Julian Sanchez writes: First, the good news: Last night, civil libertarians had a rare excuse to pop champagne when an effort to fast-track a one-year reauthorization of three controversial Patriot Act provisions–set to expire at the end of the month–failed in the House of Representatives. As Slate‘s Dave Weigel notes, the vote had been seen as such…
Category: Laws
Senate to take up PATRIOT Act extension bills
There are three bills concerning the sunsetting PATRIOT Act provisions currently on the Senate’s calendar: FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011 . Introduced by Feinstein. A bill to extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, and the FISA Amendments Act…
Sens. Schumer, Nelson propose bill to protect airport body scan images
Two months ago, CBS reported that Senator Schumer had announced his intention to introduce a bill that would criminalize recording of or distribution of airport security body scan images. Yesterday he introduced it. Jaikumar Vijayan reports: U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) today proposed legislation that would make the misuse of…
Proposed bill would clarify that privacy exemption in FOIA does not apply to corporations
One of the cases currently before the Supreme Court addresses whether corporations have privacy interests that exempt some information from Freedom of Information demands in the same way that information about individuals may be exempt. The court has already heard oral arguments in ATT v. FCC but has not issued its ruling yet. Iin the…