to violate Americans’ privacy and the Fourth Amendment,” she said. “Surveillance under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act is arguably worse than the collection of records allowed under Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” Massie said. New America’s Open Technology Institute supported the amendment to end surveillance under Section 702 proposed by Poe during last week’s markup of the USA Freedom Act, and on Tuesday said it supported HR-2233. “If USA Freedom Act is the first step toward comprehensive surveillance reform, then the End Warrantless Surveillance Act is the next,” OTI Policy Director Kevin Bankston said. “We need to shut the surveillance backdoor."
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation recommended Congress pass a federal law prohibiting strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). A Monday ITIF report said that “there needs to be a nationwide baseline, not just a patchwork of state laws” to protect against “censorious lawsuits” targeting people who post critical reviews online about merchants or service providers. “By discouraging participation in matters of public interest, including government proceedings, SLAPPs can deter people from exercising free speech and the right to petition, both of which are protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” ITIF said. “SLAPPs also freeze out many of the wider economic and societal benefits that can result from the information-sharing they obstruct.” Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have anti-SLAPP laws, which aren’t uniform and are rendered less effective because so many states don’t have such laws, ITIF said. A federal anti-SLAPP law should include broad speech protections, along with an actual malice provision to protect against misuse of the law, ITIF said. Federal legislation should also include a provision allowing courts to award court and reasonable attorneys’ costs, a provision expediting hearings on motions to dismiss SLAPP lawsuits and a discovery stay provision, ITIF said.
House Democrats unveiled more details of the Distracted Driving Prevention Act (HR-2154), reintroduced last week (see 1505010049). “The legislation seeks to create new safety benchmarks for states looking to obtain grant funding, while simultaneously lowering administrative barriers to grant money,” said a Monday news release from Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., its sponsor. To be eligible for distracted driving grants, states will need to have passed laws that forbid texting and using handheld cellphones while driving, the news release said. The legislation would compel the Department of Transportation to form a research program to consider the issue and the FCC to weigh in with Congress on what it can do to minimize distracted driving. "Distracted driving has become an epidemic, and its consequences can often be fatal,” Engel said in a statement.
The head of the Congressional Black Caucus is coming under fire for what some net neutrality advocates contend is a cozy relationship with industry incumbents. They single out that Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and a House Commerce Committee member, has pushed for net neutrality legislation this year and said he previously has done the “bidding” of incumbents. “At critical junctures in the struggle for racial justice, Butterfield has protected the big broadband companies instead of people of color,” said Brandi Collins, media justice director for ColorOfChange.org, and Joseph Torres, senior external affairs director for Free Press, in a Friday op-ed for The Hill. “And he fails to acknowledge how significant the open Internet has been for communities of color.” They criticized Butterfield’s opposition to Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband, his donations from incumbent heavyweights and his “reciting the gospel according to AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, who will stop at nothing to destroy the open Internet.” ColorOfChange.org circulated a petition Monday, targeting Butterfield and other CBC members, including Commerce Committee member Bobby Rush, D-Ill., who don't align with the group's net neutrality advocacy and who have received telecom donations: "Tell Black members of Congress: stop attacking Internet freedom," the petition title said. The petition authors called the situation "unacceptable and dangerous." A Butterfield spokeswoman declined comment Monday.
CEA President Gary Shapiro threw water on claims by the politically conservative advocacy group Americans for Limited Government (ALG) that concerns expressed by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., about granting President Barack Obama trade promotion authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would “eviscerate” the fast-track Pacific trade deal. Sessions’ opposition is “a game changer,” ALG President Rick Manning said Monday in a statement. ALG thinks the TPP “will subvert the treaty clause of the Constitution, increase immigration, and cede sovereignty to international powers," Manning said. However, “one senator who is not a leader or committee chair does not ‘eviscerate’ legislation,” Shapiro emailed us Monday. “Odds are high it will pass the Senate.” In a "critical alert" statement issued Monday, Sessions argued that Congress "has the responsibility to ensure that any international trade agreement entered into by the United States must serve the national interest, not merely the interests of those crafting the proposal in secret."
Leaders from nine conservative groups wrote Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., Friday urging passage of the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad Act (Leads Act) (S-512) (see 1502270034). The legislation will “protect the privacy of American citizens, promote cross-border data flow and our global trade agenda, and provide the tools law enforcement needs,” said the letter from leaders from American Commitment, Americans for Tax Reform, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Institute for Liberty, Let Freedom Ring, Less Government, National Center for Policy Analysis, RedState and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. “Until now, the U.S. Government has relied on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to reach data of foreign citizens stored abroad so long as the company storing the data had a presence on U.S. soil,” the letter said. “This practice creates distrust of American businesses and encourages foreign citizens, companies and countries to stop doing business with U.S. companies operating overseas,” it said. “If the U.S. Government can obtain emails wherever stored simply by serving a warrant on a provider subject to U.S. process, nothing stops other countries -- including China and Russia -- from seeking to obtain emails of Americans stored on servers in the United States.”
The musicFIRST Coalition lauded increased Democratic support Monday for the Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733), saying it got support from Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.; Judy Chu, D-Calif.; Alan Grayson, D-Fla.; Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; and Adam Schiff, D-Calif. The folk musicians advocacy group Folk Alliance International, one of the five largest U.S. music conferences, is also now endorsing HR-1733, musicFIRST said. “Music creators could not have better friends,” said musicFIRST Executive Director Ted Kalo in a statement. HR-1733, introduced last month, would require most terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance royalties and also would update the royalty rules for digital and satellite broadcasters (see 1504130056).
Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., is still collecting lawmaker signatures on his draft letter to the FCC pushing stand-alone broadband USF support, an aide to Cramer said Friday. In recent weeks, Cramer, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., have quietly sought support from colleagues for a pair of such bicameral draft letters (see 1504210033). NTCA framed the letters’ goal as a lobbying priority and recently hosted several of its members in Washington to lobby lawmakers. Cramer initially set Friday as a tentative deadline for gathering signatures but he has extended that to May 8, the aide said. Last Congress, a similar House letter snagged several scores of lawmaker signatures.
Net neutrality recurred as a topic through three interviews with lawmakers during the latest episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators, set for telecast over the weekend. “I just think this will be very, very hard to overturn and turn this back, but we have to be vigilant, there’s no question about that,” Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said of GOP legislation that may roll back parts of the FCC’s net neutrality order. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., praised the FCC’s order and recalled a field hearing she held last year with two FCC commissioners on the topic. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., argued the opposite, saying “we also should be acting in the Congress” to counteract the order. “Our position there is also very strong -- that you can protect the openness of the Internet a better way by having competition protected by antitrust laws,” Goodlatte said. “That’s the historic way we’ve done it in our country.” The various avenues include a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval, which Goodlatte already backs, and the appropriations process, he said. Goodlatte also considered potentially tweaking antitrust laws if businesses required that for assurances. Matsui, a co-chair of the Congressional Spectrum Caucus, lauded the revenue from the recent AWS-3 spectrum, saying broadcasters, formerly “very, very lukewarm” about participating in the broadcast TV spectrum incentive auction, now see it more as “an opportunity.” She spoke of the importance of relationships developing between Congress and federal agencies to free up spectrum, saying the Pentagon is “the toughest nut to crack” on the spectrum front. She emphasized her commitment to the bipartisan Federal Spectrum Incentive Act she sponsors. “I believe we’ll work with some of the incentives there,” Matsui said, referring to the percentage of revenue that federal agencies could recoup from giving up spectrum to auction -- currently at 1 percent. “A lot of the federal government agencies are really looking at this too.” Franken spoke of his great pleasure now that Comcast isn't pursuing Time Warner Cable. He's "skeptical" of AT&T's proposed buy of DirecTV but didn't say whether he opposes it.
Reps. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, and John Carney, D-Del., introduced the Data Security Act (HR-2205) Friday. The bill would establish a national data security and breach notification standard for financial institutions and retailers to better protect consumer financial data, a Neugebauer news release said. “Immense amounts of sensitive consumer financial information are transferred, processed and stored in any one transaction,” Neugebauer said, fueling economic growth as well as new threats. “Recently, we have seen an increased prevalence of major cyber breaches resulting in consequences for millions of individuals in families,” he said. This legislation has three guiding principles: that a national standard be technology neutral and process specific; all participants in the payment system must equally share efforts to protect consumer financial data; and the standards must not place unnecessary burdens on small businesses, Neugebauer said. “Consumers need to know that when they use their credit card to make a purchase, their personal information is secure,” Carney said. “We can’t afford to wait for another massive data breach to occur.”