Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was enacted in 2008 to authorize government collection of communications from non-U.S. persons located abroad. The premise was targeted foreign surveillance. The reality has been something broader.
This Wednesday, Emily Grimmius, Privacy Policy Analyst at Libertas Institute, will join a panel of privacy and surveillance experts for a virtual staffer briefing on one of the most active fights in Congress right now, and the abuses at the center of it are well-documented.
Americans’ communications get swept up in Section 702 collections constantly, then accessed through warrantless queries with no meaningful check on who gets looked at or why. The backdoor search loophole lets agencies search collected data for Americans’ communications without a warrant. The data broker loophole lets them purchase data they couldn’t otherwise legally obtain. Both remain open.
Congress has known about these abuses for years. Rather than fix them, it just passed a 45-day extension pushing Section 702’s sunset date to June 12, kicking the debate down the road one more time. That deadline is now here, and the reauthorization fight will determine whether real guardrails finally get attached to this authority or whether the status quo rolls forward again.
The briefing covers reform proposals, national security tradeoffs, and where the debate stands heading into the deadline.
Emily will be joined by former Congressman Bob Goodlatte, Molly Powell of Americans for Prosperity, Jake Laperruque from the Center for Democracy and Technology, Alex Matthews of Restore the Fourth, and Jason Pye of the Due Process Institute.
