A Senate Dem and a Senate R jointly introduce legislation to establish data mining oversight

now, THIS is the kind of bipartisanship we need to see more of, not bush's phony "my-way-or-the-highway" kind...

U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John Sununu (R-NH) have reintroduced legislation requiring federal agencies to report to Congress on the use and development of data mining programs.

[...]

"This bill is a way for Congress and the public to finally understand what is going on behind the closed doors of the executive branch so that we can start to have a policy discussion about data mining that is long overdue," Feingold said. "The possibility of unchecked, secret use of data mining technology threatens one of the most important values that we are fighting for in the war against terrorism – freedom."

"Data mining and other technologies can be essential tools in detecting predictive patterns and possible outcomes from anonymous records. However, it is imperative that we understand the impact of such technology on Americans' personal privacy. In order to do this, Congress must be fully informed of the current data mining technologies, new ones that are being developed, the effectiveness of those technologies, and the privacy protections in place," said Sununu.

nice, and long overdue... let's see if it makes it through...

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