U.S. SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY

Senate Passes Feingold-Leahy Measure
Making U.S. Agencies Accountable On Data Collection

....Increased Congressional Oversight of Data Mining Technologies

(THURSDAY, September 16) – Federal agencies that collect personal and other information on American citizens would be required to report on those activities to Congress as part of a proposal coauthored by Senators Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that has passed the U.S. Senate.   

The Feingold-Leahy measure, which they offered as an amendment to the annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, would require federal departments and agencies that employ various data-mining technologies to inform Congress of those efforts.  The bill, which the Senate passed late Tuesday night, now goes to conference with the counterpart House homeland security funding bill, which does not include the date mining accountability amendment.  Leahy is the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight jurisdiction over the Department of Justice.  Feingold is a member of the panel.  Both senators are longtime leaders on privacy issues.  

Leahy said Congress needs to be vigilant in its oversight of these data-mining programs.  Advances in the information age have fostered sophisticated technology in the area of information collection and analysis.  Since 9-11, the government has aggressively experimented with different technologies to gather and share information through databases and various screening programs and has heightened investigative and prosecutorial powers.     

Leahy said data mining may potentially prove useful in combating terrorism and crime, but some government programs have raised questions about the use of citizens’ data, including the now-defunct Total Information Awareness (TIA) program.  Congress withdrew funding for TIA after questions arose about that program’s effectiveness and intrusive nature.    

“Ironically, at the same time that the Administration has been making it harder and harder for the public to learn what government agencies are up to, the government and its private sector partners have been quietly building more and more databases to learn and store more information about the American people,” he said.  “Congressional oversight andbasic knowledge about what government agencies are doing are the keys to accountability for these data mining programs, and this amendment sets the stage for more accountability.  The American people deserve to know what kind of information is gathered about them and how federal agencies intend to store and use it.”  

Leahy said the amendment does not end any existing program or impose new regulations over how programs are administered.  “This is about accountability,” he said.    

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