Thomas Massie (R-KY) has drafted a bill with the help of Naomi Brockwell (Ludlow Institute)—and introduced it co-sponsored with Lauren Boebert (R-CO)—which addresses the “third-party loophole” where the US government is able to obtain huge amounts of personal information from data brokers and other data collectors without a warrant or any oversight.
The Surveillance Accountability Act would:
Require a warrant for targeted investigations
Require a warrant for all surveillance
Prohibits warrantless use of facial recognition and license plate readers in public spaces
Eliminate buying data from data brokers by agencies where a warrant would typically be needed to obtain that data directly
Allow people to sue the government when their rights here have been violated
When do we decide now is time to lock the fuck in? Every open source project, every internet community we can muster, every company that cares about privacy—support this bill. Will public support even do anything? It can’t hurt—but projects like this can’t happen too often or people will grow desensitized.
I don’t see something like this passing hapharzardly, even now, when certain republicans are on board. Dems were united against Fisa 702 clean extension in the house a weak ago, will they support this bill now that ICE and their enemies—the current admin—are abusing these powers?
Neither party is champions of civil liberties. It would be quite an impressive manuever to get this into law with the party seniors being champions of mass surveillence. Now seems like a good time with the privacy republicans like massie and the dems being more willing to give up surveillence to stop ICE.
Good on Massie mcgovern wyden for championing privacy,