Many US businesses may be required to assist in government-directed surveillance - depending upon which of two reform bills before Congress is approved.
Under rules being considered, any telecom service provider or business with custodial access to telecom equipment - a hotel IT technician, an employee at a cafe with Wi-Fi, or a contractor responsible for installing home broadband router - could be compelled to enable electronic surveillance.
This would apply not only to those involved with data transit and data storage.
This week, the US House of Representatives is expected to conduct a floor vote on two bills that reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire in 2024.
Section 702, as The Register noted last week, permits US authorities to intercept the electronic communications of people outside the US for foreign intelligence purposes - without a warrant - even if that communication involves US citizens and permanent residents.
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues, Section 702 has allowed the FBI to conduct invasive, warrantless searches of protesters, political donors, journalists, protesters, and even members of Congress.
More than a few people would therefore be perfectly happy if the law lapsed - on the other hand, law enforcement agencies insist they need Section 702 to safeguard national security.
The prospect that neither would be approved and Section 702 would lapse appears unlikely.
The former reauthorizes Section 702, but with strong civil liberties and privacy provisions.
The civil rights community has lined up to support it.
According to Goitein, the bill's sponsors have denied the language is intended to be interpreted so broadly.
A highly redacted FISA Court of Review opinion [PDF], released a few months ago, showed that the government has already pushed the bounds of the definition.
The court document discussed a petition to compel an unidentified entity to conduct surveillance.
Goitein is not alone in her concern about the ECSP definition.
She noted that a FISA Court amici - the law firm ZwillGen - has taken the unusual step of speaking out against the expanded definition of an ECSP. In an assessment published last week, ZwillGen attorneys Marc Zwillinger and Steve Lane raised concerns about the FRRA covering a broad set of businesses and their employees.
The Brennan Center paper also raised other concerns - like the exemption for members of Congress from such surveillance.
The FRRA bill requires the FBI to get permission from a member of Congress when it wants to conduct a query of their communications.
No such courtesy is afforded to the people these members of Congress represent.
This Cyber News was published on go.theregister.com. Publication date: Tue, 12 Dec 2023 02:13:05 +0000