Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today urged members of the House of Representatives to reject efforts to rubber-stamp warrantless surveillance of Americans by the Trump Administration.
The broad surveillance enabled by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) must be reformed to better protect Americans’ Constitutional rights and include new safeguards against abuse before it is renewed, Wyden wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter sent today. The House is expected to vote on a bill to reauthorize Section 702 this week, without a single reform.
“At a time when our democracy is under tremendous threat, we owe it to our constituents to have a real, open debate about surveillance authorities that directly affect both their security and their fundamental freedoms. And we should not exclude Americans from that debate,” Wyden wrote.
Although Section 702 of FISA allows the government to collect and read the communications of people overseas, in practice it scoops up huge amounts of Americans’ communications. The government is then able to search for and read Americans’ messages without a warrant or any court oversight.
“In many cases these will be law-abiding Americans having perfectly legitimate, often sensitive, conversations,” Wydenwrote. “These Americans could include journalists, foreign aid workers, people with family members overseas – even women trying to get abortion medication from an overseas provider. Congress has an obligation to protect our country from foreign threats and protect the rights of these and other Americans.”
Wyden also urged House members to ensure 702 legislation closes a loophole in federal law that allows the government to buy Americans’ location data without a warrant. Current law has no protections against feeding purchased location data into AI systems to conduct unprecedented mass surveillance, and FBI Director Kash Patel admitted in an open Senate Intelligence Committee hearing this spring that the FBI purchases Americans’ location data.
Wyden and other members have introduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation to end warrantless searches of Americans’ communications under Section 702 and close the data broker loophole. The Government Surveillance Reform Act represents a balanced package of reforms that extends Section 702 with strong, baseline protections for Americans’ rights.
Read the full letter here.
A web version of this release is here.
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