Legislation that would protect us from the risk of future offshore drilling disasters took a step forward today. U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner, from New York City, added his name to the sponsors of the No New Drilling Act, H.R. 5248.

Overnight, news emerged that for years, the FBI grabbed Americans’ private telephone records without any search warrants, and justifying the seizures of these records by claiming that there were emergency terrorist threats that in fact never existed. Thousands of times, the FBI completely invented stories of terrorist plots to attack the United States so that [...]

The EFF is requesting assistance in reading the documents and considering their relevance. Please go on over and take a look at the newly released papers.

The activist website Get FISA Right, after working with the ACLU and EFF this month on an unsuccessful campaign to pressure the Senate Judiciary Committee into making significant surveillance reforms, has begun asking whether Congress is the appropriate target of pressure on legislative reforms. Although it may seem like a no-brainer to call Congress when [...]

When I say “legislative hearing,” you probably think of a meeting in an ornate room with formally-dressed people speaking into microphones and occasionally invoking rules of order. But these aren’t the only way in which legislation gets a hearing. Out on the street, people are speaking about legislation. Will members of Congress hear? Will members [...]

Senate Candidate Amy Klobuchar, 2006: “I would have advocated for changes to the Patriot Act, including provisions that protect libraries from government searches. With those changes, I would have voted for the renewal of the Patriot Act. In the future, however, I will advocate for additional protections for civil liberties”. Will Senator Amy Klobuchar keep [...]

At That’s My Congress, we would like to clarify a matter which may appear unimportant out of context. In context, however, the clarification demonstrates a small but consistent effort by two senators to reform surveillance laws in the direction of greater constitutional protection. In an otherwise excellent legislative analysis by Kevin Bankston of the Electronic [...]

This morning, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont opened a full Judiciary Committee markup session on S. 1692, legislation to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act for another four years, until December of 2013. A video record of the committee meeting can be viewed here. In his introductory remarks, Senator Leahy made the following declaration regarding “national [...]

On Wednesday, September 9, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois added his name in cosponsorship of H.R. 104, a bill to establish a national commission on presidential war powers and civil liberties. This bill, introduced by Rep. John Conyers, would create an independent investigative body with subpoena powers to unearth the nature and extent of [...]

As part of our ongoing series of legislative reports, we at That’s My Congress regularly update our LGBT Equality Caucus scorecard to reflect the performance of members of the LGBT Equality Caucus in supporting bills in the caucus’ own slate. As you might expect for a set of representatives choosing to affiliate themselves with the [...]