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NACDL frequently writes to members of Congress, the Department of Justice, and the president on fourth amendment issues. These letters have been collected and are available for download by clicking on the titles below.
We write to urge you to ensure that any new cybersecurity information sharing bill considered in the Senate in 2013 at least maintains the privacy protections from Title VII, the information sharing title of S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. We agree that the protections in Title VII of S. 3414 last year should be considered the privacy floor, and not the ceiling for any cybersecurity legislation. To that end, we would strongly oppose any effort to bring to the Senate floor the information sharing provisions of last year’s SECURE IT bill, or otherwise weaken privacy safeguards.
We represent a wide range of privacy and human rights advocates, technology companies, and trade associations that hold an equally wide range of positions on surveillance reform. Many of us have differing views on exactly what reforms must be included in any bill reauthorizing USA PATRIOT Act Section 215, which currently serves as the legal basis for the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata and is set to expire on June 1, 2015. Our broad, diverse, and bipartisan coalition believes that the status quo is untenable and that it is urgent that Congress move forward with reform.
To Director of National Intelligence Coats: The undersigned organizations write to express our dismay at your decision to abandon the effort to estimate the number of Americans whose communications are incidentally collected pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We ask that you reconsider.
To Chair Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers: ... If Director Coats remains steadfast in his efforts to evade oversight by the public and this Committee, we urge you to use all powers at your disposal to obtain this number.
... As you consider the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), we strongly urge reforms to ensure this surveillance tool is not improperly co-opted for purely domestic law enforcement purposes, and oppose any reauthorization that does not include substantial reforms. This is critical given America’s history of selective targeting, persecution, and abuse directed at persons of color, religious minorities, and dissidents when the government has obtained surveillance powers absent adequate checks and oversight.
While full details regarding the bill have not yet been made public, the undersigned groups write to express our concern that the reform as described by the New York Times and The Hill would leave the so-called “backdoor search loophole” wide open. We urge you to ensure that any reform proposal include a full fix requiring all agencies to obtain a warrant based on probable cause to search Section 702 data for information about U.S. citizens and residents in all investigations.
The government uses the backdoor search loophole to conduct warrantless searches for the information of individuals who are not targets of Section 702, including U.S. citizens and residents. Unfortunately, the Section 702 reform bill introduced last week, the USA Liberty Act [H.R. 3989], fails to address many of the concerns raised in our letter. We cannot support the USA Liberty Act at this stage without further changes to strengthen the warrant requirement for searching databases containing Section 702 information.
On behalf of a broad coalition of civil liberties organizations, we write in support of the USA RIGHTS Act [S. 1997], legislation that contains meaningful reforms to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”), which is set to expire at year’s end. These reforms are imperative given our government’s historical abuse of surveillance authorities, contemporary noncompliance with this authority, and the danger posed by potential future abuses.
The undersigned privacy, civil rights, civil liberties, and government oversight organizations write in strong opposition to the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 (S. 2010). This legislation is masquerading as a moderate “reform” bill. In fact, however, it would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for eight years without making any meaningful reforms to better protect privacy. Indeed, in some respects, the bill represents an expansion of the government’s surveillance authorities under Section 702.
The undersigned groups write to express our strong opposition to H.R. 4478, as amended by the manager’s amendment introduced by Representative Nunes, which is scheduled to be considered at 4 p.m. today. We urge you to vote “no” on this bill. Some have suggested this bill is reform—but it is just the opposite. This bill fails to meaningfully address the litany of abuses that have occurred under Section 702, risks codifying current illegal practices, and could be read as expanding surveillance under Section 702. As such, we believe it is markedly worse than the current Section 702 statute.
LAURA E. DUFFY 1 . . -. . . United States Attorney 2 WILLIAM P. COLE . .. ' . . . .... ... .~ . ~--". :.":'-~~ ..... -~---•.-~ ... . :'""'. -- ... . . . .... . 3 CAROLINE P. HAN Assistant United States Attorneys 4 Cal. State Bar No. 186772/250301 5 STEVEN P. WARD Trial Attorney 6 D.C. Bar. No. 395410 7 Federal Office
123456789 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 HOLLY A. SULLIVAN California State Bar No.216376 110 West C Street, Suite 1903 San Diego, California 92101 Telephone: (619) 269-8054 Fax: (619) 794-2263 Email: hollyasullivan@yahoo.com Attorneys for Basaaly Moalin UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN D
UNITED STATES’ OPPOSITION CR-12-0030 EMC 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 MELINDA HAAG (CABN 132612) United States Attorney J. DOUGLAS WILSON (DCBN 412811) Chief, Criminal Division S. WAQAR HASIB (CABN 234818) ALEXANDRA P. SUMMER (CABN 266485) Assistant United States Attorneys