Scholars propose reforms to address privacy concerns under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Security Act.<\/p>\n
Congress must periodically review the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act\u2019s<\/a> (FISA) Section 702<\/a>\u2014which authorizes electronic surveillance of non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States to gather foreign intelligence information\u2014deciding whether to renew or allow it to expire. In December 2023, lawmakers wrestled<\/a> with whether\u2014and, if so, how\u2014to extend Section 702 in the face of national security warnings and bipartisan privacy concerns, particularly allegations that U.S. persons\u2019 communications were being collected without a warrant. Although critics highlighted<\/a> past abuses of Section 702 authority and the potential for a lack of safeguards for U.S. nationals\u2019 data, intelligence officials cautioned<\/a> that letting the program lapse could lead to \u201cone of the worst intelligence failures of our time.\u201d This push-and-pull culminated in April 2024, when Congress passed the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act<\/a> (RISAA) to reauthorize Section 702 through April 2026.<\/p>\n Congress added<\/a> Section 702 to FISA in 2008 as part of the FISA Amendments Act<\/a>. Unlike traditional FISA surveillance, Section 702 enables<\/a> programmatic surveillance: the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence certify annual targeting and minimization procedures that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) reviews in bulk without individualized court orders. Although the law forbids using Section 702 to target anyone on U.S. soil, U.S. agencies allegedly collect U.S. nationals\u2019 information when communicating with a foreign target.<\/p>\n Notably, in June 2013, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden leaked<\/a> hundreds of classified slides and documents revealing the scope and mechanics of U.S. and allied signals-intelligence programs. This leak included<\/a> details about the NSA\u2019s downstream collection of e-mails, video chats, and file transfers from major U.S. tech companies, and its upstream interception of communications from the Internet backbone under Section 702 authority.<\/p>\n The heated debate over Section 702 pits national security surveillance needs against constitutional and privacy protections. Critics contend<\/a> that the structure of FISA proceedings\u2014non-adversarial matters in which only the government is represented\u2014leads to insufficient judicial pushback and fails to safeguard individual rights. In response to these critiques, in 2015 Congress established<\/a> a panel of amici curiae\u2014independent experts\u2014to advise the FISA Court. Still, under current law, only the government may appeal<\/a> FISC rulings. As a result, when surveillance requests are approved, no opposing party can challenge the decision.<\/p>\n Legal scholars generally urge stronger procedural safeguards for this secret court system. Some propose<\/a> FISA\u2019s amici to flag controversial s<\/strong>urveillance approvals for the FISA Court of Review, creating an appeals mechanism to foster further scrutiny even when targets are not directly represented. Others advocate<\/a> requiring the FISC to publish redacted opinions and annual reports on Section 702 certifications. Such reforms aim to preserve Section 702\u2019s capacity to collect critical foreign intelligence while bolstering accountability and privacy rights.<\/p>\n In this week\u2019s Saturday Seminar, experts and scholars discuss the reauthorization of FISA Section 702 and the ongoing debate over its future.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Saturday\u00a0Seminar\u00a0is a weekly feature that aims to put into written form the kind of\u00a0content that would be conveyed in a live\u00a0seminar\u00a0involving regulatory experts. Each week,\u00a0The Regulatory Review\u00a0publishes a brief overview of a selected regulatory topic and then distills recent research and scholarly writing on that topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scholars propose reforms to address privacy concerns under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Security Act. Congress must…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[7962,3453,18298,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-329954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-data-privacy","9":"tag-data-security","10":"tag-national-security","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114997580543159603","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n