Oakland Privacy

The State of California, 21 years after the original passage of the Real ID Act of 2005, and during the most dangerous federal administration seen to date, is preparing to upload state Department of Motor Vehicles data to the private Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators Database (AAMVA). The upload is expected to be authorized in the upcoming state budget.

AAMVA is a private not for profit owned by the DMV’s of the 50 states. It provides a host of data verification services to motor vehicle departments through its aamvanet system, which connects to all DMV’s and a host of federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the Department of Transportation, the Selective Service and Homeland Security.

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Ever since the Section 702 addition to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 2008, privacy advocates have sought its abolition or significant reforms. Section 702 permits warrantless surveillance of the contents of the communications of Americans if one part of the communication is a non-US person.

The FISA Court has declared that “compliance problems with the FBI’s querying of Section 702 information have proven to be persistent and widespread.”

As a cherry on top, notorious immigration extremist Stephen Miller has recently been a lead advocate for a clean or unchanged Section 702 authorization.

70+ civil rights groups have once again demanded that Congress significantly reform Section 702 if it is re-authorized by (among other things) closing the backdoor search loophole, prevent the purchase of data broker information by intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement agencies, remove the expanded definition of an electronic communications service provider and add amici access and participation to FISA Court proceedings.

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