LETTER TO CONGRESS: A Clean Extension of FISA Section 702 Will Undermine Second Amendment Rights

Former U.S. Rep. and PPSA Senior Advisor, Bob Goodlatte. PHOTO CREDIT: Gage Skidmore

A warning from Bob Goodlatte, former Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and Senior Policy Advisor at the Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability:

In the FISA Section 702 reauthorization debate, understand that the stakes go beyond your constituents’ privacy and Fourth Amendment rights. This debate will determine whether warrantless surveillance powers will quietly erode the Second Amendment.

A “clean” reauthorization of Section 702 – without meaningful reforms – would lock in a system able to track lawful gun ownership across America.

Because many firearms sold in the United States are manufactured abroad, the communications surrounding those transactions – emails, calls, shipping, and logistics data – are often swept into Section 702 databases. As Patrick Eddington of the Cato Institute has reported, this data provides insight into firearm transactions at a level of “commercial granularity” that can rival – or exceed – a formal gun registry.

Now consider how this data can be abused when combined with other sources:

• Federal agencies are already purchasing Americans’ sensitive personal data from third-party data brokers
  
  
• Such datasets reveal location histories, financial transactions, and consumer behavior
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• Agencies can then identify visits to gun stores, purchases of firearms or ammunition, and patterns of lawful ownership.

Layer these datasets together – add the power of artificial intelligence – and a comprehensive gun ownership database can be assembled, even though Congress has explicitly prohibited a federal gun registry. Without guardrails, current surveillance authorities create a backdoor path to that exact outcome. Government agencies will easily be able to map the political associations and religious affiliations of gun owners.
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Vote “No” against a “clean” reauthorization of Section 702. Congress must add safeguards to protect our constitutional rights.

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