Citizens' Protection in Federal Databases Act Introduced

SewersOfRivendell writes "Quote from http://boingboing.net/: 'EFF, EPIC, CDT, ACLU and Free Congress have drafted a bill that's been introduced by Senator Wyden today, for a new law called "The Citizens' Protection in Federal Databases Act." This is a hell of a law. It finds that various species of spooks are making avid use of commercial and governmental databases, merging them and aggregating them, without transparency, accountability, or any real understanding of the danger to civil liberties involved in this practice. Accordingly, it requires any Fed agency using non-Fed databases to cut it out and make a full report to Congress on who they're buying database and database-services from, what they're doing to preserve privacy, why they're doing what they're doing, and whether they actually have a realistic chance of catching any bad guys. And it calls into account Feds who abuse their authority and limits the kind of doomsday hypotheticals that can be used to justify such abuse.' PDF draft of the bill here."

Comments

Likely responses...

[Anonymous Coward]

• cut it out - "Ok, whatever you say."
  
• make a full report to Congress - "We ran MySQL. But we stopped, umkay?"
  
• what they're doing to preserve privacy - "We have self signed SSL certificates for our intranet."
  
• why they're doing what they're doing - "To protect and serve."
  
• whether they actually have a realistic chance of catching any bad guys - "Yep. Those bad guys never stood a chance...umkay?"

ACLU

[pizen]

Glad to know my ACLU membership dollars aren't going to waste.

Obviously..

[grub]

It's obvious that the EFF, EPIC, CDT, ACLU, Free Congress and Senator Wyden are terrorist sympathizers

Bill Is Not Going to Happen

[Valence_99]

Spooks have to justify what they are doing? It will be a cold day in Hell before, unfortunately its still summertime

It'll be a hell of a law...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when I can sue for damages.

This means nothing

[Dashing Leech]

...to me. I'm Canadian. Our government doesn't invade our privacy.

Re:Accountability?

[beacher]

As their senior DBA, I have 4 words for you.

"I do not recall"

-B

Re:What I want to see

[Torgo's Pizza]

Yes, and while you're at it, also erase all those numbers that say that I owe you money for my Visa and Mastercard. Thank you Citibank!

tinfoil

[stupidsocialscientis]

does anyone know where i might purchase tinfoil in sheets wide enough to wrap my house? it only has to be wide enough for the walls, you see the roof is covered with solar collecters so that i am not supporting the evil-power-conspiracy.

Damn!

[isotope23]

Too bad the pentagon cancelled their "terrorist prediction" market, cause I bet the likelyhood for assassination of "EFF, EPIC, CDT, And ACLU" members just went up!

You sure?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Its been introduced? I can just picture it now:

(Congress)

Random Congresscritter: And now Senator Wyden will be presenting a bill to.....o, excuse me, one moment please (whispers to man in black suit with mirror shades)....Well, it seems Senator Wyden is no longer with us. Moving on to the next piece of business.....

Re:What I want to see

[Sloppy]

I'd rather not live my life in a database, thanks.

I wouldn't mind, as long as I got to play that lightcycle game every day.