Patriot Act
In the Senate debate over the Patriot Act in October
2001, Biden once again allied himself closely with the FBI. The
Justice Department favourably quotes Biden on its web site as
saying: "The FBI could get a wiretap to investigate the mafia, but
they could not get one to investigate terrorists. To put it
bluntly, that was crazy! What's good for the mob should be good
for terrorists."
The problem is that Biden's claim was simply false: which he should have known after a decade of experience lending his name to wiretapping bills on behalf of the FBI. As CDT explains in a rebuttal to Biden: "The Justice Department had the ability to use wiretaps, including roving taps, in criminal investigations of terrorism, just as in other criminal investigations, long before the Patriot Act."
But Biden's views had become markedly less FBI-friendly by April 2007, six years later. By then, the debate over wiretapping had become sharply partisan, pitting Democrats seeking to embarrass President Bush against Republicans aiming to defend the administration at nearly any cost.
In addition, Biden had announced his presidential candidacy three months earlier and was courting liberal activists dismayed by the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping.
That month, Biden slammed the "president's illegal wiretapping program that allows intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on the conversations of Americans without a judge's approval or congressional authorisation or oversight." He took aim at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for allowing the FBI to "flagrantly misuse National Security Letters", even though it was the Patriot Act that greatly expanded their use without also expanding internal safeguards and oversight as well.
Biden did vote against a FISA bill with retroactive immunity for any telecommunications provider that illegally opened its network to the National Security Agency; Obama didn't.
Both agreed to renew the Patriot Act in March 2006, a move that pro-privacy Democrats including Ron Wyden and Russ Feingold opposed. The ACLU said the renewal "fails to correct the most flawed provisions" of the original Patriot Act. (Biden does do well on the ACLU's congressional scorecard.)
"Baby-food bombs"
The ACLU also had been at odds with Biden
over his efforts to censor bomb-making information on the Internet.
One day after a bomb in Saudi Arabia killed several US servicemen
and virtually flattened a military base, Biden pushed to make
posting bomb-making information on the internet a felony,
punishable by up to 20 years in jail, the Wall Street Journal
reported at the time.
"I think most Americans would be absolutely shocked if they knew what kind of bone-chilling information is making its way over the internet," he told the Senate. "You can access detailed, explicit instructions on how to make and detonate pipe bombs, light-bulb bombs, and even, if you can believe it, baby-food bombs."
Biden didn't get exactly what he wanted: at least not right away. His proposal was swapped in the final law for one requiring the attorney-general to investigate "the extent to which the First Amendment protects such material and its private and commercial distribution." The report was duly produced, concluding that the proposal "can withstand constitutional muster in most, if not all, of its possible applications, if such legislation is slightly modified."
It was. Biden and co-sponsor Dianne Feinstein introduced their bill again the following year. Biden pitched it as an anti-terror measure, saying in a floor debate that numerous terrorists "have been found in possession of bomb-making manuals and internet bomb-making information." He added: "What is even worse is that some of these instructions are geared toward kids. They tell kids that all the ingredients they need are right in their parents' kitchen or laundry cabinets."
Biden's proposal became law in 1997. It didn't amount to much: four years after its enactment, there had been only one conviction. And instead of being used to snare a dangerous member of Al Qaeda, the law was used to lock up a 20-year old anarchist Webmaster who was sentenced to one year in prison for posting information about Molotov cocktails and "Drano bombs" on his web site, Raisethefist.com.
Today there are over 10,000 hits on Google for the phrase, in quotes, "Drano bomb". One is a video that lists the necessary ingredients and shows some self-described rednecks blowing up small plastic bottles in their yard.
Then there's the US Army's Improvised Munitions Handbook with instructions on making far more deadly compounds, including methyl nitrate dynamite, mortars, grenades, and C-4 plastic explosive, which free speech activists placed online as an in-your-face response to the Biden-Feinstein bill.
Peer-to-peer networks
Since then, Biden has switched from
complaining about internet baby-food bombs to taking aim at
peer-to-peer networks. He held one Foreign Relations committee
hearing in February 2002 titled "Theft of American Intellectual
Property" and invited executives from the Justice Department,
RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft to speak. Not one Internet company, P2P
network, or consumer group was invited to testify.
Afterwards, Sharman Networks (which distributes Kazaa) wrote a letter to Biden complaining about "one-sided and unsubstantiated attacks" on P2P networks. It said: "We are deeply offended by the gratuitous accusations made against Kazaa by witnesses before the committee, including ludicrous attempts to associate an extremely beneficial, next-generation software program with organised criminal gangs and even terrorist organisations."
Biden returned to the business of targeting P2P networks this year. In April, he proposed spending US$1 billion in tax dollars so police can monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity. He made that suggestion after a Wyoming cop demonstrated a proof-of-concept program called "Operation Fairplay" at a hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
A month later, the Senate Judiciary committee approved a Biden-sponsored bill that would spend over US$1 billion on policing illegal internet activity, mostly child pornography. It has the dubious virtue of being at least partially redundant.
One section would "prohibit the broadcast of live images of child abuse," even though the Justice Department has experienced no problems in securing guilty pleas for underage webcamming. (The bill has not been voted on by the full Senate.)
Online sales of Robitussin
Around the same time, Biden
introduced his self-described Biden Crime Bill of 2007. One section
expands electronic surveillance law to permit police wiretaps in
"crimes dangerous to the life, limb, and well-being of minor
children." Another takes aim at internet-based telemedicine and
online pharmacies, saying that physicians must have conducted "at
least one in-person medical evaluation of the patient" to
prescribe medicine.
Another prohibits selling a product containing dextromethorphan, including Robitussin, Sucrets, Dayquil, and Vicks, "to an individual under the age of 18 years, including any such sale using the internet." It gives the Justice Department six months to come up with regulations, which include when retailers should be fined for shipping cough suppressants to children. (Biden is a longtime drug warrior; he authored the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act that the Bush administration used to shut down benefit concerts.)
Net neutrality
On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical.
In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary
because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop
that "the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this
largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all
the way down to the White House." Obama, on the other hand, has
been a strong supporter of handing pre-emptive regulatory authority
to the Federal Communications Commission.
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One of the main items referred to is something called PGP but what that stands for is not explained leaving the article a waste of space for me. Perhaps I could be called ignorant but I bet there are a lot like me who are left in the dark about PGP!