Advocacy group pushes back on government wiretapping

Source: Raw Story
By Kase Wickman

A communications public advocacy non-profit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request, demanding that the Department of Justice explain why the government can access citizen phone records and other private information.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) has been controversial since it was implemented in 1986. Since then, the wiretapping law's biggest revision came with 2001's PATRIOT Act. ECPA offers the government access to communications records as a way to target terrorism and crime. EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston cited the FBI's "demonstrated history of abusing surveillance law" as a reason ECPA needed to be amended.

"Secret law has no place in our democracy," Bankston said in a release announcing the EFF's push. "Congress can't even consider closing this dangerous surveillance loophole until we understand the FBI's legal argument, yet the Department of Justice is still hiding it from Congress and the public."

More at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/22/advocacy-group-pushes-back-on-government-wiretapping/