Congress seeks to delay changes to warrant rules

A bipartisan bill would delay controversial changes to search and seizure rules that would permit some forms of hacking by law enforcement. 

{mosads}Rule 41, the rule that governs searches, is set to change on Dec. 1. But the bipartisan, bicameral Review the Rule Act would delay the start date until July 1, 2017, to give Congress time to consider the changes.

The updates to Rule 41, which backed by the Department of Justice and passed by the Supreme Court, would allow justices to issue warrants to hack computers when the computer’s location is obscured by technological means.

It would also allow a single warrant to permit hacking across five or more districts, which could be used to mitigate networks of hijacked computers called botnets, used to attack other computers or send spam.

The Review the Rule Act “will give Congress time to do our job and carefully consider and evaluate the merits of these proposed changes to the government’s ability to search personal computers and other digital devices,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), one of the sponsors.

The act is sponsored by Coons, with Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) all signing on; Reps. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and Ted Poe (R-Texas) are cosponsors in the House.

Civil liberties groups have roundly been against increasing the government’s ability to hack computers, and the act’s sponsors have echoed some of those concerns.

“A single prosecutor should not have the power to hack into the phone or computer of virtually anyone in the United States,” Lee said in a press release.