Despite Bipartisan Outcry, Senate Betrays the Fourth Amendment and Passes Bill to Expand Warrantless Government Surveillance
WASHINGTON — Late Friday evening, the Senate caved to pressure from U.S. intelligence agencies and a bill that reauthorizes and Section 702 of FISA, creating new ways for the government to spy on Americans without a warrant.
“It is profoundly disappointing that Congress passed a bill that gives the government more ways to secretly surveil us — with little power to hold spy agencies accountable,” said Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Senators were aware of the threat this surveillance bill posed to our civil liberties and pushed it through anyway, promising they would attempt to address some of the most heinous expansions in the near future. We plan to make sure these promises are kept.”
The “Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act” includes dangerous provisions, such as:
- Expanding the definition of “electronic communications service providers,” which allows the government to force a wide range of U.S. businesses to give the NSA access to their wifi routers, phones, and other communications equipment.
- Requiring completely suspicionless searches of Section 702 data for non-U.S. persons seeking permission to enter the country, including visa holders who are longtime residents of the United States and are returning from travel.
- Weakening the FISA Court’s ability to obtain independent input from experts on civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy when the government secretly seeks permission to conduct novel forms of surveillance.
The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act reauthorizes Section 702 for two years, through April 2026. The ACLU and its partners will work until then to ensure that Congress is finally able to address the severe and long-standing constitutional problems with this authority.
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.