Weekly Spotlight: A Bipartisan Privacy Win in the House
We’re thrilled to share big news with you: On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to pass the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which would effectively close the data broker loophole.
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We’re thrilled to share big news with you: On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to pass the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which would effectively close the data broker loophole. For years, we’ve been pushing to close this gap in legislation that allows government agencies to buy your data from third-party data brokers instead of getting a warrant for it. The bipartisan 219-199 vote reflects the most support for this reform yet and shows that there’s momentum building to see this hard-fought effort through.
The passage comes in the shadow of the House’s disappointing decision to vote to reauthorize and dramatically expand Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a controversial provision that has enabled government agencies to amass a trove of personal information — like emails, phone calls, and text messages — and to conduct warrantless “backdoor” searches through them.
Both of these bills are now with the Senate. The House’s passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act shows that the fight to rein in the warrantless surveillance state has bipartisan support, and we’ll continue pressing Congress to end the unconstitutional practices that threaten our privacy and freedom.
Editor’s Note: There will be no Weekly Spotlight next weekend. We will be back in your inbox on May 4, 2024.
A HUGE WIN!
POGO’s Investigative Podcast Bad Watchdog won a silver medal at the 2024 New York Festival Radio Awards!
Congratulations to the Bad Watchdog team and be sure to listen now to get caught up for season 2!
ANALYSIS
This week in The Bunker: The amorphous elixir that fuels defense spending; the amorphous crowd that puts its pedal to the metal to make it happen; the latest non-amorphous cry for more, more, more; and, of course, more.
OVERHEARD
"When the government can spy on us based on minimal standards and without external review, it is easy for agents to justify surveillance based on their own biases." - COC's @bbrockmyerLast year, @POGOwatchdog published an investigation into allegations that the (now former) head of @CommerceOIG exposed a whistleblower's identity. In a new letter to @POTUS, @housescience write that the problems in that watchdog office go much deeper. https://pogo.org/investigations/top-commerce-watchdog-exposed-a-whistleblowers-identity?utm_source=pogotwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=commerce-invhttps://t.co/RgIfmwVGkw
— Project on Government Oversight (@POGOwatchdog)March 18, 2024
