Tag Archives: Congress

U.S. House panel advances bill aimed at limiting NSA spying program

U.S. House panel advances bill aimed at limiting NSA spying program

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House panel on Wednesday passed legislation seeking to overhaul some aspects of the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillance program, overcoming criticism from civil liberties advocates that it did not include enough safeguards to protect Americans’ privacy.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 27-8 to approve the bill, which would partially restrict the U.S. government’s ability to review American data collected under the foreign intelligence program by requiring a warrant in some cases.

Lawmakers in both parties were sharply divided over whether the compromise proposal to amend what is known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act would enshrine sufficient privacy protections or possibly grant broader legal protections for the NSA’s surveillance regime.

“The ultimate goal here is to reauthorize a very important program with meaningful and responsible reforms,” Republican Bob Goodlatte, who chairs the committee, said. “If we do not protect this careful compromise, all sides of this debate risk losing.”

Passage of the House bill sets up a potential collision with two separate pieces of legislation advancing in the U.S. Senate, one favored by privacy advocates and one considered more acceptable to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Congress must renew Section 702 in some form before Dec. 31 or the program will expire.

U.S. intelligence officials consider Section 702 among the most vital of tools at their disposal to thwart threats to national security and American allies.

It allows the NSA to collect vast amounts of digital communications from foreign suspects living outside the United States.

But the program, classified details of which were exposed in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, incidentally gathers communications of Americans for a variety of technical reasons, including if they communicate with a foreign target living overseas. Those communications can then be subject to searches without a warrant, including by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The House bill, known as the USA Liberty Act, partially restricts the FBI’s ability to review American data collected under Section 702 by requiring the agency to obtain a warrant when seeking evidence of crime.

It does not mandate a warrant in other cases, such as requests for data related to counterterrorism or counter-espionage.

The committee rejected an amendment offered by Republican Representative Ted Poe and Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren that would have generally required all searches of U.S. data collected through Section 702 to require a warrant. In 2014 and 2015 the full House of Representatives voted with strong bipartisan support to adopt such a measure, though it never became law.

“We have created a measure that has actually taken us backwards in terms of constitutional rights,” Lofgren said.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; editing by James Dalgleish)

Senate panel advances crackdown on online sex trafficking

Senate panel advances crackdown on online sex trafficking

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday advanced legislation to make it easier to penalize operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking, the most concrete action from Congress this year to tighten regulation of internet companies.

The approval came after major U.S. internet firms dropped their opposition to the measure, which amends a decades-old law that is considered a bedrock legal shield for the companies.

In a unanimous voice vote, the Senate Commerce Committee passed a measure that gives states and sex-trafficking victims a means to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that fail to keep exploitative material off their platforms.

The bill rewrites Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which generally protects companies from liability for the activities of their users. The changes, which have bipartisan support, will still need to pass the full Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump to become law.

“This is a momentous day in our fight to hold online sex traffickers accountable and help give trafficking survivors the justice they deserve,” Republican Senator Rob Portman, who co-authored the bill, known as the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, said in a statement.

After decades of little oversight from Washington, the internet industry is facing increased scrutiny from lawmakers in both parties over concerns about their size and how their platforms were used by Russia during the 2016 election.

More than 40 senators have co-sponsored the bill, and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, has endorsed it.

“Great to see the public & private sector come together in support of this bipartisan legislation to stop sex trafficking online,” she tweeted on Wednesday.

Internet firms had long objected to proposals in Congress to rewrite Section 230, arguing the measure had allowed innovation in Silicon Valley to thrive.

But the Internet Association, a major industry group whose members include Facebook <FB.O>, Amazon <AMZN.O> and Alphabet’s Google <GOOGL.O>, announced support for the Senate bill last week after a series of changes.

Those edits clarified that criminal charges are based on violations of federal human trafficking law and that a standard for liability requires a website to “knowingly” assist in facilitating trafficking.

Some opposition remains. In a letter on Tuesday, a dozen civil liberties organizations, including the Center for Democracy & Technology and Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the bill would threaten free speech online and unevenly harm smaller companies with fewer resources to police their platforms.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins)

Russia’s Putin arrives in Iran to discuss Syria, nuclear deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) meets with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in Tehran, Iran November 1, 2017.

By Denis Pinchuk

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin began a visit to Iran on Wednesday designed to underpin closer ties between two countries at loggerheads with the United States as President Donald Trump threatens to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.

Putin and his Iranian hosts are expected to discuss the nuclear deal and regional crises such as the Syrian conflict, in which Moscow and Tehran are the main backers of President Bashar al-Assad, while Washington, Turkey and most Arab states support opposition groups seeking to overthrow him.

“We are very pleased that, apart from our bilateral relations, our two countries play an important role in securing peace and stability in the region,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told Putin in his welcoming remarks.

Russian and Iranian help has proved crucial for Assad, allowing him to win a series of military victories since 2015 and to reestablish his control over most of Syria. Moscow is now trying to build on that success with a new diplomatic push, including a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi next month.

Moscow is also an important ally for Iran in its confrontation with the Trump administration, which on Oct. 13 refused to certify Tehran’s two-year-old nuclear deal with six major powers that include Russia and the United States.

Russia has criticized Trump’s move, which has opened a 60-day window for Congress to act to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran. These were lifted under the 2015 accord in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear program.

“This is a very important visit (by Putin) … It shows the determination of Tehran and Moscow to deepen their strategic alliance…. which will shape the future of the Middle East,” one Iranian official told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

“Both Russia and Iran are under American pressure … Tehran has no other choice but to rely on Moscow to ease the U.S. pressure,” said the official.

Another Iranian official said Trump’s aggressive Iran policy had united Iran’s faction-ridden leadership in alignment with Russia.

During his visit, Putin will also discuss boosting bilateral economic ties, and will take part in a three-way summit between Russia, Iran and neighboring Azerbaijan, state TV said.

 

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Gareth Jones)

 

Democrats want a law to stop Trump from bombing North Korea

Democrats want a law to stop Trump from bombing North Korea

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. senators introduced a bill on Tuesday they said would prevent President Donald Trump from launching a nuclear first strike on North Korea on his own, highlighting the issue days before the Republican’s first presidential trip to Asia.

The measure would stop Trump, or any U.S. president, from launching an attack on North Korea, or spending any money on a military strike, without congressional approval, unless North Korea has first attacked the United States.

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have been building after a series of nuclear and missile tests by North Korea and bellicose verbal exchanges between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The CIA has said North Korea could be only months away from developing the ability to hit the United States with a nuclear weapon, a scenario Trump has vowed to prevent.

“I worry that the president’s enthusiasm will not be checked by the advisers around him,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, the legislation’s lead sponsor, told reporters on a conference call.

Some Republicans have also expressed concern about Trump’s rhetoric, but none co-sponsored the bill, which is backed by seven Democrats and Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent.

Republicans control majorities in both the Senate and House, and there has been no indication that congressional leaders would allow a vote. Similar measures introduced earlier this year have also failed to advance.

However, backers said they might try to pass it later this year by introducing it as an amendment to legislation such as a as a must-pass spending bill.

“I have confidence that if this came to a vote on the floor of the Senate, it would prevail,” Murphy said.

Lawmakers have been trying to take back more control over foreign policy from the White House.

Congress passed a bill in July barring the president from lifting sanctions on Russia without lawmakers’ approval, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday held a hearing on a new authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, to exert some authority over the campaign against Islamic State and other militant groups.

At that hearing, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Trump does not have the authority to use force against North Korea without an imminent threat, but they did not define what such a threat would be.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. pressure delays Israel’s ‘Greater Jerusalem’ bill

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks on a road in the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit in the occupied West Bank

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. pressure delayed an Israeli ministerial vote on Sunday on a proposed bill that Washington fears entails annexation of Jewish settlements near Jerusalem, an Israeli lawmaker said.

The “Greater Jerusalem” legislation would put some settlements in the occupied West Bank, built on land Palestinians seek for a future state and viewed as illegal by most countries, under the jurisdiction of Jerusalem’s municipality.

The bill, proposed by a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, was to have been submitted for approval on Sunday to a ministerial committee on legislation, a first step before a series of ratification votes in parliament.

But Likud lawmaker David Bitan, chairman of Netanyahu’s coalition in parliament, said a vote by the cabinet committee would be delayed because Washington told Israel the bill’s passage could impede U.S. efforts to revive peace talks that collapsed in 2014.

“There is American pressure that claims this is about annexation and that this could interfere with the peace process,” Bitan told Army Radio.

“The prime minister doesn’t think this is about annexation. I don’t think so either. We have to take the time to clarify matters to the Americans. Therefore, if the bill passes in a week, or in a month, it’s less problematic,” he said.

Proponents of the legislation say it falls short of formal land annexation to Israel but will enable some 150,000 settlers to vote in Jerusalem city elections. Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, a supporter of the bill, has said this would “ensure a Jewish majority in a united Jerusalem”.

Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern sector it captured along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a 1967 Middle East war, has not won international recognition. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they seek to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli media reports said the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, had conveyed misgivings about the legislation, under which the large Maale Adumim and Beitar Illit settlements would become part of a Greater Jerusalem municipality.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper quoted Netanyahu as telling cabinet ministers on Sunday: “The Americans turned to us and inquired what the bill was all about. As we have been coordinating with them until now, it is worth continuing to talk and coordinate with them.”

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman declined immediate comment.

Some 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians. Israel disputes that its settlements are illegal, citing historical, Biblical and political links to the territory, as well as security considerations.

 

 

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

 

First charges filed in U.S. special counsel’s Russia investigation: source

First charges filed in U.S. special counsel's Russia investigation: source

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal grand jury on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The indictment was sealed under orders from a federal judge so it was not clear what the charges were or who the target was, the source said, adding that it could be unsealed as early as Monday.

The filing of charges by the grand jury in Washington was first reported on Friday by CNN, which said the target could be taken into custody as soon as Monday.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the election to try to help President Donald Trump defeat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton through a campaign of hacking and releasing embarrassing emails, and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her campaign.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded with those Russian efforts.

“If the Special Counsel finds it necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a May 17 letter appointing Mueller.

Sources familiar with Mueller’s investigation said he has used that broad authority to investigate links between Trump aides and foreign governments as well as possible money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment on Friday.

Trump, a Republican who was elected president last November, has denied allegations that his campaign colluded with Russians and condemned investigations into the matter as “a witch hunt”.

The Kremlin has denied the allegations.

Mueller’s investigation also includes an effort to determine whether Trump or any of his aides tried to obstruct justice.

The special counsel’s team has conducted interviews with former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former spokesman Sean Spicer and other current and former White House officials.

In July, FBI agents raided the home in Virginia of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, whose financial and real estate dealings and prior work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine are being investigated by Mueller’s team.

Mueller was appointed to lead the investigation a week after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who was heading a federal probe into possible collusion with Russia.

Trump initially said he fired Comey because his leadership of the FBI was inadequate and hurt morale, but in a later interview with NBC he cited “this Russia thing” as his reason.

SHADOW

The Russia investigation has cast a shadow over Trump’s nine-month-old presidency and widened the partisan rift between Republicans and Democrats.

Republican lawmakers earlier this week launched investigations to examine several of Trump’s longstanding political grievances, including the FBI probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails and her alleged role in a sale of U.S. uranium to a Russian firm.

Mueller’s team has also investigated Michael Flynn, who was an adviser to Trump’s campaign and later briefly served as his national security adviser.

Flynn was fired from that post in February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak last year.

While he was on Trump’s campaign team, Flynn also had a $600,000 contract from a Turkish businessman to help discredit U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Turkey’s government of instigating a failed coup in July 2016.

Former CIA director James Woolsey, who was also an adviser to the Trump campaign, has alleged that Flynn discussed with the businessman and two Turkish government ministers the idea of covertly spiriting Gulen out of the United States to face charges in Turkey.

Jonathan Franks, a spokesman for Woolsey, said on Friday that Woolsey and his wife have been in communication with the FBI and Mueller’s team about the claim.

Woolsey and his wife, Nancye Miller, “have responded to every request, whether from the FBI, or, more recently, the Office of the Special Counsel,” Franks said in a statement.

Flynn has previously denied through a spokesperson that such a plan was ever discussed.

Reuters reported on Thursday that Woolsey and his wife last year pitched a $10 million project to the same Turkish businessman who had agreed a smaller contract with Flynn. They did not win a contract.

Bidding for a lobbying or consulting contract with a foreign company or government is not illegal but Flynn came under scrutiny because he waited until March to retroactively register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for the work he did on the Gulen project.

(Additional reporting by Nathan Layne, Mohammad Zargham and Eric Beech; Editing by Kieran Murray and Nick Macfie)

Fatal Niger operation sparks calls for public hearings in Congress

Fatal Niger operation sparks calls for public hearings in Congress

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. lawmakers called on Thursday for public hearings on an attack in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers, saying there were still many unanswered questions about the ambush despite receiving more information from the Pentagon.

Two top Department of Defense officials, Robert Karem, assistant secretary for international security affairs, and Major General Albert Elton, deputy director for special operations and counterterrorism, conducted a closed briefing on the ambush for members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator John McCain, the Republican chairman of the committee, said he was pleased with the briefing. McCain last week threatened to issue a subpoena because the White House had not been forthcoming about details about the attack.

“I am pleased at the cooperation we’re getting now,” McCain told reporters.

McCain said there were still many unanswered questions, most notably why it took 48 hours before the body of Sargent La David Johnson was recovered. “What was the strategy; why were we surprised? There’s 100 questions that need to be answered,” McCain said.

The issue has also generated a political firestorm. President Donald Trump was harshly criticized for his handling of a call with Myeshia Johnson, Johnson’s widow, who said the Republican president “made me cry even worse” by saying her husband had known “what he signed up for.”

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic committee member, said he wanted public hearings on the matter to explain to the U.S. public why the country has 6,000 troops posted in Africa and provide more information about the ambush.

“I need to be able to look families in the eye and explain what our mission is, what mistakes were made in this incident, and were mistakes made, who made them and why,” Blumenthal told reporters after the briefing.Nig

“Most important, there need to be public hearings,” he said.

McCain said he would decide whether to hold public hearings depending on what happened with the military’s investigation, citing security concerns about making anything public too soon.

“We can’t betray sensitive information that would put the lives of these men and women in danger,” McCain said.

On Monday, General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, held an hour-long news conference during which he sought to tamp down criticism that the Pentagon had released too little information about the deaths of the soldiers. [L2N1MY1MD]

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

House panels seek documents on Puerto Rico utility deal

House panels seek documents on Puerto Rico utility deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. congressional committee on Thursday set a Nov. 2 deadline for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to provide information related to its $300 million contract with a small Montana firm to repair damage to the utility’s infrastructure caused by Hurricane Maria.

“Specifically, the size and terms of the contract, as well as the circumstances surrounding the contract’s formation, raise questions regarding PREPA’s standard contract awarding procedures,” the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rob Bishop, said in a letter to PREPA’s executive director, Ricardo Ramos.

Media reports that Whitefish Energy Holdings entered the contract with PREPA to fix the utility’s power grid raised questions among Democrats in Congress and others when it was disclosed that the Montana firm won the contract without a competitive bidding process.

The two-year-old company had only two full-time employees and was rapidly hiring workers to tackle the job of patching up the destroyed power grid that has left most of the U.S. territory without electricity for weeks following the destructive hurricane.

While Bishop’s letter said emergency circumstances could “necessitate” emergency relief contracts, “Transparency and accountability in government contracting, however, is not to be compromised.”

Separately, U.S. Representatives including Greg Walden, a Republican, and Frank Pallone, a Democrat, asked Whitefish in a letter to provide documents related to the contract to the Energy and Commerce committee before Nov. 9.

Whitefish founding partner Ken Luce said his company appreciated the efforts to gather information so lawmakers have “confidence in the overall process to support the people of Puerto Rico” and Whitefish’s capabilities.

And two Democratic U.S. senators urged the head of a congressional watchdog office to probe the PREPA contract, saying they were concerned about the bidding process and potential high costs.

Senators Maria Cantwell and Ron Wyden wrote a letter to Eugene Dodaro, the U.S. comptroller general at the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

The senators said they were also concerned about reports of “contemporaneous communications between Whitefish and senior members of the federal executive branch, including Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke,” as the contract was being discussed.

A Washington Post report this week said the chief executive of Whitefish, Andy Techmanski, and Zinke acknowledged that they know each other and that one of the secretary’s sons worked at one of Techmanski’s construction sites. Both Zinke’s office and Techmanski said the secretary had no role in Whitefish securing the contract.

The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the senators’ letter.

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello has defended the contract saying it was necessary to put workers in place quickly. Whitefish, which has hired workers mostly through subcontracts, has called criticism “unfounded.”

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Timothy Gardner and Nick Brown in New York; Editing by Richard Chang and Tom Brown)

House narrowly passes measure paving way for Trump tax cuts

House narrowly passes measure paving way for Trump tax cuts

By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives helped pave the way on Thursday for deep tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump and Republican leaders, but barely overcame a revolt within party ranks that could foreshadow trouble ahead for the tax overhaul.

The Republican-controlled House voted 216-212 to pass a budget blueprint for the 2018 fiscal year. The measure will enable the tax legislation, due to be introduced next week, to win congressional approval without any Democratic votes.

But House Republican leaders came within two votes of failure. Democrats were unified in their opposition, and 20 Republicans voted against the bill, many to express disapproval of a provision in Trump’s tax outline that would repeal an income tax deduction for state and local taxes.

Discord is also looming over a potential provision to scale back a popular tax-deferred U.S. retirement savings program. Both those provisions are aimed at offsetting revenue losses that would result from the planned sweeping tax cuts, particularly for companies.

Democrats have called the tax plan a giveaway to the rich and corporations that would swell the federal deficit.

Republicans are traditionally opposed to letting the deficit grow. But in a stark reversal of that stance, the party’s budget resolution, previously passed by the Senate, called for adding up to $1.5 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade to pay for the tax cuts.

The outline of the Republican plan announced last month would cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, the small business rate to 25 percent from up to 39.6 percent and the top individual rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent.

Trump, who promised major tax cuts as a candidate last year, has asked Congress to pass the tax legislation by the end of the year. Even though his fellow Republicans control both the House and Senate, the president has been unable to secure passage of major legislation, having failed to secure a promised repeal of the Obamacare law.

Republicans are also looking for a signature achievement to tout as the 2018 congressional election year approaches.

“Big News – Budget just passed!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has said he wants the House to pass the tax overhaul by the Nov. 23 Thanksgiving holiday, said passage of the budget resolution was an “enormous step” toward that goal.

But he declined to take a position on the possibility of capping annual contributions into 401(k) plans, which for four decades have helped millions of Americans save for retirement by offering tax savings.

Trump and Kevin Brady, the Republican chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means committee, reopened the door to the possibility of such caps on Wednesday as Republicans scramble to find sources of revenue to cover the tax cuts.

Brady said he planned to introduce the tax bill next Wednesday and to begin committee deliberations on it the following week, on Nov. 6.

REVOLT FROM HIGH-TAX STATES

A meeting after the budget vote between Brady and Republicans opposing the elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes ended without a compromise, though Brady said he would work to find a solution.

“They made it clear. They need this problem solved before they vote ‘yes’ on tax reform,” Brady added.

Eliminating the deduction would hit middle-class voters in high-tax states like California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Republican Representative John Katko of New York, leaving the meeting with Brady, said supporters of the deduction “stood firm, saying no as a group today to let them know we’re not kidding, and we also are going to let the Senate know if they try and take it (the deduction) out, they’re going to have a problem.”

The budget plan passed on Thursday will enable the 100-seat Senate to pass tax legislation with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote super-majority that would be tough to reach given solid Democratic opposition. While Republicans hold a comfortable majority in the House they have just a 52-48 margin in the Senate.

The White House and congressional Republicans excluded Democrats as they developed the plan, and it appeared unlikely a significant number of Democrats would get behind the proposal.

“Right here before our eyes, in this House, the Republicans are replacing the great American ladders of opportunity with the silver spoon of plutocracy and aristocracy. Their agenda raises taxes on the middle class. That is the fact,” top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi said during the debate on the budget measure.

Independent analysts forecast last month that corporations and the wealthiest Americans would benefit the most and many upper middle-income people would face higher taxes under the tax outline unveiled by the Republicans.

The proposal would cut taxes for companies and individuals by up to $6 trillion over the next decade, the analysts said.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Susan Cornwell; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Amanda Becker; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Senators push bill requiring warrant for U.S. data under spy law

Senators push bill requiring warrant for U.S. data under spy law

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of at least 10 U.S. senators plans to introduce on Tuesday legislation that would substantially reform aspects of the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillance program, according to congressional aides.

The effort, led by Democrat Ron Wyden and Republican Rand Paul, would require a warrant for queries of data belonging to any American collected under the program. The bill’s introduction is likely to add uncertainty to how Congress will renew a controversial portion of a spying law due to expire on Dec. 31.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is considered by U.S. intelligence officials to be among their most vital tools used to combat national and cyber security threats and help protect American allies.

It allows U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on and store vast amounts of digital communications from foreign suspects living outside the United States.

The surveillance program, classified details of which were exposed in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, also incidentally scoops up communications of Americans, including if they communicate with a foreign target living overseas.

Those communications can then be subject to searches without a warrant, including by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a practice that the USA Rights Act authored by Wyden and Paul would end.

The measure is expected to be introduced with support from a wide berth of civil society groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and FreedomWorks, a Wyden spokesman said.

It would renew Section 702 for four years with additional transparency and oversight provisions, such as allowing individuals to more easily raise legal challenges against the law and expand the oversight jurisdiction of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a government privacy watchdog.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives earlier this month introduced legislation seeking to add privacy protections to Section 702, including a partial restriction to the FBI’s ability to access U.S. data when seeking evidence of a crime.

But that was criticized by privacy groups as too narrow.

Separately, the Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to privately vote on Tuesday on a bill to reauthorize Section 702 that privacy advocates say will lack their reform priorities.

Wyden sent a letter on Monday urging committee leaders to allow a public vote, saying the bill “will have enormous impact on the security, liberty, and constitutional rights of the American people” and should be debated in the open.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Leslie Adler)