What ' s Good and What ' s Missing in the 702 Reform Bill

My colleague Pat Eddington has already taken afirst pass at thenewly unveiled legislation aimed at reforming Section 702, the controversial foreign intelligence surveillance authority that empowers warrantless surveillance of foreigners outside the United States.  While Pat focused primarily on the defects of the bill, I’d like to start by briefly surveying what I think it gets right, and then note a few other elements I was disappointed not to see included.  Probably the two most salient features of the “USA Liberty Act” for civil libertarians are that it partially closes the so-called “backdoor search loophole” in 702, and that it codifies the recent end of Upstream “about” collection.  For those not steeped in electronic surveillance law, both of those will require a bit of explanation. The “backdoor search loophole” is explained well and in some detailhere by the Brennan Center ’s Liza Goitein, but here ’s the essence of it:  Section 702 permits the warrantless targeting of foreign persons located outside the United States, subject to broad procedures for selecting targets and “minimizing” the information obtained.  With more than 100,000 persons targeted for surveillance annually, the scop e of communications collection under this authority is, as one might expect, enormous, and includes messages the targeted individuals exchange with American citizens.  This provides a roundabout mechanism for obtaining the communications of Americans,...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs