Surveillance state lackeys are back at it again - the Biden administration went behind Congress's back, and asked FISC (the secret intelligence court) to approve Section 702 surveillance as-is for another year. Also, Speaker Mike Johnson has firmly placed his stakes with the Intelligence Community, backtracking on allowing Congress to vote for amendments that would close the backdoor search and data broker loophole.

We need you to write your Congressional representatives and urge them to not support any FISA Section 702 reauthorization that does not include sorely needed reforms.

FISA Section 702 allows the government to collect the communications of non-U.S. persons without a warrant to thwart national security threats. Inevitably, because we live in a global world where we digitally engage with others across borders, Americans' texts, emails, and phone calls are collected and stored in the 702 database. The FBI abuses their access to this database to retrieve our private communications without a warrant, amounting to 278,000 violations of the Fourth Amendment in one year alone. The power is set to expire April 19th without Congressional action.  

Law enforcement and Intelligence officials also get around the Fourth Amendment by simply purchasing your sensitive data from a shady, unregulated data brokerage market. This data-broker loophole essentially swaps a judicially approved warrant for a credit card. No surveillance reform effort is complete without a provision signed into law that stops this abusive practice.

This Thursday, the House will vote on a revised version of the Reforming Intelligence and Securing American Act (RISAA). This is Speaker's Johnson's last ditch effort to renew the abusive spy power, after many previous failed attempts.

The new version of RISAA is a disaster. Below we break down why:

1. RISAA’s main reform is a prohibition on FBI officials conducting backdoor searches intended to find evidence of a crime unconnected to foreign intelligence. These searches represent a minute fraction of backdoor searches overall. Of more than 200,000 backdoor searches conducted in 2022, only 2 were evidence of a crime queries, as they are called.
2. Rather than include the popular Lee-Leahy amendment, which was previously voted out of the Senate 77-19, RISAA weakens amici’s oversight role by limiting them to only addressing issues the FISC identifies. Additionally, amici would be required to have “to the maximum extent possible” experience in both civil liberties and national security, heavily tipping the scales in favor of former government attorneys.
3. RISAA also codified internal FBI changes made to querying procedures. However, these internal rule changes have proved inadequate. By the government’s own estimation, the FBI continues to commit several thousand violations under these rules every year.

Speaker Johnson is siding with the likes of Mike Turner, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) - the same guy who stoked unnecessary national panic by releasing years-old intelligence on "Russian space nukes." This was a desperate attempt to derail the democratic process and prevent backdoor search and data-broker loophole amendments from coming to the House Floor for a vote.

All of this amounts to a betrayal of the American people. 76% of Americans support closing the backdoor search loophole and 80% support closing the data-broker loophole. We need you to emphasize how popular surveillance reform is to your lawmakers.

We need you to remind them that they swore to protect the Constitution, and that their duty is to serve the interests of their constituents. Please take action today.