Wyden said Monday that the controversial provision has been removed, prompting him to lift his hold and allow the Intelligence Authorization Act to come to the Senate floor.
Rebecca Watkins, a spokeswoman for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., confirmed Monday that the provision — authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., — had been removed.
The bill authorizes 2016 funding levels for all U.S. agencies that engage in intelligence-gathering activities, including the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security. A similar bill passed the House in June.
The provision that Wyden objected to would have required Internet and social media companies to report to the government any “terrorist activity” they are aware of on their sites. The companies would have to judge when their customers` speech rose to the level of a terrorist action.
"Going after terrorist recruitment and activity online is a serious mission that demands a serious response from our law enforcement and intelligence agencies,” Wyden said Monday. “Social media companies aren’t qualified to judge which posts amount to ‘terrorist activity,’ and they shouldn’t be forced against their will to create a Facebook Bureau of Investigations to police their users’ speech."
Social media, especially Twitter, is increasingly being used by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State to recruit followers, FBI officials and others have warned.
The Internet Association, representing Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and other major Internet companies, objected to the vagueness of the reporting provision.
The group said uncertainty over the provision`s meaning would have created "an impossible compliance problem" and resulted in "massive reporting of items that are not likely to be of material concern to public safety."
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