Congress Holds Hearings to Review USA PATRIOT Act

Congress Holds Hearings to Review USA PATRIOT Act
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This week Congress began reviewing the USA PATRIOT Act, some
controversial provisions of which are slated to sunset at the end of
this year unless Congress moves to reauthorize them. The Senate and
House Judiciary Committees each heard Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
defend the law and argue for renewal of its expiring provisions. The
committees will continue to hold hearings through April and part of May
on issues such as the FBI's wiretap authority and access to business
records.

Senate committee members grilled Gonzales and FBI Director Robert
Mueller on the law's broad definition of terrorism, as well as the
standards the FBI must meet to obtain sneak-and-peek search warrants,
which allow the government to delay notifying the target of an
investigation that a search has happened. The Senate committee's
chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, pressed Gonzales and Mueller on whether
the standards of proof the government must show in foreign intelligence
investigations should be more stringent. After the hearing, Sens. Larry
Craig and Dick Durbin announced plans to introduce legislation to roll
back parts of the law.

In the House committee hearing, Gonzales was questioned sharply about
its actions in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, such as secret
immigration hearings. Gonzales conceded that "there were mistakes
made."

Most sunsetting provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act expanded either
federal wiretap law, which governs law enforcement interception of and
access to communications in criminal investigations, or the secretive
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which regulates the FBI's
collection of "foreign intelligence" information for intelligence
purposes. One of the most hotly debated provisions of the USA PATRIOT
Act allows the FBI to get a court order to obtain "any tangible things"
relevant to an investigation of foreign intelligence or international
terrorist activities. People served with a warrant under this provision
are not allowed to disclose the existence of the warrant or the fact
that records or items were provided to the government. Documents
obtained by EPIC under the Freedom of Information Act last year showed
that this authority can be used to obtain items such as apartment keys,
and that the FBI can collect information about innocent people under
this provision.

Congress included a sunset provision in the USA PATRIOT Act so that it
would have an opportunity to review the government's more extreme
investigative powers at a less emotionally charged time. However,
little information has been made public on how the FBI is using its
authority under the USA PATRIOT Act. As Sen. Patrick Leahy said in
his statement during the Senate Judiciary Committee's oversight hearing,
"we have heard over and over again that there have been no abuses as a
result of the PATRIOT Act. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to
verify that claim when some of the most controversial surveillance
powers in the PATRIOT Act operate under a cloak of secrecy."

Last month, EPIC submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the
FBI seeking information about how the agency has used its expanded power
under the expiring provisions of the Act. EPIC argued for expedited
processing, noting the importance of such information to the public and
congressional debate surrounding the renewal of these authorities. EPIC
has also posted a Web page on the sunsetting provisions of the law.

USA PATRIOT Act documents obtained by EPIC under the Freedom of
Information Act are available at:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/foia

Statement of Senator Leahy, Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on
Oversight of the USA PATRIOT Act:

http://www.epic.org/redirect/upasunset.html

Senate Judiciary Committee hearing "Oversight of the USA PATRIOT Act":

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1439

House Judiciary Committee hearing "USA PATRIOT Act: A Review for the
Purpose of Its Reauthorization."

http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=128

EPIC's FOIA request to the FBI (pdf):

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/sunsetfoia.pdf

EPIC's USA PATRIOT Sunset page:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/sunset.html

EPIC's USA PATRIOT Act page:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/

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Spotlight: Homeland Security's Access Card Less Than Secure
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President Bush's proposed $2.57 trillion federal budget for Fiscal Year
2006 greatly increases the amount of money spent on surveillance
technology and programs while cutting about 150 programs-most of them
from the Department of Education. EPIC's "Spotlight on Surveillance"
project scrutinizes these surveillance programs.

This month, EPIC evaluates the Department of Homeland Security's new
employee access card and finds significant security risks. The wireless
technologies linked to the Department of Homeland Security Access Card
(DAC) leave employees' personal information vulnerable to access by
criminals. Also, the Department further exposes the card by its broad
expansion of the card's function to turn it into a payment device, one
that would be used several times a day in unsecured locations such as
Metro train stations.

Beginning in May and through the end of the year, Homeland Security will
issue the DAC to 40,000 of its 180,000 employees and contractors. The
DAC is about the size of a credit card and will carry a digital copy of
the cardholder's fingerprint as well as other information. The
Department requests $6 million for the DAC program in FY 2006, and
each card costs about $8.50

Homeland Security has assumed that there will be some problems with the
biometric identifier system on the DAC. The Department has a backup
system built into the card-if the fingerprint identification fails, then
the employee can gain access by using a 6- to 8- digit PIN. By allowing
alternate access through the PIN, Homeland Security creates all of the
vulnerabilities associated with allowing complete access to secure areas
and information through one password. This is a significant security
risk, as a criminal could bypass the biometric identification system by
simply learning the PIN. Even without the PIN bypass there are risks to
equipping the card with the power to access not only the Department of
Homeland Security's resources, but also those of local, state and other
federal government entities.

Department of Homeland Security's DAC site:

https://dhscio.net/dhs_info_center.html

EPIC's Spotlight on Surveillance page:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/surveillance/spotlight/0405.html

EPIC's Biometrics page:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/biometrics/