Congress to revisit expanded spy law next week
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Hearing scheduled for next week may be first step in addressing widespread complaints about new federal spying powers signed into law earlier this month.
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WASHINGTON - New immigration barriers and expanded police powers, as well as making more of the public airwaves available for emergency services, are some of the issues trying to find a home in a bill to overhaul U.S. spy agencies...
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The biggest overhaul of the US intelligence network in a half century neared a House vote Tuesday, part of a broad measure that also aimed to intensify aviation and border security in response to the Sept.
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A month after giving the Bush administration new latitude to conduct electronic surveillance on American soil, some in Congress are having second thoughts.
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The Senate reopens debate on a bill that would protect from prosecution anyone who helped with President Bush's warrantless spying on Americans. Immunity would extend to telecom companies and the president himself.  Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) reasserts his threat to block the measure.
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President Bush said Wednesday that a law hastily passed in August to temporarily give the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign terror suspects must be made permanent and expanded
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U.S. lawmakers on Thursday plan to  shine a spotlight on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s  snooping  into the telephone records of some board members and  journalists, a practice that Congress may soon ban.
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The White House told lawmakers it would send Congress a revised proposal late Monday for dealing with terrorism suspects as the number of GOP senators publicly opposing President Bush's initial plan continued to grow.
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President Bush said Wednesday he wants Congress to expand and make permanent a law that temporarily gives the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on suspected foreign terrorists.
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At a hearing next week, a panel plans to ask Homeland Security officials to explain how a move to expand use of powerful surveillance tools will jibe with Americans' privacy rights.
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The US Congress on Wednesday gave final approval to the biggest overhaul of US spy agencies in more than 50 years, sending the bill to President Bush for his signature.
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The House of Representatives approved legislation to revamp America's intelligence network -- a bill nearly derailed by squabbles over Pentagon control over some key espionage resources.
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The House of Representatives passed   a bill on Thursday that would provide congressional   authorization for President George W. Bush's warrantless   domestic spying program but subject it to new rules.
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This week's top-level spying spat hits on a legal gray area that may require new laws to resolve.
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(InfoWorld) - When the U.S. Congress adjourned in the early morning hours Saturday, it left a number of technology-related bills unfinished, including two bills addressingÂ fraudulent access to personal telephone records. Despite pressure from members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, the full House failed to act on the Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act. The law would have allowed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to seek civil penalties against businesses that obtain personal data under false pretenses. The committee has been looking into privacy concerns related to so-called pretexting since early this year, but the issue came to a head last month, whenÂ Hewlett-Packard revealedÂ it had used questionable investigative techniques in the surveillance of board members, employees, and reporters. With pretexting, private investigators or identity thieves pretend to be customers of mobile phone carriers or other companies in order to gain access to personal records such as call logs. Congress still has more time to act on the pretexting legislation or six related bills this year, however. After a month-plus break allowing lawmakers to focus on the Nov. 7 election, Congress will return for a lame-duck session Nov. 9. Democrats last week complained that the House Republican leadership had held up the pretexting legislation, but Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and Energy and Commerce chairman, said he'd continue to push for the legislation. Congress alsoÂ failed to pass a wide-ranging broadband billÂ that would replace local franchise rules with a national system for telecom providers launching Internet Protocol-based television services in competition with cable TV. And although U.S. President George Bush called on Congress to pass legislation authorizing a controversial National Security Agency (NSA)Â surveillance program, two bills making it easier for the government to conduct surveillance without court-ordered warrants also stalled. One piece of Internet-related legislation did pass early Saturday. The Senate passed a bill providing money for seaport security, and added to the bill was a provision prohibiting U.S. banks and credit-card companies from processing payments to online gambling sites. A group of professional poker players had asked Congress to reject the bill, but a group of House Republicans pushed for the legislation, saying offshore gambling sites were breaking U.S. gambling-control laws. Bush had called for legislation to authorize the NSA program, which has listened in on the electronic communications of U.S. residents without court-ordered warrants, as a way to head off multiple lawsuits targeting the program. He has argued the program is necessary to help keep U.S. residents safe from terrorism. The HouseÂ passed one surveillance bill, but the Senate failed to act. The House bill would allow federal law enforcement officials to spy on U.S. residents for up to 90 days without a court order in the period after a terrorist attack. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a civil liberties and privacy advocacy group, said it was happy to see the surveillance and broadband bills stall. Republicans supporting the surveillance bill were pushing it as a way to show they were focused on national security during the last weeks of the congressional campaign, said Nancy Libin, a staff counsel at CDT. "Now that they've gone home, I'm not sure what kind of priority it will be when they come back," she said. Several civil liberties groups had opposed the broadband bill as it lacked protections for so-called net neutrality. Net neutrality advocates want a law that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing service to Web sites offering competing content, and they have successfully halted the Senate version of the broadband bill, despiteÂ heavy lobbying from large broadband providers.
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The government surveillance authorization bill approved this week by a Senate committee Wednesday "would radically undermine the privacy of innocent Americans," according to tech experts scrutinizing the legislation.
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The U.S. Congress is investigating  the military's expanding intelligence role to see if the  Pentagon is meeting its legal obligation to inform lawmakers of  its activities, congressional officials said on Friday.