US Congress NSLs FBI to Please Think of the Orlando's

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Tue Jun 21 09:54:48 PDT 2016


https://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/06/21/0543212/invoking-orlando-senate-republicans-set-up-vote-to-expand-fbi-spying
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-fbi-emails-idUSKCN0Z7056?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on
Monday to expand the FBI's authority to use a secretive surveillance
order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing
history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal
justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to
respond to last week's mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a
series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on
Monday. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to
exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital
spying powers. The amendment would broaden the FBI's authority to use
so-called National Security Letters to include electronic
communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and
the emails' senders and recipients. NSLs do not require a warrant and
are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service
provider from sharing the request with a targeted user. The amendment
filed Monday would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot
Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on
"lone wolf" suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign
terrorist group. A vote is expected no later than Wednesday,
McConnell's office said. Last week, FBI Director James Comey said he
is "highly confident that [the Orlando shooter] was radicalized at
least in part through the internet."



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