Political Quotes

“Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, is a valuable, important national security tool for collecting foreign intelligence. The problem is that the government is also using section 702 as a backdoor for warrantless spying on Americans here at home. FISA section 702 allows the intelligence community to collect the communications of foreigners who are overseas without a warrant. The justification for bypassing the Constitution's warrant requirement is that foreigners overseas are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. American citizens certainly are. But the government isn't just collecting the communications of foreigners; they are also collecting millions, if not billions, of communications of innocent Americans in touch with those foreigners as well. Our government then searches those private emails, phone calls, and text messages of Americans without a warrant. Congress has repeatedly failed to fix this end run around the Constitution's protection. Unsurprisingly, without court approval for such searches, the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the FISA Court have documented shocking abuses of section 702 by our government. The intelligence community has used this authority to spy on American businesses, American religious leaders, political parties, campaign donors, journalists, and protesters across the political spectrum.”