http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-22/us-senate-likely-to-pass-fbi-spying-bill-after-orlando-shooting/7534988
US Senate likely to pass FBI spying bill after Orlando shooting
23/06/2016
The US Senate on is likely to pass a Republican-backed proposal to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation's secretive surveillance powers after the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub.
Key points:
- Laws would broaden the phone and internet records available to the FBI without a warrant
- The bill has been criticised by privacy and civil liberty advocates
- The bill would allow for the permanent surveillance of "lone wolf" suspects
The spying bill is the Republican response to the massacre after a push for gun-control measures sponsored by both major US parties failed earlier this week.
The legislation would broaden the type of telephone and internet records the FBI could request from telecommunications companies without a warrant.
The proposal met opposition from critics who said it threatened civil liberties and did little to improve national security.
The bill, which the Obama administration has sought for years, "will allow the FBI to collect the dots so they can connect the dots, and that's been the biggest problem that they've had in identifying these homegrown, radicalised terrorists," Republican Senator John Cornyn said.
The vote also represents a bi-partisan drift away from policy positions that favouring digital privacy, which had taken hold in the three years since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the breadth of government surveillance programs.
The post-Snowden moves included the most substantial reforms to the US intelligence community since the terror attacks of September 11 2001, and a refusal to heed the FBI's call for laws that would undermine encryption.
Critics say proposed laws 'exploit' the Orlando shooting
The legislation before the Senate, filed as an amendment to a criminal justice funding bill, would widen the FBI's authority to use so-called National Security Letters, which do not require a warrant and whose very existence is usually a secret.
Such letters can currently compel a company to hand over a user's phone billing records, but under the Senate's change they could also demand time stamps of emails, the emails' senders and recipients, in addition to some information about the websites a person visits.
How the shooting unfolded
We've put together a timeline of how a gunman killed 50 people and injured 53 others at a crowded nightclub in Orlando.
The legislation would also permanently allow the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on "lone wolf" suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group.
It is unclear if the House would pass the Senate proposal, given its alliance between libertarian-leaning Republicans and tech-friendly Democrats that has blocked past efforts to expand surveillance.
Privacy groups and civil liberties advocates accused Republicans this week of exploiting the Orlando shooting to build support for unrelated legislation.
Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticised Senate Republicans for "pushing fake, knee-jerk solutions that will do nothing to prevent mass shootings or terrorist attacks".
Though Republicans invoked the Orlando shooting in support of the bill, FBI Director James Comey has said shooter Omar Mateen's transactional records were fully reviewed by authorities who investigated him twice for possible extremist ties.
Mr Comey said there was "no indication" Mateen belonged to any extremist group and that it was unlikely authorities could have done anything differently to prevent the attack.
Reuters
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-22/us-senate-likely-to-pass-fbi-spying-bill-after-orlando-shooting/7534988
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