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data privacy
Groups Applaud as US House Panel Advances Bill to Curb Warrantless Collection of Americans' Data
"The data marketplace where advertisers go to sell ads for a local store should not be the same place the government goes to evade warrant requirements," the Electronic Frontier Foundation asserted.
Jul 19, 2023
Digital rights defenders on Wednesday hailed a U.S. congressional committee's approval of legislation that would protect Americans' data from being purchased by intelligence or law enforcement agencies without a warrant.
Reps. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Ken Buck (R-Colo.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) on Tuesday reintroduced the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act (FANFSA) in a bid to close a loophole in federal law exploited by spy agencies and police to collect U.S. citizens' phone and other data without obtaining warrants.
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee quickly moved to advance FANFSA.
"Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee just made clear that the data broker loophole must and will be closed."
"The Fourth Amendment protects the right to privacy, and it is not for sale," Davidson said in a statement. "Our bipartisan legislation creates needed reform by prohibiting the government from purchasing Americans' data without judicial oversight. Unconstitutional mass government surveillance must end."
Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that "the Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable search or seizure and it is critical that we not let the government sidestep that right by purchasing data."
"Sensitive data that can cover anything from Americans' location data, internet activity, or healthcare data must be protected," she added. "This is a civil rights issue and it's time to ban this practice."
Groups including Demand Progress, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and Free Press Action welcomed the committee's FANFSA vote.
"Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee just made clear that the data broker loophole must and will be closed," Demand Progress senior policy council Sean Vitka said in a statement. "This is a major step forward for privacy in the digital age."
EPIC deputy director Caitriona Fitzgerald called FANFSA "the latest sign of bipartisan support in Congress to tackle the government's warrantless purchase of Americans' personal data, such as location information and internet records, in circumvention of the Fourth Amendment and statutory protections."
Wednesday's vote precedes the highly anticipated debate later this year over potential reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a sweeping warrantless mandate that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times, including to spy on protestors, congressional donors, journalists, and others. Section 702 is set to expire at the end of the year unless reauthorized by Congress.
From COINTELPRO—a Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance, infiltration, and disruption program targeting U.S. leftists in which the FBI funded and armedmurderous far-right militants to terrorize dissidents—to the War on Terror-era National Security Agency global mass spying exposed by exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden and monitoring of Black Lives Matter and other activists, the U.S. government has a long history of illegal surveillance of its own citizens.
"News outlets have been filled with headlines in the last year of government agencies, from immigration enforcement to the U.S. military, acquiring location data collected about you by smartphone applications," EFF said in a pro-FANFSA petition. "The data marketplace where advertisers go to sell ads for a local store should not be the same place the government goes to evade warrant requirements."
The House Judiciary Committee's FANFSA vote follows the full lower chamber's unanimous approval last week of the Davidson-Jacobs amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that would close a loophole used by the Pentagon and NSA to purchase data that would otherwise require a warrant, court order, or subpoena.
U.S. intelligence agencies have long been accused of paying their way around the Constitution to obtain protected location information in bulk, including data from Muslim dating and prayer apps.
"The government should not be able to buy its way out of the Fourth Amendment. Requiring a warrant for any data not only protects our right to privacy, but our freedoms of association, religion, and belief," Free Press Action vice president of policy and general counsel Matt Wood said in a statement.
"This is a protection that must also extend to personal information scavenged by data brokers," he added. "The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act closes a legal loophole and ensures that law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution."
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In Victory for Online Privacy, Facebook Fined $1.3 Billion for Sending EU User Data to US
"Unless U.S. surveillance laws get fixed," said one privacy campaigner, "Meta will have to fundamentally restructure its systems."
May 22, 2023
Facebook and its parent company, Meta, will soon be forced to "fundamentally" change its social media platform's structure, said one advocate following a ruling announced Monday by a data privacy panel in Ireland.
The Data Protection Commission in Ireland, where Facebook has its European Union headquarters, announced that the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) found the tech company liable for a $1.3 billion fine for transferring and storing data from E.U. users to the United States. The company was given six months to return all personal data to data centers in the E.U. and to stop transferring the information, including photos, communications, and information gathered for targeted ads.
The ruling comes three years after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) determined that data sent from the E.U. was not sufficiently protected from government spying in the U.S. The EDPB on Monday said Facebook has refused to comply with that ruling and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a set of privacy laws passed five years ago.
By transferring and storing the data of millions of E.U. users, Facebook committed "systematic, repetitive, and continuous" infringements of European users' rights, the EDPB found.
"Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is massive," said Andrea Jelinek, chair of the EDPB. "The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organizations that serious infringements have far-reaching consequences."
A number of tech observers said the monetary fine is relatively inconsequential to the $562 billion company, but pointed to the order that Facebook delete "a decade of data" that it's relied on for targeted advertising.
\u201cBAM. There it is, PAGE 253 of the order. Facebook has to delete all of its illegally collected EU data from storage. They\u2019re also being fined $1.3 BILLION but as I\u2019ve said that\u2019s the insignificant hit to its surveillance capitalism business model.\u201d— Jason Kint (@Jason Kint) 1684752624
The "imposition of a major fine reflects the company's continuous failure to secure the data of its users and comply with regulators," said the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a coalition of academics, journalists, and civil rights campaigners. "Meta is one of a few large companies that rely on contractual clauses to allow unfettered access to users' data. Fines may not force Meta to change its behavior, but they are a critical reminder that the company has been found, yet again, to have broken the law."
Susan Li, chief financial officer of Meta, told investors last month that the company makes 10% of its worldwide ad revenue from ads in European countries, suggesting it relies heavily on the practices the EDPB has ruled it must end.
Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist who won the case that went to the ECJ in 2020 regarding E.U.-U.S. data sharing, noted that "the fine could have been much higher, given that the maximum fine is more than $4 billion and Meta has knowingly broken the law to make a profit for ten years."
However, "unless U.S. surveillance laws get fixed," said Schrems, "Meta will have to fundamentally restructure its systems."
The U.S. and E.U. are currently working out a data sharing agreement to replace the "Privacy Shield" pact that was struck down in 2020.
To enable Facebook and other companies to continue moving information from the E.U. to the U.S., said Schrems, "the simplest fix would be reasonable limitations in U.S. surveillance law" to assure European officials that users will not be put at risk by American spy agencies.
"There is an understanding on both sides of the Atlantic that we need probable cause and judicial approval of surveillance," said Schrems. "It would be time to grant these basic protections to E.U. customers of U.S. cloud providers. Any other big U.S. cloud provider, such as Amazon, Google or Microsoft could be hit with a similar decision under E.U. law."
Congress is set to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) this year, and the law is a frequent target of privacy advocates who object to the mass collection of geolocation data and other rights abuses.
Without far-reaching changes to surveillance in the U.S., said Schrems, "the long-term solution seems to be some form of 'federated social network' where most personal data would stay in the E.U., while only 'necessary' transfers would continue—for example when a European sends a direct message to a U.S. friend."
Facebook said Monday that it plans to appeal the decision, but Schrems said the company can likely only "delay the payment of the fine for a bit."
"There is no real chance," he said, "to have this decision materially overturned."
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ACLU, Allies Warn Internet Bills 'Would Undermine Free Speech, Privacy, and Security'
While these bills' supporters aim to hold tech giants accountable for not protecting vulnerable communities, one expert warned, "increasing censorship and weakening encryption would not only be ineffective at solving these concerns, it would in fact exacerbate them."
May 04, 2023
As the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee considered a series of bills on Thursday, the ACLU and other digital rights advocates warned against federal legislation that would promote censorship, disincentivize protecting users with strong encryption, and expand law enforcement access to personal data.
A trio of ACLU policy experts sent a letter to the committee about three bills: the Cooper Davis Act, the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act, and the Strengthening Transparency and Obligation to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment (STOP CSAM) Act.
"These bills purport to hold powerful companies accountable for their failure to protect children and other vulnerable communities from dangers on their services when, in reality, increasing censorship and weakening encryption would not only be ineffective at solving these concerns, it would in fact exacerbate them," said one of the experts, ACLU senior policy counsel Cody Venzke.
\u201cThe EARN IT Act claims to make the Internet safer for children, but instead invites constant government surveillance.\n\nThis is a big threat to our privacy and our right to free speech online \u2014 we can't let it pass.https://t.co/vETVy5jZGC\u201d— ACLU (@ACLU) 1683223921
Named for a Kansas teenager who died after taking a pill laced with fentanyl, the Cooper Davis Act (S. 1080) would require social media companies and other communication service providers to give federal agencies information about illicit activity related to the synthetic opioid on their platforms.
The EARN IT Act (S. 1207)—which targets Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—would remove tech companies' blanket liability protection for civil or criminal law violations related to online child sexual abuse material and establish a national commission to craft voluntary "best practices" for providers.
Sponsored by committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the STOP CSAM Act (S. 1199) would, among other provisions, enable survivors of online child sexual exploitation to bring a civil cause of action against tech companies that promoted or facilitated the abuse.
The ACLU warns that the proposals "would undermine free speech, privacy, and security." As the letter explains:
First, they incentivize platforms to monitor and censor their users' speech and interfere with content moderation decisions. Second, they disincentivize platforms from providing end-to-end encrypted communications services, exposing the public to abusive commercial and government surveillance practices and as a result, dissuading people from communicating with each other electronically about everything from healthcare decisions to business transactions. And third, they expand warrantless government access to private data. As longtime champions of privacy, free speech, and an open internet, we strongly urge you to vote against reporting these bills out of committee.
Despite the ACLU's argument that "there are other avenues to protect children, privacy, and safety online that do not lead to increased surveillance, censorship, and policing," the committee on Thursday unanimously advanced the EARN IT Act, spearheaded by Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, the Center for Democracy & Technology led 132 other groups—including the ACLU—in a letter to the panel which says: "We support curbing the scourge of child exploitation online. However, EARN IT will instead make it harder for law enforcement to protect children. It will also result in online censorship that will disproportionately impact marginalized communities."
Fight for the Future, another signatory to that letter, tweeted Thursday that "the dangerous, anti-encryption #EARNITAct passed out of committee this morning. We know this bill—it's back from the dead to restrict the internet and make everyone less safe online."
The group also thanked Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) for entering the coalition's letter about the EARN IT Act into the record.
Representatives from the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Equality Arizona, Fight for the Future, Reframe Health and Justice, and Woodhull Freedom Foundation came together with grassroots organizer Melissa Kadri and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Wednesday for a press conference on some of the internet bills being considered by Congress.
Along with criticizing the EARN IT and STOP CSAM proposals, the event's speakers sounded the alarm about the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act.
\u201cThe Kids Online Safety Act would require surveillance of anyone 16 and under on social media, and would put the tools of censorship in the hands of state attorneys general. If it passes, adults too will likely face hurdles to accessing legal content online.https://t.co/J5hSGVIcqB\u201d— EFF (@EFF) 1683211560
Specifically naming Bolivia, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia as "foreign adversaries," the RESTRICT Act (S. 686) would empower the U.S. Department of Commerce to "review, prevent, and mitigate information communications and technology transactions that pose undue risk to our national security."
KOSA, which was officially reintroduced on Tuesday, would increase parental controls, force social media platforms to prevent and mitigate certain harms to minors, and require independent audits.
"I'm a parent of a 12-year-old, and I care deeply about my 12-year-old's future. And for me, I want to ask not just what policies will make the internet more sanitized or safer for my child, but what policies governing the internet will lead to the type of world that I want my child to grow up in," said Fight for the Future director Evan Greer.
"That's a world where she has access to human rights, where she has access to accurate life-saving information about issues like mental health and substance abuse, and where she has access to online community," she continued. "And that is true for so many children, particularly LGBTQ kids who are facing unprecedented assaults across the country."
Citing Fred Rogers' philosophy that what can be mentioned can be managed, Greer added that "a lot of these bills are based on the idea that we protect our kids by sequestering them off from discussion of these important topics; unfortunately, we actually know from evidence and data that that harms our kids, and that our kids are safer when they are able to discuss... with their peers and with experts these issues that affect them. These bills would, unfortunately, cut kids off from those resources, and that's why we believe that they will make kids less safe, and not more safe."
\u201c"When bad things don\u2019t happen, there is no news. This is the paradox of encryption. Because it\u2019s impossible to count \u201cprevented harms,\u201d we can\u2019t put a number on the vast number of children encryption has protected. But we know that it does."\u201d— Dr. Joseph Lorenzo Hall (@Dr. Joseph Lorenzo Hall) 1683159447
Wyden agreed that "these bills are going to make kids less safe." Specifically, he expressed concern about EARN IT and STOP CSAM bills attacking "the single strongest technology protecting kids and families online," warning that "weakening encryption is probably the premier gift you could give to predators and god-awful people who want to stalk and spy on kids."
"I want to make one quick point about the Kids Online Safety Act: Giving extremist governors the power to decide what content is safe for kids is a nonstarter," he said, calling out the GOP leaders of Florida and Texas. "Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott are using every bit of power they have to go after queer and trans kids, censor information about reproductive health, and scrub basic history about race in America. I'm not about to give them even more power... I urge my colleagues to focus on elements that are actually going to protect kids rather than just handing big quantities of more power to MAGA Republicans to wage a culture war against children."
"I think the most important thing Congress can do to improve the internet for kids and everybody else is to pass comprehensive privacy legislation," Wyden asserted. "This fight... has been the longest-running battle since the Trojan War, and it's time to take on the special interests and get a strong bill passed."
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