ACLU Applauds Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Report and Urges Congress to Fundamentally Reform Section 702
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Called for Major Changes to Law the Government Uses to Warrantlessly Surveil Americans’ International Communications
WASHINGTON — A key government oversight board released a report today outlining the essential, far-reaching reforms lawmakers must make to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to protect Americans’ privacy as Congress weighs reauthorizing the law at the end of the year.
The report, endorsed by a majority of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), found little justification for the close to 5 million U.S. person queries — often known as “backdoor searches” — conducted by the FBI from 2019 to 2022. It additionally revealed that from November 2020 to December 2021, the FBI conducted tens of thousands non-compliant queries related to domestic civil unrest and protests. The Board recommended a number of reforms including:
- Requiring the government to seek individualized judicial approval before searching Section 702 data for the private communications of Americans.
- Narrowing the scope of surveillance that may be conducted under Section 702 by limiting it to twelve specific objectives and by banning the National Security Agency’s ability to restart “abouts” collection without congressional approval.
- Strengthening oversight and transparency with respect to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Sharon Bradford Franklin, the chair of the PCLOB, further recommended that Congress impose a probable cause standard before the FBI can access the result of a U.S. person query conducted at least in part to seek evidence of a crime. As she explains, adopting this standard is the only way to ensure that these searches of Americans’ private communications fully comply with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. A majority of the board further indicated that they would support a Congressional determination requiring a probable cause standard for any U.S. person query designed to retrieve evidence of crime.
The following is a statement from Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the ACLU:
“Congress has the power to safeguard the constitutional rights of Americans by fundamentally reforming this invasive and unconstitutional mass surveillance program. As the Board rightly points out, requiring the government to obtain individualized judicial approval is critical to ensuring that Section 702 cannot be used by the FBI, NSA, and CIA to quietly circumvent Americans’ constitutional rights.
Congress must adopt significant reforms to Section 702 and other authorities, including by imposing a warrant requirement for agents and analysts to search Section 702 data for the private communications of Americans — whether that’s for evidence of a crime or foreign intelligence purposes.”
The Board’s report is available online .
Learn More About the Issues in This Press Release
-
Press ReleaseDec 2024
Privacy & Technology
ACLU Applauds Arizona Supreme Court Historic Decision That Police Need a Warrant to Access DNAACLU Applauds Arizona Supreme Court Historic Decision That Police Need a Warrant to Access DNA
PHOENIX — In a 7-0 decision, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a warrant is required to extract and analyze people’s DNA, saying that a person’s limited consent to a search of biological material for a specific purpose—in this case, a blood alcohol test for a DUI arrest—does not overcome that requirement. The ACLU and the ACLU of Arizona filed a friend-of-the-court brief in State v. Mitcham, arguing the government cannot genetically test biological material it already has in its possession—whether that’s blood taken from newborns to test for diseases or swabs collected from sexual assault survivors—to investigate the donors for a crime without first obtaining a warrant. In the decision, the court wrote that “in reaching this conclusion, we emphatically reject the State’s position that it was free to analyze Mitcham’s blood in any way it pleased simply because the State lawfully possessed the blood vials.” “Government analysis of our DNA can expose detailed information about our identity, appearance, family relationships, medical conditions, and more. We don’t consent to sharing all of that information each time we involuntarily shed our DNA or consent to a blood draw. The government’s argument in this case was a privacy nightmare,” said Vera Eidelman, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “We are greatly heartened by the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to preserve the privacy of our sensitive genetic information.” In 2015, during a DUI arrest, the defendant in this case consented to the government collecting a sample of his blood solely to test it for blood-alcohol content, and was advised that the sample would be destroyed after 90 days. Instead, law enforcement held on to this sample for three years, at which point it used it for a completely different purpose—to extract and analyze his DNA, without a warrant or consent—while investigating another crime. Had the court accepted the government’s rationale here, all of us who consent to a biological sample collection, at any point in time, for any purpose, to any government entity, could have been subject to a warrantless DNA search after the fact. “Our DNA can reveal so much about us that our genetic privacy must be protected,” said Jared Keenan, legal director of ACLU of Arizona. “The Court’s decision is vital to protecting the strong constitutional rights that keep all Arizonans’ information safe from warrantless searches and unconstitutional intrusion.” -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Privacy & Technology
Face Recognition Threatens to Replace Tickets, ID at Sports Events – and BeyondFace Recognition Threatens to Replace Tickets, ID at Sports Events – and Beyond
You shouldn't participate in face recognition ticketing schemes. -
MississippiJul 2024
Free Speech
Privacy & Technology
NetChoice v. FitchNetChoice v. Fitch
Whether a law that mandates age verification for all users of social media services violates the First Amendment. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Privacy & Technology
AI Generated Police Reports Raise Concerns Around Transparency, BiasAI Generated Police Reports Raise Concerns Around Transparency, Bias
AI-generated police reports threaten to exacerbate existing problems in law enforcement, and to create new ones.