The Association of Research Libraries (ARL), together with 71 other privacy and civil liberties groups, sent a letter to the US Senate and House Judiciary Committees, calling on Congress to provide greater transparency around national security – related requests by the US government to Internet, telephone, and web-based service providers for information about users and subscribers.
The coalition strongly supports the Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013 (S. 1452) and the Surveillance Order Reporting Act of 2013 (H.R. 3035), each of which would clarify that companies have the right to publish basic statistics about the government demands for user data that they receive.
The coalition sent the letter to urge Congress to hold hearings on the issue of surveillance transparency as a prelude to the markup of these bills. This letter follows the July 18 letter that the coalition sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
