Leahy Sets Cyber Privacy Agenda

Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious agenda for changing the country's privacy laws to keep pace with the digital age.

The committee will continue where it left off last session in revising the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act to balance law enforcement's need to probe online messages with citizens' right to privacy. In addition, members will examine full-body screening at airports and the tracking of Americans' online activities by marketers and other third-party data aggregators. The various measures are expected to complement a comprehensive cybersecurity bill that several agencies are collaborating on this Congress.

"The last decade has encroached on Americans' privacy as has no other decade in our history," said Leahy, D-Vt., in remarks presented at the Newseum in Washington DC. "The imperative of security, the proliferation of databases and the spawning of interactive social media have combined to flatten Americans' earlier expectations about having the choice to be left alone."

And the committee will revisit the 1994 Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which requires telecommunications carriers and equipment manufacturers to design their products in a way that allows law enforcement agencies to conduct necessary electronic monitoring. "When I wrote that law in the early '90s, no one could have contemplated the technological leaps and bounds that have burst onto the scene in the two decades since then," Leahy said. "Updating this law will require careful consideration of Americans' privacy rights, as well as the legitimate needs of the law enforcement community to gather valuable, court-ordered surveillance information to keep the nation safe.

The committee also must extend certain parts of the USA PATRIOT Act that are set to expire next month, he said. The three provisions grant the government the ability to use roving wiretaps to trace the communications of suspects; obtain special court orders forcing businesses to turn over evidence; and conduct surveillance on a "lone wolf," somebody not knowingly associated with terrorists.