Failed Trump-Warner FISA Deal Is A Threat to Democracy
Washington, D.C. — Early Friday morning, the Senate majority leader failed to pass a bill extending warrantless surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:
“By trying to ram through a FISA extension without meaningful reform, John Thune and Mark Warner just fell into the same trap as Mike Johnson and Jim Himes. Today’s resounding defeat for opponents of privacy shows that there is no path forward for FISA without a warrant requirement. Clear majorities of Americans across the nation, and in Congress, do not want the government bypassing the courts to hoover up our private, personal data. If the White House and congressional leadership want to renew FISA, they have to stop ignoring this obvious fact and allow votes on real privacy reforms.”
A robust set of resources on the need for privacy reforms for FISA are available here and here, and additional background, context, polling, reform demands, resources and other information is available here. A video on Pulte from Jessica Craven can be found here and a sample of the ways FISA has been used to wrongfully target protesters, journalists, politicians and others is available here. 76 percent of Americans think the government should be required to get warrants before searching international communications for people in the United States; 80 percent think Congress should close the data broker loophole.