5 months ago
36
Despite the House Judiciary Committee moving forward the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act (H.R. 6570) just yesterday on a 35-2 vote, Congressional leaders are threatening to betray broad bipartisan support for surveillance reform by ramming through reauthorization of Section 702 in the NDAA. According to the FISA Court, Section 702 has been "abused on a 'persistent and widespread' basis." The bill (H.R. 6570) supported by the vast majority of the House Judiciary Committee reauthorizes Section 702, as the administration has demanded, but with meaningful privacy protections for people in the United States, notably closing the backdoor search loophole and the data broker loophole.
In response to Congressional leaders attempting to undermine the bipartisan support for major reforms to Section 702, Demand Progress Policy Director Sean Vitka issued the following statement:
"Congressional leaders should not betray the broad, bipartisan support for surveillance reform by jamming Section 702 into the NDAA. It would perpetuate staggering abuses of Americans’ privacy, including wrongfully spying on protestors, politicians, journalists, and thousands of others. The key concern is that the government will recertify the authority for an additional year, no matter the deadline in the NDAA, meaning the administration is trying to trick Congress into allowing Section 702 surveillance to continue into 2025.”
As context, here are examples of the recent, unlawful abuse of Section 702, which this reauthorization would perpetuate into 2025:
- "[T]ens of thousands" of baseless searches "related to civil unrest" in a one-year period
- including 141 racial justice protestors and thousands of January 6 suspects.
- Searches for individuals an NSA analyst had met on an online dating site, and a prospective tenant."
- Searches for a state court judge who reported civil rights violations to the FBI.
- Searches for places of worship that were intentionally hidden from oversight.
- Searches for a member of HPSCI and a US Senator.
- A "batch" search for 19,000 Congressional donors.
- "Batch" searches that included current and former federal government officials, journalists, and political commentators.
- Searches for people who came to the FBI to perform repairs.
- Searches for victims who came to the FBI to report crimes.
- Searches for business, religious, and community leaders who applied to participate in the FBI's "Citizens Academy."
- Searches for college students participating in a "Collegiate Academy."
- Searches for family members and colleagues.
- Searches for police officer candidates.
- Searches for an individual employed by a defense attorney.
- Searches for a wrongly accused American academic.
- Searches based on a witness's report that two men "of Middle Eastern descent" were loading cleaning supplies into a truck.
- Searches for a local political party.
- "Batch" searches for 1600 Americans "who had flown through an airport during a particular date range and were either traveling to or returning from a foreign country"
- 2,000 searches for "the names and dates of birth of individuals who were registered competitors in an athletic event."
