House bill introduced to prevent warrantless government seizure of your phone call records

[limpyhobbler]

Last edited Fri May 17, 2013, 02:24 AM - Edit history (1)

Telephone Records Protection Act Introduced In Wake Of AP Phone Record Seizure

Four members of the House of Representatives introduced legislation on Thursday that would prevent agencies from obtaining phone records from Americans without a court order, in the wake of the controversy involving the Justice Department subpoenaing Associated Press phone records.

H.R. 2014, the Telephone Records Protection Act, was introduced by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and would require court approval for the government to demand phone records from service providers.

“The Justice Department’s seizure of the AP’s phone records -- likely without the sign-off of a single judge -- raises serious First and Fourth Amendment concerns. Regardless of whether DOJ violates the legitimate privacy expectations of reporters or ordinary Americans, we deserve to know that the federal government can’t seize our records without judicial review,” Amash said in a statement.

“Americans of all political stripes were shocked to find out that the Department of Justice had been accessing telephone records of reporters at the Associated Press," Polis stated. "The Department of Justice claims that they operated within the confines of the law, which makes it abundantly clear that we need to provide a higher level of protection against government intrusion into an individual’s private records. I am excited to be working with Representatives Amash, Lofgren, and Mulvaney on this important privacy protection bill."
...

more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/telephone-records-protection-act_n_3288026.html




Lawmakers Introduce Bill Requiring Court Order to Seize Phone Records

The Telephone Records Protection Act consists of just one sentence amending that law (.pdf) and would force federal agencies to seek judicial review to obtain records in order to avoid a situation like the one that recently happened with the Associated Press.

The bill would protect the phone records of all Americans, not just journalists, and would require federal agencies to state “specific and articulable facts” to prove to a court that the records and information being sought is “relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/court-order-for-phone-records/

[magellan]

1. Their hypocrisy is stultifying. Weren't they the ones defending Bush**'s warrantless wiretaps?

FISA is too much trouble, blah, blah, blah? Now suddenly they want to protect Americans' phone records from rummaging?

There's a nasty catch in that bill, count on it. Or maybe they just want to protect their OWN phone records.

[limpyhobbler]

3. It's a one line bill. The only thing it does is require a warrant to snoop phone records.

Lawmakers Introduce Bill Requiring Court Order to Seize Phone Records

The Telephone Records Protection Act consists of just one sentence amending that law (.pdf) and would force federal agencies to seek judicial review to obtain records in order to avoid a situation like the one that recently happened with the Associated Press.

The bill would protect the phone records of all Americans, not just journalists, and would require federal agencies to state “specific and articulable facts” to prove to a court that the records and information being sought is “relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/court-order-for-phone-records/

[magellan]

6. But warrantless wiretapping is still okey-dokey

Sorry, I'm not snapping at you. I've just had it with these asshats.

[limpyhobbler]

12. lol no problem

it's just the internet.

I agree Republicans are asshats.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

2. Even some Republicans are opposed to the violations of the Fourth Amendment?

Why isn't President I'm-a-Centrist Obama?

[woo me with science]

4. Insulting. Protection of a free press and protection of the privacy of citizens should be a GIVEN

Last edited Fri May 17, 2013, 11:51 AM - Edit history (1)

according to the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. It is appalling that we have reached the point in this country, after the Patriot Act and relentless subsequent assaults on our civil protections, where we are supposed to be grateful and excited about legislation to restore certain aspects of our privacy for certain limited groups under certain limited situations.

We also saw crowing and excitement this evening for Obama's statement that a warrant should be required before the government can access the email of American citizens.

Good god. That should be a given, and the protection certainly should not be limited to email. Americans should *already* have a baseline guarantee of privacy from warrantless government spying into ANY of our private communications, email or otherwise.

Creepy, creepy, creepy authoritarian framing going on these days. We are to be delighted at the prospect of legislation that returns only bits and pieces of the civil protections that have been stolen from us? And that is supposed to end the controversy? No, we need to be having a serious national conversation about our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and ALL the rights that have been outrageously stolen from us through the Patriot Act and subsequent legislation.

Enough Alice in Wonderland praise and excitement at news that politicians may deign to give back a tiny fraction of what they have stolen from us: the fundamental civil rights, privacies, and protections that used to be considered a given for every single American citizen.

Access to information about government by the people, and access to information about people by the government *should* be asymmetrical. The people should have privacy, and the government should be transparent.

[limpyhobbler]

5. yes on all points.

I can't understand why so many "liberals" are tripping all over themselves to defend it. It's nutty.

[BainsBane]

9. Yes, and the partisan hypocrisy

from all sides on this is disturbing.

[cherokeeprogressive]

7. I'm down with it.

And I don't give a fuck what happened before today, or who did it, or why.

[Rex]

8. Jimny Fucking Chirstmas they finally decided to do it!?

After ALL THESE FUCKING YEARS? All it took was THIS? What about...oh nevermind, at least someone is trying to make a point. It is as if they want to hit double digits again in the ratings. Or hide something.

[struggle4progress]

10. Smith v. Maryland

442 U.S. 735 (1979)

MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.

On March 5, 1976, in Baltimore, Md. Patricia McDonough was robbed. She gave the police a description of the robber and of a 1975 Monte Carlo automobile she had observed near the scene of the crime ... After the robbery, McDonough began receiving threatening and obscene phone calls ... By tracing the license plate number, police learned that the car was registered in the name of petitioner, Michael Lee Smith.

The next day, the telephone company, at police request, installed a pen register at its central offices to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at petitioner's home ...The police did not get a warrant or court order ... The register revealed that, on March 17, a call was placed from petitioner's home to McDonough's phone ... On the basis of this and other evidence, the police obtained a warrant to search petitioner's residence ... Petitioner was arrested, and a six-man lineup was held on March 19. McDonough identified petitioner as the man who had robbed her ...

... By pretrial motion, he sought to suppress "all fruits derived from the pen register" ... The trial court denied the suppression motion, holding that the warrantless installation of the pen register did not violate the Fourth Amendment ...

The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of conviction ...

... Because there was no "search," the court concluded, no warrant was needed. Three judges dissented ...

Consistently with Katz, this Court uniformly has held that the application of the Fourth Amendment depends on whether the person invoking its protection can claim a "justifiable," a "reasonable," or a "legitimate expectation of privacy" ...

... Since the pen register was installed on telephone company property at the telephone company's central offices, petitioner obviously cannot claim that his "property" was invaded or that police intruded into a "constitutionally protected area" ...

... All telephone users realize that they must "convey" phone numbers to the telephone company, since it is through telephone company switching equipment that their calls are completed. All subscribers realize, moreover, that the phone company has facilities for making permanent records of the numbers they dial, for they see a list of their long-distance (toll) calls on their monthly bills ... Although most people may be oblivious to a pen register's esoteric functions, they presumably have some awareness of one common use: to aid in the identification of persons making annoying or obscene calls ...

... When he used his phone, petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the telephone company and "exposed" that information to its equipment in the ordinary course of business. In so doing, petitioner assumed the risk that the company would reveal to police the numbers he dialed ...

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/442/735/case.html

[struggle4progress]

11. Katz v. United States

389 U.S. 347 (1967)

MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioner was convicted in the District Court for the Southern District of California under an eight-count indictment charging him with transmitting wagering information by telephone from Los Angeles to Miami and Boston, in violation of a federal statute. [Footnote 1] At trial, the Government was permitted, over the petitioner's objection, to introduce evidence of the petitioner's end of telephone conversations, overheard by FBI agents who had attached an electronic listening and recording device to the outside of the public telephone booth from which he had placed his calls ...

... What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection ...

The Government stresses the fact that the telephone booth from which the petitioner made his calls was constructed partly of glass, so that he was as visible after he entered it as he would have been if he had remained outside. But what he sought to exclude when he entered the booth was not the intruding eye -- it was the uninvited ear ... No less than an individual ... in a friend's apartment ... a person in a telephone booth may rely upon the protection of the Fourth Amendment. One who occupies it, shuts the door behind him, and pays the toll that permits him to place a call is surely entitled to assume that the words he utters into the mouthpiece will not be broadcast to the world ...

... the Government's position is that its agents acted in an entirely defensible manner: they did not begin their electronic surveillance until investigation of the petitioner's activities had established a strong probability that he was using the telephone in question to transmit gambling information to persons in other States, in violation of federal law. Moreover, the surveillance was limited, both in scope and in duration, to the specific purpose of establishing the contents of the petitioner's unlawful telephonic communications ...

Accepting this account of the Government's actions as accurate, it is clear that this surveillance was so narrowly circumscribed that a duly authorized magistrate, properly notified of the need for such investigation, specifically informed of the basis on which it was to proceed, and clearly apprised of the precise intrusion it would entail, could constitutionally have authorized, with appropriate safeguards, the very limited search and seizure that the Government asserts, in fact, took place. Only last Term we sustained the validity of such an authorization ...

... The government agents here ignored "the procedure of antecedent justification . . . that is central to the Fourth Amendment" ... Because the surveillance here failed to meet that condition, and because it led to the petitioner's conviction, the judgment must be reversed.

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/389/347/case.html

[Comrade Grumpy]

13. Why is there only one Democratic cosponsor of this bill?

[limpyhobbler]

14. I count 2.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.)
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.)


Why not 20 or 30? This seems so sensible I doubt it could ever pass

[LittleBlue]

15. Legislation I can support

Pass it. We need more limits on executive power.

[limpyhobbler]

17. +1 nt

[JDPriestly]

16. Great! That is a big improvement.