What’s Good and What’s Missing in the 702 FISA Reform Bill

My colleague Pat Eddington has already taken a first pass at the newly unveiled legislation aimed at reforming Section 702, the controversial foreign intelligence surveillance authority that empowers warrantless surveillance of foreigners outside the United States. While Pat focused primarily on the defects of the bill, I’d like to start by briefly surveying what I think it gets right, and then note a few other elements I was disappointed not to see included.

Probably the two most salient features of the “USA Liberty Act” for civil libertarians are that it partially closes the so-called “backdoor search loophole” in 702, and that it codifies the recent end of Upstream “about” collection. For those not steeped in electronic surveillance law, both of those will require a bit of explanation.

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