In an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed a sprawling $886 billion military policy bill that includes an extension of surveillance authority that the government has used — and heavily abused — to access the communications of activists, journalists, lawmakers, and others without a warrant.
The four-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was tucked into the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as proposals to reauthorize the spying authority drew backlash from civil liberties groups and some members of Congress.
Given an opportunity to remove the extension from the NDAA on Wednesday, 65 senators — including 31 Democrats — voted to keep it in the military policy bill, which ultimately passed in an 87-13 vote.
Section 702 spying — part of a mass surveillance apparatus that lawmakers expanded dramatically in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — is supposed to be limited to non-U.S. citizens located outside the country. But U.S. citizens’ communications have frequently been hoovered up by authorities in the process of surveilling foreigners — and in circumstances completely unrelated to foreign spying efforts.
As the ACLU, Brennan Center for Justice, and other advocacy groups noted in a letter to congressional leaders last month, the FBI has used Section 702 authority to “gain warrantless access to the communications of tens of thousands of protesters, racial justice activists, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, journalists, and members of the U.S. Congress.”
“Even after the FBI’s recent changes to its internal procedures, the abuses have continued, with agents conducting warrantless searches for the communications of a U.S. senator, a state senator, and a state court judge who contacted the FBI to report civil rights violations by a local police chief,” the groups wrote. “NSA agents, for their part, have abused the authority to search for the communications of online dating prospects and potential tenants.”
The four-month extension of Section 702 that senators approved Wednesday would, in effect, likely become a 16-month extension, given that the U.S. government is expected to use the four months to secure a one-year extension from the FISA Court, as the Brennan Center’s Elizabeth Goitein explained earlier this week.
Now the proposed extension heads to the U.S. House, where the leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is formally urging its 100-plus members to vote against the NDAA. Opponents of the legislation need 146 votes to block it.
As The American Prospect’s David Dayen reported Wednesday, the CPC’s vote recommendation states that the NDAA “authorizes an unacceptably high national defense spending topline of $886.3 billion — all at a time when the Pentagon has failed an independent audit for its sixth consecutive year.”
The message adds that the NDAA also “contains a reauthorization of surveillance authorities routinely used against Americans in violation of the constitutional right to privacy.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the CPC, signed onto a letter late last month urging congressional leaders not to include a Section 702 extension in the NDAA.
“Section 702 reauthorization should be subject to strong scrutiny and debate and cannot be included in larger, must-pass legislation,” Jayapal said in a statement. “Congress must work to stop the government from warrantlessly spying on Americans.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy