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Four Wyden Provisions Strengthen
Final Senate
Intelligence Reform Bill
Senate approves Intelligence reform legislation
including key classification measure, data-mining oversight and
provisions for airline passenger rights and safety
October 6, 2004
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Intelligence
reform legislation approved by the Senate today includes four
key amendments offered by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Wyden,
a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, worked
on a bipartisan basis to win approval of significant reforms to
the intelligence classification system, oversight on data-mining
of Americans’ personal information in Federal agencies,
and two significant consumer protection provisions related to
airline safety and passenger rights.
“The Senate’s overhaul
of America’s intelligence system now includes some critical
provisions showing that you can preserve national security while
safeguarding individuals’ civil liberties,” said Wyden.
“These amendments help this legislation strike a proper
balance – pursuing terrorists aggressively on the intelligence
front, while protecting Americans’ rights to information,
privacy and safety at the same time.”
Wyden was successful in including
a bipartisan amendment that would name an Independent National
Security Classification Board to reexamine classifications decisions
at the request of Congress. The provision would also give Congress
a role in the development of the National Intelligence Director’s
new classification guidelines and standards. The amendment would,
for the first time, give Congress an independent, standing body
to which it can appeal a national security classification decision.
“Too much information
is kept from the public and their representatives for political
reasons,” stated Wyden. “This amendment makes sure
the public retains the right to information affecting their own
safety while legitimate national security interests are protected.”
Also included in the legislation
approved by the Senate today is a key Wyden measure that would
require the National Intelligence Director to provide to Congress
a detailed report explaining the use of databases for law enforcement
or intelligence purposes. Currently, there are no comprehensive
privacy laws regulating the federal government’s access
to, or use of, public and private databases. Wyden, who successfully
stopped the implementation of a massive data-mining program called
“Total Information Awareness” in 2003, has led the
fight in the Senate to protect Americans’ personal information
from unfair searches, while promoting the use of technology as
a powerful weapon against terror.
Wyden was also successful in
including two key airline passenger rights and safety measures
in the intelligence reform bill:
Airline passengers holding tickets
on bankrupt airlines would continue to be able to trade in those
tickets for flights on other airlines. This amendment would provide
a one-year extension of the consumer protection provision, which
was first enacted in the fall of 2001 and is due to expire November
19. Under the amendment, airline passengers holding a ticket on
an airline that ceases operations due to financial insolvency
would be able to use their tickets on another airline offering
flights on the same routes on a space-available basis. The Department
of Transportation has ruled that under this trade-in policy, the
second airline may charge no more than a $50 administration fee
to process the roundtrip ticket change.
Butane lighters would be banned
from the passenger cabins of commercial aircraft under an amendment
offered by Wyden and Senator Byron Dorgan (D-S.D.). Specifically,
the provision would direct the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) to ban the lighters from passenger flights. Wyden has pushed
to have the lighters banned for nearly a year. In October 2003,
he wrote Admiral James Loy, then head of the TSA, to urge a review
and reversal of the policy that allowed the lighters in the cabins
of passenger aircraft. However, since that time, the TSA has refused
to ban the items from being banned, and today’s legislation
closes this major security gap.
“I am pleased that the
Senate has included these two common-sense measures to protect
American airline passengers and consumers,” said Wyden.
“Ensuring the safety of our skies and the health of a major
sector of our economy are both important priorities and a key
part of strengthening our nation’s security.”
The Senate passed the National
Intelligence Reform Act today 96-2. The House of Representatives
is currently considering a different version of the legislation.
Once passed, differences between two versions will be worked out
in a House-Senate conference committee.
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