Details on Feingold's four amendments: http://www.wartimeliberty.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/11/1430203 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47490,00.html A Senator's Lonely Privacy Fight By Declan McCullagh (declanat_private) 6:08 a.m. Oct. 11, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- Russ Feingold is fighting a lonely battle for privacy in the U.S. Senate. The 48-year-old Wisconsin Democrat is singlehandedly trying to add pro-privacy changes to an eavesdropping bill that would hand police unprecedented surveillance powers. His stand has been causing friction with his own party: This week Feingold refused to bow to a request from Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) for an immediate vote on the complex, 243-page bill. Daschle had asked senators to agree unanimously that it was time to move onto the anti-terrorism measure that was drafted in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead, insisted the former Rhodes Scholar-turned-politico, senators should have a chance to carefully consider the USA Act (PDF) before voting on it. Said Feingold: "I can't quite understand why we can't have just a few hours of debate." When the USA Act, which has broad support from his colleagues and the White House, goes to the Senate floor as early as midday Thursday, Feingold plans to offer four amendments to it. According to a draft, the amendments would: * Still allow police to perform "roving wiretaps" and listen in on any telephone that a subject of an investigation might use. But they would only be permitted to eavesdrop when that person is the one using the phone. * Preserve the privacy of sensitive records -- such as medical or educational data -- by requiring police to convince a judge that viewing them is necessary. Without that amendment, the USA Act would expand police's ability to access any type of stored or "tangible" information. * Bar police from obtaining a court order, sneaking into a suspect's home and not notifiying that person they had been there. The "secret search" section currently is part of the USA Act -- and is something the Justice Department has wanted at least since 1999, when it unsuccessfully asked Congress for that power. * Clarify that universities, libraries and employers may only snoop on people who use their computers in narrow circumstances. Right now, the USA Act says that system administrators may monitor anyone they deem a "computer trespasser." [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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