OTI to Senate: Agree to Senator Wyden’s Motion and Vote on the Stopping Mass Hacking Act
Press Release
Sept. 8, 2016
The SMH Act, which New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) strongly supports, would stop the implementation of changes to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. This change would explicitly authorize law enforcement to hack into computers of suspects and victims alike when the location of the computer is not known, and potentially use a single warrant to hack thousands or even millions of computers. If Congress does not pass the SMH Act before December 1st, the changes to Rule 41 will go into effect, threatening the privacy and security of internet users everywhere.
The following statement can be attributed to Robyn Greene, Policy Counsel and Government Affairs lead at New America’s Open Technology Institute:
“The Senate simply cannot keep dragging its feet on this important bill. Agreeing on Senator Wyden’s motion and moving to a vote to pass the Stopping Mass Hacking Act should be completely uncontroversial. It doesn’t even change the law - it’s a bill that maintains the status quo. On the other hand, not passing the bill by December 1st would result in a highly controversial and unprecedented expansion of FBI operations to hack American citizens and people worldwide.
For nearly two decades, the FBI has been hacking without any congressional authorization or meaningful transparency and oversight, but hacking by the FBI is just as dangerous as hacking by malicious actors. The FBI can miss its target with its attack, or its malware might not behave like the FBI expects and it could destroy someone’s data or device. Congress must stop this rule change from going into effect so that these activities don’t balloon out of control before it can consider whether the FBI should be hacking Americans’ networks at all, and if so, what clear rules need to be put into place to ensure that Americans’ privacy and cybersecurity are adequately protected.”