 The recent drama in the House and Senate on surveillance reform had more reversals than an episode of the original Game of Thrones series, lots of verbal swordplay with both sides switching places on the Iron Throne. The Legislative Twists and Turns The House leadership succeeded on Wednesday evening in passing a three-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This would have amounted to a three-year vacation from oversight for an authority that was enacted by Congress to enable surveillance of foreign threats on foreign soil, but that has also been used by the FBI for warrantless domestic spying on the American people. Yet, a number of House reformers bought into this offer by House leadership, which cleverly attached a promised ban on the creation of a “central bank digital currency.” We applaud this idea but deplore the cynicism behind this tactic. It is true that such a digital currency would end any semblance of financial privacy, giving the government the means to track every transaction by every American in real time. We knew, however, that the anti-digital currency proposal was already dead on arrival in the Senate. It was a shiny but worthless object. Sure enough, Senate Majority Leader John Thune declared the digital currency provision a “poison pill” for Section 702 reauthorization. On Thursday the Senate quickly passed a short-term “clean” reauthorization of Section 702 – for 45 days – which then went back to the House. We are grateful that many of PPSA’s reform allies took to the House floor to complain that Congress is still considering a clean reauthorization bill that offers no substantive reforms at all. What is the state of play now? The issue of whether or not to attach reforms to Section 702 remains unresolved. Thus the Iron Throne remains empty and open to capture by either side. The battle over surveillance reform resumes in when Congress returns in a week and is likely to continue through mid-June. What Was So Bad About the House Leadership’s Proposal A three-year gap before the next reauthorization of Section 702 would be an excessive delay before the next opportunity for Congress to debate and exercise meaningful oversight over the intelligence community. The regular reauthorization debate – the last one was a mere 18 months ago – is the only opening in the legislative calendar for reformers to press for a warrant requirement for government inspection of Americans’ communications under programs authorized by Section 702. It is the only vehicle by which reformers can press to end the warrantless purchase of Americans’ personal data by federal agencies from shady, third-party data brokers. And it is the only leverage Congress has to narrow a 2024 provision that allows the NSA to secretly compel countless small businesses and houses of worship to spy on customers and congregants. Just as bad, a three-year delay before the next reauthorization debate would leave the intelligence community free to evade scrutiny while it turbocharges its practices with the astonishing privacy-destroying power of AI. Imagine what AI surveillance might look like between now and 2029. We told all of this to Members of Congress, and many responded with alarm. We were encouraged that the three-year extension passed the House by only a slim margin. The vast majority of Democrats opposed the reauthorization, and 22 Republicans stood up to Speaker Johnson’s absurd three-year delay before the next surveillance debate as well. The Struggle Ahead Between now and mid-June, we will continue to work with other civil liberties organizations to educate Members of Congress about surveillance abuse. More and more Members of Congress seem to be getting the message. We exposed the weakness of many so-called reform proposals and the realities of surveillance abuse on our website. This last week, for the first time, the number of visitors to our website topped more than 1 million views, including 402,000 first-time visitors. PPSA peppered Congress with email blitzes detailing the deficiencies of leadership proposals that were long on cosmetics but short on substance. We were delighted to see that the open rate of PPSA’s Key Vote Alerts to senators, representatives, and staff reached 42 percent, far above the industry average of around 15 percent. Most important of all, PPSA worked to keep you up to speed, with our website, social media outreach, virtual briefings, and our newsletter on the intelligence community’s latest shenanigans. Our voice on Capitol Hill would not be heard without you. You answered our call to blitz congressional offices with your emails and calls – and the result can be seen in the fact that surveillance reform lives to fight another day. So thank you for your support of PPSA. And above all, thank you for showing up when we issued calls to action by contacting your representatives in Congress. With your efforts, surveillance reform is still in play. With your continued support, we will stand our ground for Americans’ privacy. Fingers crossed. Comments are closed.
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