Enacted in the years after 9/11, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows intelligence agencies to collect emails, calls, and messages from foreigners abroad, but in practice it also sweeps in Americans’ communications, when they interact with those targets.
The FBI and other government agencies can then search Americans’ communications without a warrant.
Now Congress is approaching a deadline to decide whether and how to renew or reform this law.
Write a letter to Congress to stop warrantless spying on Americans.
"Reform Section 702: End mass warrantless surveillance"
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act program allows the government to spy on Americans’ communications without a warrant. It’s been abused in the past to target journalists, peaceful protesters, elected officials, and others.
The coalition urging reform of this act is generally aligned behind:
Do not reauthorize FISA unless the backdoor search and data broker loopholes are closed
---Congress Must Close Data Broker Loophole by Prohibiting Government Purchases of Americans’ Sensitive Data (Brennan Center for Justice)
A two-pager compiled by the Brennan Center illustrating why Congress must close the data broker loophole by prohibiting government purchases of Americans’ sensitive data.
---Your data is everywhere. The government is buying it without a warrant
(Jude Joffe-Block, Morning Edition, NPR, 3-25-26)
A whole industry of data brokers buys up vast quantities of electronic information from cell phone apps and web browsers and sells it to advertisers who use that data to target ads.
The same industry also sells that data, including bulk cell phone location data, to police departments and federal government agencies in ways that can reveal intimate details about Americans without a warrant.
Now, privacy advocates say that the best chance for Congress to close the well-known loophole around the Fourth Amendment that allows for that sort of governmental snooping is coming up in just a few weeks.
That's when Congress is expected to take up reauthorization of what is known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on April 20.
Last week, some 130 civil society organizations signed on to a letter urging members of Congress to include closing the data broker loophole in FISA 702 reauthorization, citing the "unprecedented expansion of warrantless mass surveillance that is sweeping up the private information of communities across America" and the potential for the loophole to be used "to supercharge AI-powered surveillance."
At a Senate hearing last week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Federal Bureau of Investigations director Kash Patel if he would commit to not buying Americans' location data, which is usually obtained from cell phones. Patel declined to do so, instead saying the FBI "uses all tools" and "we do purchase commercially available information that's consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us."
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment on which commercial data the FBI purchases.
---ICE has spun a massive surveillance web. We talked to people caught in it (Kat Lonsdorf, Jude Joffe-Block, Meg Anderson, NPR, 3-4-26)
To understand how federal agents are using various Department of Homeland Security surveillance tools in real time, NPR collected dozens of accounts — through interviews and court documents — describing confrontations with federal immigration officers in recent months.
Activists and journalists spoke of tactics they felt were intimidating: agents photographing their faces or license plates; calling them by name; or leading them to their homes. Immigration lawyers told NPR their clients had been subjected to facial recognition technology. One ICE agent, testifying under oath, spoke of an app that showed the likely home addresses of people targeted for deportation.
• Warrantless Surveillance Under Section 702 of FISA (ACLU)
Section 702 is set to expire at the end of 2023.
We call on Congress to significantly reform the law, or allow it to sunset.
Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the U.S. government engages in mass, warrantless surveillance of Americans’ and foreigners’ phone calls, text messages, emails, and other electronic communications.
Information collected under the law without a warrant can be used to prosecute and imprison people, even for crimes that have nothing to do with national security. Given our nation’s history of abusing its surveillance authorities, and the secrecy surrounding the program, we should be concerned that Section 702 is and will be used to disproportionately target disfavored groups, whether minority communities, political activists, or even journalists.
What’s Wrong With Section 702
Section 702 allows warrantless surveillance of people inside and outside the U.S.
Despite the fact that the law is not supposed to be used to target Americans, the government has been doing just that for years. Information collected under Section 702 could be used against you, and you likely wouldn’t know. Section 702 is used to examine communications flowing in and out of the U.S. in bulk. Surveillance programs have been abused by the intelligence agencies.
• Wikimedia v. NSA - Challenge to Upstream Surveillance
The ACLU is challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s mass interception and searching of Americans’ international Internet communications. At issue is the NSA’s “Upstream” surveillance, through which the U.S. government systematically monitors private emails, messages, and other data flowing into and out of the country on the Internet’s central arteries.
The ACLU’s lawsuit was brought on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation and eight legal, human rights, and media organizations, which together engage in trillions of sensitive communications and have been harmed by Upstream surveillance.
• Amnesty v. Clapper - Challenge to FISA Amendments Act (updated 2-26-15)
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), enacted by Congress after the abuses of the 1960s and 70s, regulates the government’s conduct of intelligence surveillance inside the United States.
It generally requires the government to seek warrants before monitoring Americans’ communications. In 2001, however, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to launch a warrantless wiretapping program, and in 2008 Congress ratified and expanded that program, giving the NSA almost unchecked power to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and emails. In February 2013, the Supreme Court dismissed the ACLU's lawsuit challenging the law.