S.T.O.P. Warns Biden Foreign Surveillance E.O. Ignores Domestic Threats

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For Immediate Release S.T.O.P. Warns Biden Foreign Surveillance E.O. Ignores Domestic Threats (New York, NY 2/28/2024) – Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based privacy and civil rights group, warned that Biden’s executive order to prevent large-scale dating sharing of Americans’ personal data with “countries of concern” ignores domestic surveillance threats. Announced this morning, the executive order will establish safeguards from private data brokers selling Americans’ information to adversarial foreign powers. The civil rights group warned that the executive order fails to address the gravest surveillance threats facing Americans, including domestic data sharing and sale of sensitive information to police, government agencies, and private firms. SEE: AP News - Biden issues executive order to better shield Americans’ sensitive data from foreign foes https://apnews.com/article/biden-executive-action-personal-data-protections-china-ea0fe0af31dc26b254e2724c8e53867f   The White House - FACT SHEET: President Biden Issues Executive Order to Protect Americans’ Sensitive Personal Data https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/28/fact-sheet-president-biden-issues-sweeping-executive-order-to-protect-americans-sensitive-personal-data/ “For most Americans, the country of greatest concern on surveillance is the U.S.,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. “Americans are tracked every day by an increasingly invasive array of private data brokers and government agencies, transforming nearly every aspect of our digital lives into a marketing and policing tool. This executive order will do almost nothing to address the real privacy needs that most Americans have, and continues to conflate surveillance capitalism with foreign surveillance. Only in Washington, does privacy once again get misunderstood as a foreign threat, rather than a domestic industry. After all, if you ask European leaders what country's surveillance most concerns them, it's not China or Russia, it's the U.S. None of this is a substitute for the civil rights and privacy protections the public so desperately needs." Earlier this month, the civil rights group condemned Speaker Mike Johnson for planning a rare secret session of the whole House to reauthorize Section 702 mass surveillance. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) grants sweeping surveillance powers that the FBI illegally abuses thousands of times per year to track U.S. citizens, despite hollow promises that the powers would only target foreign nationals. SEE: Press Release - S.T.O.P. Condemns House’s Secret 702 Session, Warns ‘Democracy Dies In Darkness’ https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2024/2/13/stop-condemns-houses-secret-702-session-warns-democracy-dies-in-darkness The White House - FACT SHEET: President Biden Issues Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/10/30/fact-sheet-president-biden-issues-executive-order-on-safe-secure-and-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence/ The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider. S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Our work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color. --END-- CONTACT: S.T.O.P. Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. Copyright © 2021 Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, All rights reserved.