Public universities in California would be barred from conducting research that helps the federal government collect electronic information without a warrant, if a bill introduced this week by state senators is passed.
Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), who represents the district that includes Westwood and UCLA, and Sen. Joel Anderson (R-San Diego) have proposed the Fourth Amendment Protection Act, or Senate Bill 828, for the new state legislative session.
The senators said they hope the bill will minimize California’s role in facilitating warrantless seizures of data by federal agencies such as the National Security Agency.
The agency has come under fire since June 2013, after former infrastructure analyst Edward Snowden leaked the classified data that showed the extent of the NSA’s international and domestic spying.
Recently, a federal judge ruled that the agency’s activities could be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures without a warrant.
The proposed bill would prohibit individuals, public agencies and corporations under contract with the state of California from helping the federal government collect data on Californians. This also means the University of California and California State University would be prohibited from conducting research related to unwarranted federal data mining programs.
“This does not apply to all research, only to specific cases,” Lieu said. “So if there was research going on on how to search and seize private information without a search warrant, this bill would prevent that.”
In an email statement, Anderson said he hopes this bill will strengthen privacies enumerated in the Fourth Amendment.
Currently, two UC campuses – UC Davis and UC Irvine – are part of the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education and/or Research programs, which is jointly sponsored by the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security.
The descriptions of the university programs recognized by the agency describe various cyber security initiatives. None of the UC or California State University school programs claim in their descriptions to research the collection of metadata.
At UC Davis’ Computer Security Lab, projects range from protecting programs and internet connections against vulnerabilities to research on making e-voting secure. Research at the Secure Computing and Networking Center at UC Irvine focuses more on network encryption and privacy.
“We have no awards from the NSA about metadata,” said Andy Fell, a spokesman for UC Davis.
Lieu said he does not know if California universities are conducting research specifically for the NSA, and that if it were happening, it would be classified.
California is one of several states, including Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, that have been considering measures aimed at limiting cooperation with the NSA.
The state legislature will convene next week to continue considering bills for the new year.