Late Friday night, the U.S. Senate “reauthorized the U.S. surveillance agency's landmark Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act shortly after it expired early Saturday morning,” Axios reported.
The reauthorization came despite bipartisan concerns about Section 702, which allows the government to collect communications from non-Americans abroad without a warrant. The bill passed the Senate 60-34, with 17 Democrats, Sen. Bernie Sanders (R-Vermont), and 16 Republicans voting “no.” This extends controversial Section 702 for another two years.
The bill was already passed by the US House of Representatives last week, CNN explains.
Under Section 702 of FISA, the government monitors large amounts of internet and cell phone data about foreign targets. In the process, information on hundreds of thousands of Americans is incidentally collected and then accessed without a warrant each year, but this is one of the millions of such inquiries conducted by the U.S. government in the past few years. is below. Critics call these queries “backdoor” searches…
According to one assessment, this is the basis for much of the information the president sees every morning, helping the United States monitor Russian intentions in Ukraine, identify foreign efforts to access U.S. infrastructure, and monitor foreign efforts to gain access to U.S. infrastructure. It is said to be helping to uncover domestic terrorist networks and thwart domestic terrorist attacks.America
Interesting details from The Verge:
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) proposed an amendment that would impact the language of the House bill expanding the definition of “electronic communications service provider.” submitted. The House's new rule covers anyone who has “access to equipment that is or may be used to transmit or store wired or electronic communications.” Wyden argued that the expansion would force “ordinary Americans and small businesses into covert, warrantless espionage.” The Wyden-Hawley amendment failed 34-58. This means that the next iteration of the FISA surveillance program will be expanded than before.
On Saturday morning, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban TikTok if its Chinese owners do not sell the app.