Ride the Lightning

Senate Votes to Continue Tracking Your Website History Without a Warrant

May 19, 2020

Naked Security posted on May 18 that, on May 14, an amendment to the controversial Patriot Act lost by a single vote, 60-59. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Ron Wyden, would have exempted internet browsing and history from what the government is permitted to collect through the approval of a secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The Patriot Act, designed as a response to the intelligence failures leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was signed into law by President George W. Bush in October 2001. Twelve years later, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified documents that demonstrated how the law was used to spy on everything and everybody.

In June 2015, the Patriot Act was replaced by the USA Freedom Act: a bill meant to restrict the NSA's powers by slightly inconveniencing its metadata collection from US citizens and introducing more accountability and transparency for it and the FISA court.

The bill passed in the House in March, was amended last week in the Senate to provide additional legal protections for some individuals targeted by the FISA court, and now goes back to the House for a vote on the amended version. If it passes the House, it will go to the President for signature.

The USA Freedom Reauthorization Act restores government powers that expired in March with Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Section 215 allowed intelligence agencies to collect metadata on calls (known as call detail records, or CDRs) that it stores in repositories and secure networks. Section 215 allows the government to demand "tangible things," such as records deemed relevant to terrorism investigations.

The metadata has been used to secretly spy on Americans. According to the post, this spying sometimes has had absolutely nothing to do with protecting the country from terrorists, including spying on former girlfriends.

According to The Hill, besides reauthorizing Section 215, the act also would reauthorize two expired programs: One dealing with "lone wolf" suspects who aren't tied to any known terrorist organization, and another on "roving" wiretaps that allow the federal government to track a suspect across multiple devices.

Senator Wyden issued a plea for his proposed amendment to ban warrantless government surveillance on Americans' internet browsing histories. He said that warrantless collection of browsing histories "offers endless opportunities for abuse," pointing to investigations of political enemies that could lead to the government swooping in on web browsing histories that could be used against people, regardless of whether they're relevant to a given investigation. Wyden said:

"Donald Trump has called for investigations of his political enemies. Attorney General Barr has injected himself into investigations that affect the personal or political interests of Donald Trump. All it would take is for some innocent American's web browsing history to be deemed relevant to one of those investigations, and the government could start collecting it.

And then it wouldn't even matter whether that web browsing history had anything to do with the original goal of the investigation. For any number of reasons, the web browsing history of that innocent American could reveal personal, even embarrassing information that could then be used against him or her."

The ban on collecting web histories without a warrant needed 60 votes to pass. It only got 59.

Wyden said in a statement, "The legislation hands the government power for warrantless collection of Americans' web browsing and internet searches, as well as other private information, without having to demonstrate that those Americans have done anything wrong, or even were in contact with anyone suspected of wrongdoing.

Without further reform of these vague and dangerous Patriot Act authorities, Congress is inviting more secret interpretations of the law and more abuses."

Sadly, I believe that Senator Wyden is correct.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225|Fairfax, VA 22030
Email: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
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