Wyden seeks vote on bill to stop govt. ‘hacking’ of personal devices

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., went to the Senate floor Thursday to call for a vote on his bill to stop a dangerous plan that would make it far easier for the government to hack into Americans’ personal devices on a massive scale.

“This major policy change is going to make it easier for the government to hack into the personal devices of Americans and collect information about them,” Wyden said. “The government could end up damaging not only our personal devices, but the power grid, hospitals and nearly any other system connected to the internet.”

Unless Congress passes Wyden’s Stopping Mass Hacking Act by December 1, the new rules allowing government mass hacking will automatically take effect, the senator said.

Wyden, joined by Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, asked for a vote on his bipartisan bill to block the new rules from taking effect. Wyden also called on Senate leaders to hold a hearing on the sweeping rule changes and his bill.

“In my view, the limits of search and seizure are unquestionably an issue for Congress to debate,” Wyden said. “The Justice Department should not have the power to change the practical meaning of the Fourth Amendment without the people’s elected leaders weighing in.”

The Stopping Mass Hacking (SMH) Act would protect millions of law-abiding Americans from government hacking by stopping new rules changes from going into effect.

The changes would allow the government to get a single warrant to hack an unlimited number of Americans’ computers if their computers had been affected by criminals, possibly without notifying the victims.

Daines, along with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., are original co-sponsors of the Senate bill.

At the request of the Department of Justice, federal courts recommended an administrative change to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which were approved by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

The amendments to Rule 41 would make it easier for DOJ to obtain warrants for remote electronic searches. The amendments would allow a single judge to issue a single warrant authorizing government hacking of an untold number of devices located anywhere in the world. The amendments would take effect on December 1, absent congressional action.