Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has joined a host of congressional colleagues in advancing proposed reforms to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Civil rights advocacy groups have hailed those reforms as the most comprehensive and balanced surveillance legislation introduced on Capitol Hill in years (Image courtesy of Facebook).
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has joined a bipartisan and bicameral effort to protect Americans from domestic surveillance by agencies of the federal government.
The Government Surveillance Reform Act was simultaneously introduced into the U.S. House and Senate on Nov. 7. That legislation would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — which is due to expire on Jan. 1, 2024 — but with several new protections for citizens’ rights.
“It is imperative that Congress enact real reforms to protect our civil liberties,” Lee says, “including warrant requirements and statutory penalties for privacy violations, in exchange for reauthorizing Section 702.”
That’s necessary, Lee argues, because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court and Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, have confirmed that federal agencies conducted warrantless surveillance of millions of Americans’ private communications in recent years.
“Our bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act stops illegal government spying and restores the constitution rights of all Americans,” Lee adds.
Section 702 of the FISA law allows the U.S. government to collect digital communications of foreigners living outside the country. But federal authorities have also used Section 702 as justification to search through the foreign surveillance for information on Americans without a court-ordered warrant.
The proposed Government Surveillance Reform Act would end that practice.
Speaking to reporters under conditions of anonymity, a senior Biden administration official countered that the legislative proposal would be “operationally unworkable,” although the official stopped short of promising a presidential veto.
At a hearing on Capitol Hill last week, Christopher Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warned that a warrant requirement for domestic surveillance would hamper his agency’s ability to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.
Although surveillance advocates insist that Section 702 of the current FISA law includes sufficient safeguards for 4th Amendment privacy rights, congressional investigations have documented numerous abuses in recent years.
Those include warrantless searches involving a U.S. senator, a member of the House of Representatives and a state court judge, among others.
The backers of the proposed Government Surveillance Reform Act say that legislation includes a host of corrective actions that go beyond Section 702 of the FISA law, including requiring warrants for government purchases of private information from commercial data brokers.
But the new law would also allow the government to continue to use Section 702 for defensive cybersecurity purposes; to assist in locating and rescuing hostages held overseas; and in emergency situations where there isn’t time to obtain a warrant in advance.
The Government Surveillance Reform Act was introduced in the Senate by Lee and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), with co-sponsors Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Steve Daines (R-MT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Cythia Lummis (R-WY), Jon Tester (D-MT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Edward Markey (D-MA).
In the House of Representatives, a companion bill to the proposed legislation was introduced by Representatives Warren Davidson (R-OH) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), with co-sponsors Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Judy Chu (D-CA), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Lou Correa (D-CA) and Ted Lieu (D-CA).
“Americans understand that it’s possible to confront our country’s adversaries ferociously without throwing our constitutional rights into the trash can,” Wyden said at a press conference on Nov. 7.
Hailed by civil rights advocacy groups as the most comprehensive and balanced surveillance legislation in years, the bill has drawn strong support from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, among others.