ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 13, Number 77
October 7, 2004

In This Issue: UPDATE: National Intelligence Reform Bill

Yesterday, we asked you to contact Senators on the National
Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 (S.2845).  We thank you for all your work on this. As you may have heard, the bill passed (96-2) yesterday evening.  Here are the results on the specific items on which we asked you to make calls:

Amendments on which we asked you to urge Senators to vote "no" :

McCain #3807. Accepted with modification.
McCain's amendment effectively requires states to issue driver's licenses that conform to a federal standard - a national ID through the back door.  Once federalized, licenses would become the key to access other personal information about the holder that would be inevitably linked to the driver's license.

The modification apparently is a provision, requested by the National Governors Association, to "require that the negotiated rulemaking committee perform an assessment of the benefits and costs of its recommendations", to "help ensure that the federal government provides adequate funding to states to implement the required mandates."

Stevens #3839.  Withdrawn.
This amendment would have deleted the provision of the bill
that requires making the overall figure for the intelligence budget public, while still keeping details classified, as specifically recommended by the 9-11 Commission.  

Stevens #3827.  Accepted with modification.
The modification was to change "information sharing network" to "information sharing environment." The provision--that would have  eliminated requirements (elsewhere in S. 2845) to create guidelines to protect individuals' privacy and civil liberties, control access to data, and establish useful ways to share information in the network--was dropped.  

Amendments on which we asked you to urge Senators to vote "yes":

Harkin #3821.  Accepted.
This amendment will improve reporting on civil liberties matters by the civil liberties board, and explicitly allow for minority reports to be issued.  

Leahy #3913.  Withdrawn.
This amendment would have provided that the civil liberties board
had power to seek enforcement of its subpoenas, rather than leaving that power only to the Department of Justice, whose activities the board may be reviewing.  

Leahy #3916.  Accepted with modification.
This amendment would have required that the Privacy and Civil
Liberties board assess whether the appropriate safeguards are built into the information sharing network to ensure individuals' privacy and civil liberties are protected when intelligence and law enforcement
information is shared in the network established by the bill.

Sen. Leahy reached an agreement with Senators Collins & Lieberman. The provision now requires the government to take advantage of privacy-enhancing technology that would prevent unauthorized dissemination of information.  It also requires the Administration to report to Congress on its plans to build the information sharing network before it spends funds on it.

And, finally, Senator Wyden got language (#3733) accepted requiring the National Intelligence Director to report on Intelligence Community use of data-mining.




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ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Carol Ashworth, Don Essex, Joshua Farrelman, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.