Cyber Security Enhancement Act Passes Senate

XorNand writes "The Cyber Security Enhancement Act (which was attached to the Homeland Security Act) was overwelming approved by the U.S. Senate today. According the EFF this soon-to-be-law allows "any government entity (federal, state, or local) to request email and voicemail from your ISP or telephone provider without a warrant or probable cause." The passage of the Homeland Security Bill is covered here on CNN.com. Yippee."

Comments

Important details...

[singularity]

From C|Net:

By rewriting wiretap laws, CSEA would allow limited surveillance without a court order when there is an "ongoing attack" on an Internet-connected computer or "an immediate threat to a national security interest." That kind of surveillance would, however, be limited to obtaining a suspect's telephone number, IP address, URLs or e-mail header information--not the contents of online communications or telephone calls.

This is a very important distiction.

Everyone seems intent on the government reading your email. This article seems to say a lot differently.

Indeed, the rights granted seem to make a little sense, even.

The text of the Bill, and the amended US Code

[orthogonal]

This is the text of the part (d) of the "Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2002", which is section 225 of the
(House of Representatives version) of H. R. 5710, the Bill in question.

Section 225 is found on page 51 of H. R. 5710

I've removed the line numbers, but kept the original lines breaks. The quoted text begins after the three dashes, and ends before the four dashes

---
(d) EMERGENCY DISCLOSURE EXCEPTION.--
(1) IN GENERAL.--Section 2702(b) of title 18,
United States Code, is amended--
(A) in paragraph (5), by striking ''or'' at
the end;
(B) in paragraph (6)(A), by inserting ''or''
at the end;
(C) by striking paragraph (6)(C); and
(D) by adding at the end the following:
''(7) to a Federal, State, or local governmental
entity, if the provider, in good faith, believes that an
emergency involving danger of death or serious phys-
ical injury to any person requires disclosure without
delay of communications relating to the emer-
gency.''.
(2) REPORTING OF DISCLOSURES.--A govern-
ment entity that receives a disclosure under section
2702(b) of title 18, United States Code, shall file,
not later than 90 days after such disclosure, a report
to the Attorney General stating the paragraph of
that section under which the disclosure was made,
the date of the disclosure, the entity to which the
disclosure was made, the number of customers or
subscribers to whom the information disclosed per-
tained, and the number of communications, if any,
that were disclosed. The Attorney General shall pub-
lish all such reports into a single report to be sub-
mitted to Congress 1 year after the date of enact-
ment of this Act.
----

Below is the text of Section 2702(b) of title 18, United States Code, as provided by findlaw.com. As I note below, the version found through findlaw differs slightly from the version to which H.R. 5710 appears to refer. Please unsderstand that nothing in this post should be construed as legal advice, and do not rely on the below as neccesarily accurate.

Italics indicate text removed from 18 United States Code 2702(b) by H.R. 5710, Section 225, part (d)
Boldface indicates text added to 18 United States Code 2702(b) by H.R. 5710, Section 225, part (d)

* United States Code
o TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
+ PART I - CRIMES
# CHAPTER 121 - STORED WIRE AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSACTIONAL RECORDS ACCESS

U.S. Code as of: 01/02/01
Section 2702. Disclosure of contents

(a) Prohibitions. - Except as provided in subsection (b) -
(1) a person or entity providing an electronic communication
service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person
or entity the contents of a communication while in electronic
storage by that service; and
(2) a person or entity providing remote computing service to
the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity
the contents of any communication which is carried or maintained
on that service -
(A) on behalf of, and received by means of electronic
transmission from (or created by means of computer processing
of communications received by means of electronic transmission
from), a subscriber or customer of such service; and
(B) solely for the purpose of providing storage or computer
processing services to such subscriber or customer, if the
provider is not authorized to access the contents of any such
communications for purposes of providing any services other
than storage or computer processing.
(b) Exceptions. - A person or entity may divulge the contents of
a communication -
(1) to an addressee or intended recipient of such communication
or an agent of such addressee or intended recipient;
(2) as otherwise authorized in section 2517, 2511(2)(a), or
2703 of this title;
(3) with the lawful consent of the originator or an addressee
or intended recipient of such communication, or the subscriber in
the case of remote computing service;
(4) to a person employed or authorized or whose facilities are
used to forward such communication to its destination;
(5) as may be necessarily incident to the rendition of the
service or to the protection of the rights or property of the
provider of that service; or
(6) to a law enforcement agency -
(A) if the contents -
(i) were inadvertently obtained by the service provider;
and
(ii) appear to pertain to the commission of a crime; or or
(B) if required by section 227 of the Crime Control Act of
1990.
The copy of 18 US 2702(b) available through findlaw.com has no paragraph (6)(C)
''(7) to a Federal, State, or local governmental
entity, if the provider, in good faith, believes that an
emergency involving danger of death or serious phys-
ical injury to any person requires disclosure without
delay of communications relating to the emer-
gency.''