FBI graciously agrees to codification of... what it's already doing. But what it's already doing is accessing Americans' personal communications without a warrant, and in violation of its own rules for querying. #FixFISA

Mike Lee speaks with the same level of frustration the civil liberties community has had for many years as we continue to see warrantless Sec 702 surveillance with zero remedy aside from incremental internal changes with no backbone. More of this please! #FixFISA

Flying this summer? You might want to read EPIC's Jeramie D. Scott post on why TSA's use of #facialrecognition is more dangerous than you think. epic.org/dont-take-it-a…

EPIC's Jeramie D. Scott believes this new AI surveillance program is using "technology to solve a problem in a way that is more or less a Band-Aid." What's more, "We just can’t predict every way that AI may be used to leverage the information the federal government already has."

🚨 NEW from EPIC Summer Clerk Katrina Zhu: The State of State AI Laws in 2023! 2023 has seen a surge in state AI laws, with 10 states including AI regulations as part of larger consumer privacy laws and even more proposing similar bills. #AIPolicy epic.org/the-state-of-s…

New EPIC report on #AI procurement! 50 states. 621 contracts. Over $700 million. Across the country, EPIC found state agencies outsourcing important govt decisions to private companies & their AI systems, all without public input or oversight. epic.org/outsourced

Today, as part of its new oversight report on FISA Section 702, PCLOB recommended that agencies generally be required to obtain individualized judicial approval before accessing the results of searches of Americans’ communications, otherwise known as “backdoor searches”

See the full report, endorsed by a majority of members, here: documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents…

EPIC's Jeramie D. Scott released the following statement on the report:

New from EPIC: "ICE’s Privacy Impact Assessment on Surveillance Technologies is an Exercise in Disregarding Reality" epic.org/ices-privacy-i…

Today, Ron Wyden, Mike Lee, Warren Davidson 🇺🇸, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced the Government Surveillance Reform Act (GSRA), a sweeping surveillance reform bill that would #FixFISA and more. Jeramie D. Scott’s statement:

As first reported by WIRED, Ron Wyden revealed stunning new details about the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Hemisphere program, now known as Data Analytical Services (DAS), a vast and highly secretive surveillance authority run out of the White House: wired.com/story/hemisphe… (1/x)

House and Senate leaders have slipped a reauthorization of FISA Section 702 into the NDAA, a shocking attempt to entrench a controversial and sweeping surveillance authority that Congress is actively working to reform. (1/x) x.com/BasedMikeLee/s…

As Jeramie D. Scott notes, “The members who voted for this extension will have to explain to their constituents why they continue to dodge real, meaningful debate over warrantless government surveillance and ignore the long history of abuse of Section 702.” (3/x)

NextGov: TSA uses ‘minimum’ data to fine-tune its facial recognition, but some experts still worry nextgov.com/emerging-tech/… Jeramie D. Scott

Last week, EPIC submitted FOIA requests to ODNI, DOJ, FBI, CIA, and NSA asking for their responses to congressional oversight of FISA Section 702 & other warrantless surveillance, including buyinng Americans’ sensitive data. (1/x) epic.org/epic-seeks-int…

EPIC, Coalition to Senate: Pause TSA’s Facial Recognition Program Now epic.org/epic-coalition… The coalition letter comes after Senators Senator Jeff Merkley, John Kennedy, & Dr. Roger Marshall introduced an amend. to pause the expansion of TSA’s FR program. Why a pause is important:

It has become increasingly clear that TSA & David P. Pekoske are trying to pull a bait-and-switch--touting publicly the "voluntariness" of #facialrecognition at airports as it tries to implement FRT while having every intention to make it mandatory. Tell me I'm wrong TSA.

Your silence is deafening. TSA David P. Pekoske

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott just vetoed the Vermont Data Privacy Act (H.121), a landmark data privacy bill that would be one of the strongest privacy laws in the nation. epic.org/vermont-passes…