Blog of Rights
Michelle
Richardson

Michelle Richardson is a Legislative Counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office where she focuses on national security and government transparency issues such as the Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, cybersecurity, state secrets and the Freedom of Information Act. Before coming to the ACLU in 2006, Richardson served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee where she specialized in national security, civil rights and constitutional issues for Democratic Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.).

05/27/2011

Four More Years of Unchecked Spying, Surveillance and Secrecy

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:22pm

Last night, Congress passed and the president signed a four-year extension of three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act. You may recall that the original expiration was scheduled for December 31, 2009 — and what did Congress do after 18 months of short term extensions, sporadic hearings and a markup or two? Nothing. The Patriot Act was reauthorized as-is without a single additional privacy protection. After a rollercoaster week of Patriot Act consideration there were some definite winners and losers:

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05/12/2012
Patriot Act

National Security Letters: A Note On Numbers

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 7:53pm

A new article in Wired covers the evolution of the gag orders that come with national security letters (NSLs), secret FBI demands for your communication, internet, financial and credit records in terrorism investigations. As we wrote on Wednesday, the FBI is now notifying NSL recipients of their right to judicial review as a result of years of ACLU client litigation. 

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02/10/2013
CISPA

CISPA Claws Back to Life

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:54pm

It's baa-aaack.

The House cybersecurity bill that allows the National Security Agency (NSA) and the military to collect your private internet records is scheduled for an encore appearance on Wednesday. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) will reintroduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which news reports say will be the same bill that passed the House of Representatives last year.

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03/15/2011
Patriot Act

Howlers on the Patriot Act

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project & Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:44pm

The Patriot Act has been surrounded by a cloud of fear-mongering since it was reintroduced almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks and rushed through Congress, without any finding that the sweeping new powers granted by the act had anything to do with the problems and failures that contributed to that attack.

At the heart of the issue has been confusion between giving the authorities surveillance powers, and giving them unchecked surveillance powers. Much of what the Patriot Act did was to remove independent judges from oversight over invasions of privacy conducted in the name of law enforcement and national security.

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01/11/2013
FOIA

A FOIA White Out

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:46pm

Secret law exists inside the United States.

As we wrote a few weeks ago, one of the main issues discussed on the Senate floor during the FISA debate was secret law.  Under the law,  the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court makes secret interpretations and secret rulings about something that should never be secret: our constitutional rights. Sen.  Jeff Merkley (D-OR) fought for an amendment that would have required the administration to release the court’s opinions, to provide unclassified summaries of them, or to certify how many there are and why they can’t be released.

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04/27/2012
Cybersecurity

Keep Domestic Cybersecurity Efforts in Civilian Hands

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 8:37am

Last night the House of Representatives passed HR 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. We’ve written about the many privacy problems with this bill, but here I would like to focus on one of its biggest and most fundamental flaws: it empowers the military, including agencies like the NSA, to collect the internet records of Americans’ everyday internet use.

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05/23/2012
FISA Amendments Act

FISA Amendments Act is Back

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:28am

Remember the George W. Bush warrantless wiretapping program? The one that was so illegal that Congress had to pass a special law to ensure that no one was prosecuted for it or sued by their customers for facilitating it? And was found by independent reviewers to be pretty pointless anyway? And was then brilliantly codified and written into stone by Congress? And which almost immediately went off the rails, being used to collect all sorts of stuff it wasn’t supposed to? It’s back!

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12/10/2012
FISA

Warrantless Wiretapping Program Expires in Three Weeks: What Will the Senate Do?

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:39am

As we've told you many times, we believe the FISA Amendments Act is unconstitutional and have taken it to the Supreme Court . There’s not a vote in sight in the Senate. Frankly, that’s not a bad thing. We won't be disappointed if it sunsets on Dec. 31, as scheduled.

However, it's likely the Senate will eventually vote to reauthorize FISA, and its extraordinary authority to collect international communications coming in and out of the U.S. without a warrant. But senators Wyden, Leahy, Merkley and Tester are working hard to offer amendments that would increase transparency about the use of this very powerful spying law and insert common- sense protections for Americans' information.

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08/01/2012
Cybersecurity

Cyber Update: Do or Die Time

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:40pm

Cybersecurity legislation is on the Senate floor at this very moment, and critical votes could start as early as this evening. Here’s your primer on what’s at stake and how we expect things to go down.

Where are we in the process? Sen. Reid filed cloture on the bill last night, which means he’s ready to try for that 60-vote procedural threshold (which, according to the Senate rules, will determine whether they will move on and fully consider the bill). If he doesn’t strike a deal with Republicans sometime today, that vote will happen tomorrow morning. If his gamble pays off and he gets his 60 votes, the Senate will then turn to amendments, and hold the final vote by Friday. Of course, if there are not 60 votes, the bill is done for now, with a big question mark of what will happen when Congress comes back in the fall.

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07/26/2012
Cybersecurity

Sen. Franken To File Crucial Amendment to Cyber Bill

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:28pm

Last week, we gave you a quick rundown of the new privacy additions to S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012.  Also known as the Lieberman-Collins bill, this legislation provides comprehensive cybersecurity reform. 

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