On Monday, Senator Byrd introduced S.AMDT.1120 as an ammendment to the DHS appropriations bill. This ammendment, written by Sen. Feingold, makes "reports to Congress on Department of Homeland Security use of data-mining" mandatory. Senators Corzine, Leahy, and Sununu were cosponsors.
These reports include, but are not limited to,
1. a description of the technology used,
2. a description of the goals for data analysis,
3. an analysis of the impact on civil liberties and privacy, and
4. a description of the policies and safeguards that are in place to ensure the privacy and accuracy of data. The ammendment also specifies that the text of these reports must be made public.
The full text of the ammendment can be found here. The ammendment was approved by unanimous consent in the Senate yesterday. The bill as a whole will be voted on by the end of this week or early next week (ref).
Everyone knows that there are myriad ways the government collects, stores and analyzes data inappropriately. The Pentagon's "marketing" database is the most recent example. Such gross misuses and mishandling of that data will not be corrected overnight. However, ammendments like this are a good sign that legislators are stepping up, where possible, to protect our rights.
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