Ride the Lightning

Senator Wyden Blocks Social Media "Terrorist Activity" Surveillance Law

September 24, 2015

Most Americans have probably never heard of Section 603 of the 2016 Intelligence Act, the law which annually updates the authority of America's 16 intelligence agencies. And now they never will, thanks to Senator Ron Wyden who placed a "hold" on the new act because of what he called the "overly vague and dangerous provision" known as Section 603.

As Naked Security reported, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee (misnomer?) was forced by Wyden's move to drop Section 603, which would have required social media companies to report any "terrorist activity" to government authorities.

Wyden's steadfast resistance was accompanied by pressure to drop Section 603 from high tech companies in the Internet Association, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Snapchat, Amazon, Reddit and dozens of others. The Association pointed out that Section 603 would potentially chill free speech and would place an enormous burden on Internet companies to seek out speech that could be connected to terrorism.

The Center for Democracy and Technology also objected to turning social media companies into de facto spies for the U.S. government.

Chalk one up for the good guys and thank you Senator Wyden.

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