I’m just beginning to go through the House Intelligence Fake Dragnet Fix bill — what I will henceforth call the RuppRogers Fake Dragnet Fix.
It does have some improvements — the kind of bones you throw into a legislation to entice members of Congress to back what is in fact a broad expansion of surveillance.
One of those is a prohibition on the use of FISA (presumably including Section 215) to engage in bulk collection of certain kinds of records:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Federal Government may not acquire under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, book customer lists, firearm sales records, tax return records, education records, or medical records containing information that would identify a person without the use of specific identifiers or selection terms.
I find this interesting, for one, because it is yet another piece of evidence that suggests the government has been using Section 215 (and National Security Letters, probably) to make its own firearm registry, in defiance of congressional intent.
But I also find it instructive to compare this list:
- Some but not all library and book records
- Firearm sales records
- Tax return (but not other tax) records
- Education records
- Some but not all medical records
With the list laid out in this letter from Ron Wyden and Mark Udall and others.
- Credit card purchases
- Pharmacy records
- Library records
- Firearm sales records
- Financial information
- Book and movie purchase records
I would assume from the difference that NSA was unwilling to give up certain kinds of bulk collection, notably credit card and non-tax return financial records.
I think the use of Section 215 to collect gun records is patently illegal, even though I might support a gun registry if passed legislatively. But if we’re going to roll back that collection, let’s roll back the bulk financial record collection as well.