Committee member warns Senate against reauthorizing FISA Section 702 without reforms

A committee member and senator on the Senate Intelligence Committee warned the Senate on the floor that any senator who votes to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without meaningful reforms "will be directly responsible when the Trump team abuses their spying powers to go after Americans."

The senator said Section 702, which "is supposed to be an authority aimed at foreigners outside The United States," expires on Monday and acknowledged its utility for collecting information about foreigners. He argued, however, that the law "lacks adequate safeguards" and allows Americans' emails, texts and other communications to be swept up, citing journalists, foreign aid workers, people with family overseas and women seeking abortion medication as examples of groups whose communications can be affected.

The senator highlighted what he called the "backdoor search" loophole, saying the government is allowed to "trawl their way through the vast collection of 702 data to conduct warrantless searches for Americans' communications." He said the FBI increased the number of warrantless searches for Americans' communications "by more than a third" last year and that the number of so-called sensitive warrantless searches "more than tripled during the first year of the Trump administration," adding that the FBI has refused to explain why.

He also warned that government agencies are circumventing warrant requirements by purchasing Americans' location data from data brokers. "If the government wanted to compel companies to hand over this information, it would need a warrant," the senator said, but through the data-broker loophole the FBI, ICE, CBP and the Pentagon "can buy the sensitive information ... with essentially no oversight."

Citing a March 17 FISA court ruling, the senator said the court found "major compliance problems with Section 702," and that press reports indicate the administration is appealing the ruling so it would not be required to fix those problems. He asked how Congress could responsibly reauthorize the authority while that appeal is pending and "nobody knows what reforms are actually needed." He said the court ruling should be declassified and announced he had prepared a classified document explaining the problems in more detail and had made it available in a secure room at Senate security, urging colleagues to read it.

The senator also raised concerns about new technology, quoting an AI-industry CEO who warned that "AI-driven mass surveillance presents serious, novel risks to our fundamental liberties," and he said powerful AI can assemble scattered data into a comprehensive picture of an individual's life at massive scale. He said he had written to leading AI firms asking whether their products could be used to analyze information on Americans collected through bulk surveillance; according to the senator, none denied they could be used that way.

Describing a bipartisan, bicameral group that has worked on a solution, the senator said the reforms his bill would require include a warrant when the government wants to deliberately read an American's email or text and language to close the data-broker loophole. He urged senators to "insist that the renewal of Section 702 include real reforms" and to oppose any extension that does not include the protections he described. He yielded the floor and the clerk called the roll.