Notice of Intent to Object to Proceeding

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to give notice of my intent to object to any unanimous consent agreement regarding S. 482, the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act.

I want to first start by making myself clear: I support the vast majority of the provisions in this bill. It has now been over three years since Russia meddled in our last presidential election, and Congress has yet to hold Vladimir Putin accountable for it. I commend the bill's sponsors for coming together, on a bipartisan basis, with legislation that would take real steps to address Moscow's aggression.

Unfortunately, the bill is burdened by one extremely problematic, unrelated section, Title IV, or what was previously known as the International Cybercrime Prevention Act. This is now the fourth time my colleagues have attempted to jam that bill through this very chamber. In fact, the same exact language was first floated in 2015, only to be defeated. It was brought up again in 2016, and was, again, defeated. Once more, in 2018, this bill was introduced as a standalone bill and, again, defeated.

The authors of this problematic legislation are giving it one more try, this time by attempting to bury it within a largely unrelated 100- page, bipartisan legislative vehicle. And, by adding this language onto an extraneous foreign relations bill, my colleagues have been able to bypass the jurisdictional scrutiny of the Senate Judiciary Committee altogether.

Title IV of the bill is, at best, an extremely misguided piece of legislation. While its proponents claim the language is meant to fight botnets and other malicious cybercrime in a limited context, its effects would be far more broad-reaching. What this bill would do, in reality, is significantly expand the badly outdated Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or the CFAA--a law that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has time and time again abused against cybersecurity researchers and activists, including the late Aaron Swartz.

Mr. President, advocates and legal experts have long warned that the CFAA chills legitimate speech and research. DOJ has adopted an interpretation of the CFAA so extreme that it has argued in federal court that it is illegal merely for someone to violate a website's terms of service, such as by lying about their height, weight, or age in an online dating profile. While I take a back seat to no one when it comes to protecting Americans from hackers and improving our nation's cybersecurity, DOJ has stretched this Reagan-era hacking law to absurdity.

The last time the International Cybercrime Prevention Act was proposed in this chamber, I voted against it because I believed then, as I do now, that the draconian CFAA must be modernized. I have sought to reform the CFAA, and rather than addressing its many serious flaws, Title IV of DASKA expands it, creating broad new prohibitions and harsh penalties.

Mr. President, I've said it before and I'll say it again. The bill before us is a resoundingly good bill--but it is one that is held back by one small and unrelated section. My hope is that, working in a bipartisan way, we can resolve this glaring problem with DASKA. However, until that happens, I will object to any unanimous consent request to proceed to the legislation.

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