In March, EPIC laid out its key priorities for reform as part of any reauthorization of Section 702. Since the last reauthorization cycle alone, government audits and FISC opinions have revealed hundreds of thousands of improper searches, including tens of thousands of improper searches relating to civil unrest and significant civil rights abuses.īecause of these abuses, EPIC believes there should be no reauthorization of Section 702 absent significant reform. However, under these rules, agencies can and do search for particular Americans’ information in Section 702 databases, turning Section 702 into a potent tool for domestic surveillance. Because Section 702-by design-sweeps in Americans’ communications, agencies have “minimization procedures” for this information. It is Section 702’s impact on Americans in particular that has motivated conversations around reform this year.

Under Section 702, the government collects hundreds of millions of communications a year, including an unknown-but significant-number of communications to or from Americans communicating with any of the 246,073 foreign targets. Section 702 surveillance is conducted without adhering to the traditional rules of FISA and without individualized court orders by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). electronic communication service providers. persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States to acquire “foreign intelligence information” with the compelled cooperation of U.S. Section 702 authorizes surveillance programs targeting non-U.S. The Stakes and EPIC’s Criteria for Reform Ahead of further debate, let’s look at the current proposals for reauthorizing Section 702.

However, because of Congress’s disappointing and unnecessary “temporary” extension of Section 702 as part of the National Defense Reauthorization Act (NDAA), there is likely to be no further movement on the reform debate until early 2024-that is, if the administration does not get a new, year-long certification further punting reform debates into 2025. As 2023 comes to a close, the debate over reauthorizing Section 702 remains heated.

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