(WASHINGTON) — Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a two-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA 702”), a controversial warrantless spying authority, and in an extremely narrow tie vote, rejected critical reforms to stop rampant abuse of the law ...
Not a good result. The good amendment to add a warrant requirement failed on a tie vote; bad amendments to expand the scope of warrantless wiretapping passed. Next step: a Senate vote.
Here’s your privacy friendly reminder that the government is currently incapable of decrypting end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) transmissions like iMessage, FaceTime, Signal, Viber, Telegram, WhatsApp, Protonmail, etc.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act establishes procedures for the surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence on domestic soil. If foreign agents are using communications signals to communicate with someone in the US, the government must go to the FISA court and obtain a warrant for surveillance. This is how we found out about Trump Jr. Contact with Russian agents. Catches a lot of spies. On the whole, better to have than not
The FBI routinely uses its authority under FISA Section 702 to get information on Americans without a warrant, ignoring the processes that are supposed to be put in place to protect people. This has nothing to do with the FISA Title III authority that was used to get information about Carter Page, no matter what you and Trump think. If you warrantless surveillance of Americans is good, then by all means you should indeed be cheering this vote -- because they extended the scope of what information they can get at without a warrant.
If on the other hand you think civil liberties are worth protecting, then you might take a moment to stop to think that there was bipartisan support, including progressive Democrats, for introducing reforms like a warrant requirement while still keeping the ability to surveil foreign agents in place. But opinions differ, there are plenty of people in both parties who don't think civil liberties are worth protecting, so if you're one of them you've got a lot of company.
The FISA court provides warrants, it's what they do. If I was a legal compliance officer at a Telcom, I wouldn't move my ass for anything but a warrant. A tap without a warrant is illegal and puts the operating company in jeopardy.