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.
Press coverage in The Record: New Data Shows Increase in FBI Searches of Americans
Check out the letter below.