Congress presents plan to tighten reins on FBI hacking

A bipartisan bill introduced to Congress this week will aim to set new limits on the ability of the FBI to access private computers. Dubbed the Stopping Mass Hacking (SMH) Act, the Senate bill [PDF] aims to roll back changes the Supreme Court recently issued in its stance on Rule 41 computer search warrants. Those changes …

[Mark 85]

Let's hope it passes... it's steps in the right directions.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

A step in the right direction that might actually pass through Congress. Strange days indeed. I am tempted to look out for airborne bacon, much as I applaud the initiative.

[Alister]

I'm afraid this bill is doomed to failure, it just doesn't have a snappy enough acronym... The SMH Act, whats-that-all-about?

The should have called it the STOMA-HACK Act...

Oh, wait, maybe not...

[Anonymous Coward]

But if we put in due process and enforce the jurisdictional limits, and all those checks and balances, how can the Witch Finder General catch all the witches?

He's a good man, a man of God, if he says she's a witch, and has solid waterboarding evidence from the dunking stool, then she's a witch. Any claim he's abusing his position is fanciful nonsense.

If we let these witches free, they'll radicalize our children with their words. Their spells. So we need to monitor all communications, listen for incantations, spells, hexes, and voodoo curses, immediately cut the line, so the spell cannot complete and our children cannot be radicalized!

I saw this in a documentary "Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom", on BBC1 and the BBC is above reproach for its factual reporting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Something tells me that they embarrassed a congressperson behind closed doors, or had a file on congress that congress found out about. It's the only thing that I can think of that would cause this level of bipartisanship.

[FuzzyTheBear]

Listen ....

It will change nothing .. You really think that the FBI will abide and play by the rules of the law ?

ROFL

Mine's the one with the " i'm dying laughing call 911 " crest on the back

[Updraft102]

But would he sign it?

Yes, you hope it will land on the desk of the president.

The same guy who has presided over the NSA's growth to the monster it is now.

When the PATRIOT Act that enabled this mess was passed, the left rightly objected to the broad new powers it gave to government. They worried what President Bush could do with the new powers if he was so inclined. He never did any of the things, nor did his opponents on the left say he did; it was enough that he COULD do the things. They were right.

Now Obama has been in office for 8 years, and the NSA has grown beyond the wildest nightmares of the PATRIOT Act's opponents. Everything they feared has come to pass, and then it got worse.

The silence from the former critics has been deafening. I guess it's okay when you like the guy in charge of it all, even if he's doing all of the things you previously said would be evil and destructive of liberty.

So would Obama sign the bill? Maybe. He's almost done with his tenure as spymaster-in-chief one way or another, so it's anyone's guess. That's assuming we could get the bill to him before the third week of January...