Justin Amash: “Woman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. For more than a year, Republicans have been speaking forcefully about…”

“Woman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. For more than a year, Republicans have been speaking forcefully about the use of FISA to gather intelligence on people associated with the Trump campaign. The concern is that some information was inappropriately included in an application submitted to the FISA court which then found probable cause and granted an order to authorize surveillance of a Trump associate. I appreciate my colleague's concerns about Americans' Fourth Amendment rights, but if my colleagues are concerned about the part of FISA used during the 2016 Presidential campaign, they should be terrified of section 702. Under section 702 of FISA, the FISA court does not approve targets. There are no individualized applications or requirements to show probable cause in order to collect communications. The government can search and sweep in billions of communications, including communications of Americans, and then query that data for a particular American's communications without a warrant. The communications can be used to investigate and prosecute Americans. The government can use an American's data to send them to prison without ever obtaining a warrant for it. The Amash-Lofgren amendment puts in basic safeguards to allow the government to continue using section 702 for its stated purpose of gathering foreign intelligence, while limiting the government's warrantless collection of Americans' communications under FISA.…”