"Section 702 was sold to Congress as a vital tool to target foreign adversaries,"
"We were given high-stakes assurances ... that it would not be used improperly against honest Americans. I was in the room when they represented it would not be abused. That was a lie."
"For decades and with increasing regularity," he added, "it has been the government's permission slip for warrantless spying on Americans."
Section 702 of FISA authorizes a government database of communications collected for foreign intelligence purposes while allowing searches of Americans' data without a warrant. Privacy and surveillance experts and lawmakers from both parties warned that current controls have failed and that backdoor searches risk turning a foreign intelligence tool into a mechanism for domestic surveillance. A federal court found at least one FBI backdoor search to be a Fourth Amendment search and unconstitutional. Calls increased for Congress to require probable-cause warrants for searches of Section 702 data or to allow the authority to lapse.
Read at WIRED
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