In 2008, Congress passed a set of updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), including Section 702 which authorized warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be outside the country. However, documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that 702 was being used far more heavily than many expected, serving as the legal basis for the collection of large quantities of telephone and Internet traffic passing through the United States (and unlike 215, including content rather than just metadata). Still, as 702 only permits overseas collection, most criticism of the provision has come from abroad. But many domestic privacy advocates also worry that large amounts of American communication are being swept up “incidentally” and then used as well.
Latest in FISA: 702 Collection
On Dec. 8, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the conviction of an Uzbek immigrant that relied on information obtained through warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, claimed that the NSA’s “Upstream” surveillance program captures its international communications and is a violation of its First Amendment free-speech rights and its Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
On Aug. 10, the Director of National Intelligence released its 21st Joint Assessment of Section 702 Compliance, which covers June 1, 2018 to Nov. 30, 2018. The semiannual report is produced in compliance with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
Is the FISC failing its responsibilities with respect to the function it performs in the Section 702 program? Given the role the FISC is intended to play with respect to its oversight of the Section 702 program, the answer is no.
On Sept. 4, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a tranche of documents regarding procedures governing foreign intelligence collection. We summarize those documents here.
On Monday, Feb. 24, the House Judiciary Committee introduced legislation that would amend and reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that incidental collection of U.S. persons’ communications under Section 702 does not violate the Fourth Amendment, but raised constitutional questions related to querying databases containing these communications.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the case of Agron Hasbajrami should be returned to the district court level for further proceedings. Hasbajrami alleged that the incidental collection of his communications under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act that led to his arrest violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders filed an opening brief on behalf of Jamshid Muhtorov in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Mr.
The legislative debate over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has ended with passage of a six-year reauthorization that omitted many of the provisions privacy advocates had argued were necessary. But the legal and policy debate is likely to continue in the U.S. and in European courts.
We took different positions in the overall debate on Section 702. But we agree that there is an important step the U.S. government can take now to bolster transparency and accountability within the program without unduly burdening legitimate intelligence activities.