The Renewal of FISA Section 702--What You Need to Know

Wednesday - November 22 2023, 15:17 UTC - 1 year ago

For the past week, a debate over the renewal of a controversial program of American surveillance (FISA Section 702) has been dominating my social feeds. The program, created in 2008, enables US agencies to collect electronic 'foreign intelligence information' without a warrant, potentially collecting data about Americans. Despite past abuses by intelligence agencies, critics from a broad coalition are pushing for reforms to the program. The main supporters are the intelligence agencies themselves, and the Biden administration has pushed for its reauthorization without reform. Ultimately, Congress must balance national security and individual rights.

For the past week my social feeds have been filled with a pretty important tech policy debate that I want to key you in on: the renewal of a controversial program of American surveillance.The program, outlined in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), was created in 2008. It was designed to expand the power of US agencies to collect electronic "foreign intelligence information," whether about spies, terrorists, or cybercriminals abroad, and to do so without a warrant .

Tech companies, in other words, are compelled to hand over communications records like phone calls, texts, and emails to US intelligence agencies including the FBI, CIA, and NSA. A lot of data about Americans who communicate with people internationally gets swept up in these searches. Critics say that is unconstitutional. Despite a history of abuses by intelligence agencies, Section 702 was successfully renewed in both 2012 and 2017 .

The program, which has to be periodically renewed by Congress, is set to expire again at the end of December. But a broad group that transcends parties is calling for reforming the program, out of concern about the vast surveillance it enables. Here is what you need to know. Wikimedia, the foundation that runs Wikipedia, also opposes the program in its current form, saying it leaves international open-source projects vulnerable to surveillance .

"Wikimedia projects are edited and governed by nearly 300,000 volunteers around the world who share free knowledge and serve billions of readers globally. Under Section 702, every interaction on these projects is currently subject to surveillance by the NSA," says a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation. "Research shows that online surveillance has a ‘chilling effect’ on Wikipedia users, who will engage in self-censorship to avoid the threat of governmental reprisals for accurately documenting or accessing certain kinds of information .

" The main supporters of the program’s reauthorization are the intelligence agencies themselves, which say it enables them to gather critical information about foreign adversaries and online criminal activities like ransomware and cyberattacks. The Biden administration has also broadly pushed for the reauthorization of Section 702 without reform."Section 702 is a necessary instrument within the intelligence community, leveraging the United States’ global telecommunication footprint through legal and court-approved means," says Sabine Neschke, a senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center .

"Ultimately, Congress must strike a balance between ensuring national security and safeguarding individual rights." While it’s not yet clear whether these reforms will pass, intelligence agencies have never faced such a broad, bipartisan coalition of opponents. As for what happens next, we’ll have to wait and see.