FBI wants access to Internet browser history without a warrant in terrorism and spy cases
24 replies, posted
[quote]The Obama administration is seeking to amend surveillance law to give the FBI explicit authority to access a person’s Internet browser history and other electronic data without a warrant in terrorism and spy cases.
The administration made a similar effort six years ago but dropped it after concerns were raised by privacy advocates and the tech industry.
FBI Director James B. Comey has characterized the legislation as a fix to “a typo” in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which he says has led some tech firms to refuse to provide data that Congress intended them to provide.
[Read the letter from privacy advocates opposing the FBI’s effort to expand its surveillance powers]
But tech firms and privacy advocates say the bureau is seeking an expansion of surveillance powers that infringes on Americans’ privacy.
Now, at the FBI’s request, some lawmakers are advancing legislation that would allow the bureau to obtain “electronic communication transactional records” using an administrative subpoena known as a national security letter. An NSL can be issued by the special agent in charge of a bureau field office without a judge’s approval.
Such records may include a person’s Internet protocol address and how much time a person spends on a given site. But they don’t include content, such as the text of an e-mail or Google search queries. There’s also a limit to how much visibility the bureau would have into which part of a website a person had visited. For instance, according to the bureau, if the person went to any part of The Washington Post’s website, law enforcement would see only washingtonpost.com — nothing more specific.
Comey said that making this change to the law is the bureau’s top legislative priority this year.
The inability to obtain the data with an NSL “affects our work in a very, very big and practical way,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee in February.
The Senate panel recently voted out an authorization bill with the NSL amendment. The Senate Judiciary Committee this week is considering a similar provision introduced by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) as an amendment to ECPA, a law governing domestic surveillance.
Cornyn said that what he characterized as a “scrivener’s error” in the law is “needlessly hamstringing our counterintelligence and counterterrorism efforts.”
But privacy groups and tech firms are again warning that the expansion of power would erode civil-liberties protections.
The fix the FBI seeks would “dramatically expand the ability of the FBI to get sensitive information about users’ online activities without oversight,” said a coalition of privacy and civil society groups and industry organizations in a letter sent to the Hill Monday.
The new categories of information that could be collected using an NSL “would paint an incredibly intimate picture” of a person’s life, said the letter, signed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Google, Facebook and Yahoo, among others. For example, a person’s browsing history, location information and certain email data could reveal details about a person’s political affiliation, medical conditions, religion and movements throughout the day, they said.
In addition, the NSL would come with a gag order preventing the company from disclosing it had a received a government request, said Neema Singh Guliani, ACLU legislative counsel. The letter noted that over the past 10 years, the FBI has issued more than 300,000 NSLs, most of which had gag orders. “That’s the perfect storm of more information gathered, less transparency and no accountability,” Gulani said.[/quote]
[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-wants-access-to-internet-browser-history-without-a-warrant-in-terrorism-and-spy-cases/2016/06/06/2d257328-2c0d-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html[/url]
[url]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/if-youre-a-suspected-terrorist-or-spy-fbi-wants-to-get-more-of-your-metadata/[/url]
Um... isn't this exactly what warrants are for? So that they can access this kind of stuff, within clearly (ish) defined legal boundaries?
How hard is it to get a warrant if you are the FBI?
[QUOTE=ZachPL;50473181]How hard is it to get a warrant if you are the FBI?[/QUOTE]
You still have to go through a judge.
I fucking hate this terrorism cover that is used so that we have less and less freedoms
This is going nowhere.
[QUOTE=The_J_Hat;50473191]You still have to go through a judge.[/QUOTE]
Of which they almost always get one. I can't think of how having instantaneous access would have prevented any terrorist attacks, the browser history is something they get into after the fact
The government employs judges just for warrants, theyre on call like 24/7 and just have to stamp the application
[QUOTE=Sableye;50473258]Of which they almost always get one. I can't think of how having instantaneous access would have prevented any terrorist attacks, the browser history is something they get into after the fact
The government employs judges just for warrants, theyre on call like 24/7 and just have to stamp the application[/QUOTE]
The browser history could be used to stop further attacks.
[QUOTE=karlosfandango;50473431]The browser history could be used to stop further attacks.[/QUOTE]
Not really, unless they have no idea what they're doing. Laptops are cheap enough to get burners for the purpose of leaving no evidence behind.
This would most likely just end up them going after a regular citizen for watch lists for drugs or something of that sort.
And the NSA can't just get it for them?
[QUOTE=karlosfandango;50473431]The browser history could be used to stop further attacks.[/QUOTE]
Nope, it won't do anything.
Is it just me or the Security people addicted to information?
[QUOTE=DELL;50473448]Not really, unless they have no idea what they're doing. Laptops are cheap enough to get burners for the purpose of leaving no evidence behind.
This would most likely just end up them going after a regular citizen for watch lists for drugs or something of that sort.[/QUOTE]
God forbid terrorists ever figure out the key combination ctrl+shift+n
[QUOTE=r0b0tsquid;50473148]Um... isn't this exactly what warrants are for? So that they can access this kind of stuff, within clearly (ish) defined legal boundaries?[/QUOTE]
Warrants are generally to directly access material and content. Intelligence agencies have been skirting the need for warrants by using only metadata, rather than accessing content directly. This is the digital equivalent of, instead of storming your house (which needs a warrant), sending a team of guys to peer through your windows.
[I]Technically[/I] they're not committing a legal breach of privacy- but their proposal only requires a NSL, without any court oversight, and is leaning on an interpretation of metadata rights that didn't work out for the NSA when challenged in public, which combined make this clear-cut overreach.
[QUOTE=RaptorJGW;50473497]And the NSA can't just get it for them?[/QUOTE]
NSA is forbidden by law from targeting US persons. Anything on American soil is the FBI's job.
[QUOTE=Levelog;50474483]God forbid terrorists ever figure out the key combination ctrl+shift+n[/QUOTE]
Even without history being recorded it still logs through your ISP. If they don't need warrants they just tell the ISP to hand it over. It also gets logged then deleted really fast in incognito mode, which means it is possible to recover as well depending on if that area of the hard disk has been written over or not.
[QUOTE=catbarf;50474592]
NSA is forbidden by law from targeting US persons. Anything on American soil is the FBI's job.[/QUOTE]
Somebody better tell them that.
[QUOTE=Levelog;50474483]God forbid terrorists ever figure out the key combination ctrl+shift+n[/QUOTE]
You should look up how the internet works
[QUOTE=TrulliLulli;50474974]You should look up how the internet works[/QUOTE]
Guess I need to work on my internet sarcasm a bit. Pretty sure I understand how the internet works better than a very strong majority of users here.
Oh yeah, I'm sure that an intelligence agent, foreign operative, or domestic terrorist is going to look up "How do espionage", "US military secrets", and "Improvised explosives" on Google Chrome on a personal device, and that this will definitely help national security. This totally isn't just going to be used as an excuse to further surveil citizens or anything.
The FBI and NSA do two different things in case you were wondering
[QUOTE=karlosfandango;50473431]The browser history could be used to stop further attacks.[/QUOTE]
which they wouldn't need a warrant for [I]after[/I] the fact, because it would be evidence
[editline]8th June 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=catbarf;50474592]
NSA is forbidden by law from targeting US persons. Anything on American soil is the FBI's job.[/QUOTE]
that stopped being a thing the day the patriot act was passed
I have a feeling that knowing what particular flavor of MLP porn some freak is whacking it to isn't going to keep the "terrorisms" away
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;50476459]I have a feeling that knowing what particular flavor of MLP porn some freak is whacking it to isn't going to keep the "terrorisms" away[/QUOTE]
so what you're saying is that this is perfectly fine
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;50476459]I have a feeling that knowing what particular flavor of MLP porn some freak is whacking it to isn't going to keep the "terrorisms" away[/QUOTE][QUOTE=butre;50476465]so what you're saying is that this is perfectly fine[/QUOTE]I [I]believe[/I] ZakkShock was implying that this isn't going to actually help the FBI do anything and isn't actually worth tossing the 4th Amendment out the window.
I know that's my thoughts, I'd rather a "terrorist's" rights not get trampled simply because the FBI thinks they may be bad guys. Plus there's always the issue of who fits that definition, all it takes is for some political organization to be up and declared "a terrorist organization" and then your rights are forfeit. I've heard people call the NRA "a terrorist organization" for whatever inane reason, and these same people are citizens who can vote. One could argue that our representatives in the government would be smarter than your average retarded voter, but then again [I]Michele Bachmann got elected.[/I]
[QUOTE=Ardosos;50474838]Somebody better tell them that.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Sableye;50475812]that stopped being a thing the day the patriot act was passed[/QUOTE]
Contrary to Internet hyperbole/speculation/FUD, according to the documents Snowden leaked the NSA's programs weren't targeted against US citizens and had mechanisms for mitigating the information of Americans caught by dragnets. This is important to the discussion because the fact that the FBI is solely responsible for counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence is probably why they feel justified in demanding new and unreasonable powers to collect information without adequate legal oversight, because there's no other agency that can legally help them out.
Again, American soil is the FBI's turf. It gets hazy when there are non-Americans on US soil communicating with associates in other countries, but in general the two domains are kept separate, which is why the FBI feels they can ask for more power here even though the interpretation of metadata allowance they're relying on has been considered invalid amongst the intelligence community for at least two years.
They're a law enforcement agency that seems to think they're an intelligence agency. Interesting that they feel it might work this time when the same measure was shot down six years ago, long before Snowden or the Apple scandal.
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