Bill to Authorize Warrantless Surveillance Introduced
Senate Republicans led by Sen. Mike DeWine yesterday introduced a bill (pdf) that would authorize warrantless intelligence surveillance for up to 45 days, after which it could be renewed upon review by the Attorney General.
The bill would require notification to Congress of various aspects of the program.
But significantly, it would impose no external constraints on domestic surveillance by the executive branch.
The bill (pdf) would also impose penalties of up to $1 million and/or 15 years in prison for unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to such surveillance activity.
Stung by criticism that this approach could be used to punish reporters who write about illegal government surveillance, the Senators declared that the proposed penalty, an amendment to 18 U.S.C. 798, “does not apply to journalists.”
Thus, while the current 18 U.S.C. 798(a) apparently prohibits unauthorized disclosures of certain specific types of classified information by “any person”, the new proposed section 798(b) would only apply to “any covered person,” which means someone who has authorized possession of the classified information, but not a reporter or other recipient of the information.
See “DeWine, Graham, Hagel and Snowe Introduce the Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006,” news release, March 16.
On March 13, Sen. Russ Feingold introduced a resolution to censure President Bush for what he described as a violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
To secure the U.S. bio-infrastructure, maintain global leadership in biotechnology, and safeguard American citizens from emerging threats to their privacy, the federal government must modernize its approach to human genetic and biological data.
To ensure an energy transition that brings broad based economic development, participation, and direct benefits to communities, we need federal policy that helps shape markets. Unfortunately, there is a large gap in understanding of how to leverage federal policy making to support access to capital and credit.
From use to testing to deployment, the scaffolding for responsible integration of AI into high-risk use cases is just not there.
OPM’s new HR 2.0 initiative is entering hostile terrain. Those who have followed federal HR modernization for years desperately want this effort to succeed.