WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last night, just before the Super Bowl, Politico reported that for only the fifth time since 1830 the House of Representatives plans to hold a secret session to debate extending extremely controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spying powers, most notably Section 702. This power has been continuously abused by the CIA, FBI, and NSA for over 15 years, with notable recent misuses including wrongful queries for agents’ online dating matches, a prospective tenant, “tens of thousands” of searches “related to civil unrest” over a one-year period, members of Congress, and countless more. Leading privacy and surveillance experts are calling foul.
The following statement can be attributed to Sean Vitka, policy director for Demand Progress:
“The House Intelligence Committee is and has been trying to cheat Americans out of overwhelmingly bipartisan and popular privacy protections. Putting any part of this critical and long-overdue debate behind closed doors is beyond the pale. We will continue to fight tooth and nail against Rep. Mike Turner and the Intelligence Committee’s efforts to hide this debate and sell out the American people.”
Demand Progress Education Fund and FreedomWorks recently released polling demonstrating overwhelming bipartisan support for a robust, open debate over Americans’ privacy. Among the key findings:
– Over 81% of Americans want Congress to “debate a variety of privacy protections for people in the U.S. before extending” Section 702, including the data broker loophole specifically. (Q10)
– 78% of Americans think Congress should “strengthen privacy protections for people in the U.S. against warrantless government surveillance.” (Q1)
– 74% of Americans think “Congressional leaders ensure rank-and-file members of Congress can openly debate and vote up-or-down” on these issues. (Q12)
– 76% of Americans think agencies should be “required to obtain warrants” before knowingly conducting backdoor searches of billions of international communications looking for people in the United States. (Q2)
– 80% of Americans think the government should “obtain warrants before purchasing location information, internet records, and other sensitive data about people in the U.S. from data brokers.” (Q8)
Over 100 organizations from across the political spectrum have come out in support of these long-overdue protections.