Dozens of U.S. government data-mining programs collect private data about U.S. residents with few civil liberties safeguards, and some violate U.S. law, Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday.
Democratic senators pledged to provide more congressional scrutiny for data-mining programs authorized by President George Bush’s administration. “All I want is the administration to follow the law,” Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said during the Judiciary Committee’s first hearing since Democrats took over the majority in Congress this month. “They want us to follow the law—they should follow the law.”
Leahy pointed to the Secure Flight program operated by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as one that violated U.S. privacy law. In December, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s privacy office issued a report saying the TSA failed to notify U.S. air travelers that their personal information was being collected.
Other government data-mining programs, including the Department of Justice’s ONE-DoJ database, allow U.S. agencies to share information “about thousands of individuals, including those who have never been charged with a crime,” Leahy said. The agencies can share the information with each other, with local law enforcement agencies and even with private employers, he said.
“There’s only one group they don’t share it with: the ordinary Americans they collect data on,” he added.
At least 52 U.S. agencies use data-mining technology, and at least 199 data-mining programs were operated or planned by U.S. agencies in May 2004, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report. Leahy on Wednesday joined two other senators, one Republican and one Democrat, in introducing the Federal Data Mining Reporting Act, which would require federal agencies to report their data-mining activities to Congress.