Congress, Constitutional Law, Media, Politics, Society

Democrats Introduce Privacy Bill Before Election . . . Obama Administration Reportedly Opposes Privacy Protections After Election

Many civil libertarians refused to vote for President Barack Obama given his dismal record in the expansion of the security state, surveillance law, and assertions of unchecked executive power. The Administration went into radio silence on such issues during the campaign in an effort to win back liberals (as they did on medical marijuana) only to announce after the election that they would resume the same policies. The Democratic leadership has shown the same duplicity on civil liberties for years — including hiding knowledge of the Bush torture program and surveillance programs as well as blocking any meaningful investigations into those alleged crimes. Now, some Democrats have reportedly put that hypocrisy on public display again. Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the bill which, as originally written, required warrants for the reading of emails and was heralded by Democrats during the campaign as their showing of fealty to privacy and civil liberties. The Justice Department then took the bill and flipped it to serve as a sweeping denial of privacy rights . . . and some Senators are pushing on passage now that the election is over. The bill includes warrantless access to university email systems.

The re-written bill now authorizes warrantless access to Americans’ e-mail for over 22 federal agencies with only a subpoena and no probable cause. State and local agencies will have access to email system, including university emails. Internet providers will have to give notice if they are thinking of informing customers of access given to such agencies. Such notification can be postponed by up to 360 days. While not speaking for his Democratic colleagues, Leahy says that he does not support some of the exceptions. Leahy was once an ally for civil libertarians but is now viewed with great suspicion given his authorship of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act as well as the Protect IP Act. An article in The New Republic concluded Leahy’s work on the Patriot Act “appears to have made the bill less protective of civil liberties.” He also inserted controversial portions of the Patriot Act. Leahy however insists that he will oppose rollbacks. Yet, the Justice Department has objected to protections in the bill according to reports and some Senators are pushing for the restrictive version of the bill. Leahy’s staff says that he will push a draft closer to the original in committee. [Update: CNET is standing by its story
and says that Leahy only backdown after criticism following its story and that Leahy is abandoning amendments of his own making].

There is no denial of the opposition to the privacy protections by the Administration.

However, the Obama Administration is quoted as objecting that privacy protections would have an “adverse impact” on national security investigations. Democratic members doing the bidding of the Administration will find likely allies in the GOP, including Senator Chuck Grassley who has warned about the dangers of too much privacy.

The control of the security establishment over both White House and Congress appears now completely unchecked and unabashed. After securing reelection, President Obama wasted no time in returning to his prior record of disregarding privacy and civil liberties concerns. Once again, both the media and liberals are muted in any response when the same re-writing of the bill would have produced outcries under the Bush Administration. Of course, Obama can certainly point out that liberals should have had no illusions. On torture, military tribunals, surveillance, undeclared wars, and other issues, Obama made himself painfully clear. His campaign was one of personality over principle and only the personality remains.

[UPDATE: after the CNET story gained national attention, Leahy’s people went into full action in denying that Leahy supports warrantless access to email communications. However, there is still no denial of the quoted Administration officials opposing the privacy protections. Moreover, there is confirmation that a number of versions — including some with these exceptions to the warrant requirement — are being circulated. The bill can be changed in Committee or on the floor. Likewise, if the civil liberties community rallies to oppose warrantless searches, the Administration could seek to kill the bill or gut the provision to leave the status quo.]

Source: CNET

127 thoughts on “Democrats Introduce Privacy Bill Before Election . . . Obama Administration Reportedly Opposes Privacy Protections After Election”

  1. No, @SenatorLeahy is not working on a law to undermine email privacy, reports Forbes.twitter CNET is wrong.

  2. In reference to the aforementioned Bill O’Reilly link/clip, the comic relief comes from the Stewart clips, not from O’Reilly himself, to be clear… though some of O’Reilly’s remarks are laughable.

  5. SWM, “The other guy is worse” is the meme from both sides in our stifling duopoly. The topic is the Obama administration, not the election..that’s over.

  6. If a Republican tried to get this bill passed there would be a huge outcry. Obama will get away with it. I think I said this before the election when I compared Obama to Clinton taking down Pappy Bush so “they” could get NAFTA and GATT. Oh, hum. More of the same.

  7. See all up in arms….. If I asked whose monkey bush was no one would be much upset…..

  8. AP, I am a little too pc for many of the posters here but that “monkey” talk about Obama is way out of line. Hope you are right about Leahy. He is usually a good guy.

  9. Here is where I want Jesse Junior out of the Mayonaise Clinic or Wrigley Field and back in the House to vote against this. This is where we need a liberal bi polar who is half arctic and half grizzly bear.

  12. Reblogged this on herlander-walking and commented:
    We voted for the lesser of two evils….but evil it remains. Unintentional results of the fear-flogging; now our government so fears us it will spy upon us and use the Constitutional guarantees for toilet paper.

  16. I could say if bush was in the whitehouse we knew who’s monkey he was ….. What about Obama….

  17. @CNET has it wrong. Sen.Leahy does NOT support an #ECPA exception to search warrant requirement 4 civil enforcement or agncies like FTC, SEC (see below)

    https://twitter.com/SenatorLeahy

    Sen. Patrick Leahy ‏@SenatorLeahy

    @CNET & rumors re:warrant exceptions 2 #ECPA R NOT accurate.Others want such chnges;SenLeahy does not.His whole point is 2 strengthen privcy
    Expand
    41m Sen. Patrick Leahy Sen. Patrick Leahy ‏@SenatorLeahy

    Technology has created vacuum in privacy protection. Sen.Leahy believes that needs to be fixed, and #ECPA needs privacy updates #tech #cnet
    Expand
    47m Sen. Patrick Leahy Sen. Patrick Leahy ‏@SenatorLeahy

    The whole point of the Leahy reforms is 2 require search warrants 4 govt to access email stored with 3-party service providers under #ECPA
    Expand
    49m Sen. Patrick Leahy Sen. Patrick Leahy ‏@SenatorLeahy

    Ideas from many sources always circulate b4 a markup 4 disc., but Sen.Leahy does NOT support such an exception for #ECPA search warrants
    Expand
    52m Sen. Patrick Leahy Sen. Patrick Leahy ‏@SenatorLeahy

    The whole impetus of Senator Leahy’s efforts to update #ECPA is to remedy the erosion of the public’s privacy rights as #tech has mushroomed
    Expand
    52m Sen. Patrick Leahy Sen. Patrick Leahy ‏@SenatorLeahy

    @CNET has it wrong. Sen.Leahy does NOT support an #ECPA exception to search warrant requirement 4 civil enforcement or agncies like FTC, SEC

  20. Juris; I’ll take this chance to appropriate a theme from Glenn Greenwald’s writings in stating that this kind of thing is proof that while specific media outlets may lean left or right, they ALL share a fundamental bias of being statist/authoritarian and rarely question what the government is doing (unless it reaches a magical combination of being just TOO absurd AND going against their partisan bias at the same time). So no…they won’t get up in arms about this at all; hell they didn’t even really care about SOPA/PIPA when those were out, they were covering the protests not the actual bills when all that happened.

    And yeah…I saw this coming in 2008 when B.O. was first elected; coming from IL and knowing what Chicago pols are (power hungry SOB’s), it was a safe bet that none of Duh-bya’s additions to the imperial presidency would vanish.

    Yeah Mittens would have been just as bad…although a slightly different bad; like 2 venn-diagram circles of almost pure suck overlapping 80%, with 20% of each being their own unique type of bad.

    The net effect nowadays; whoever wins, we lose…especially on civil liberties.

Comments are closed.