FISA Section 702 Isn’t the Only Way the Government Spies on Our Communications

FISA Section 702 Isn’t the Only Way the Government Spies on Our Communications Jeremy Busby (truthout.org › jeremy busby) & Isabella Lucia Maitino (truthout.org › isabella lucia maitino) Truthout/TheAppeal Congress is grappling with the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the controversial program that allows the U.S. government to surveil foreigners and the individuals that correspond with them, including Americans. Its proponents say it’s vital to national security, but civil liberties advocates say it’s unconstitutional. Section 702 expired on June 12 because lawmakers could not agree on terms for a renewal and, without a permanent director of national intelligence following Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation (until prosecutor Jay Clayton’s recent confirmation (politico.com) for the role), talks about resuming the program — with reforms or otherwise — have stalled. Section 702, which is considered a counterterrorism mechanism, grants government officials authorization to track foreigners abroad to obtain “intelligence information” in the interest of national security. But when tracking what it deems “intelligence information” about a foreigner, the government also collects ordinary information that has absolutely nothing to do with counterterrorism or security. Day-to-day communications from law-abiding U.S. citizens get caught up (justsecurity.org › truth behind section 702 query statistics) in this web of surveillance without their knowledge or consent, and without a warrant. This information is stored in government databases for years, if not indefinitely. Officials at the NSA, CIA, FBI, and other agencies can review this information for a wide variety of reasons, including criminal prosecution and immigration enforcement. At a time when the Trump administration seeks to expand the definition of terrorism to encompass a wide range of dissenting views, Americans’ fears of abuse of government surveillance (truthout.org) of their communications (truthout.org) are more justified (truthout.org) than ever; 15 activists in Minneapolis were recently indicted based largely on Signal chats (unicornriot.ninja), for example. Regardless of what happens with Section 702, the government is still spying on millions of U.S. citizens daily through its system of mass incarceration. These abuses — also conducted using security concerns as pretext — deserve every bit as much scrutiny as the government’s overreach under Section 702. Unseen surveillance has already eroded the privacy rights of millions of incarcerated individuals and those on the outside who communicate with them. Surveillance of Prison Communication The U.S. is the world’s leader in incarceration. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, there are nearly 2 million people held in the nation’s jails, prisons, and detention centers. Securus and ViaPath are the country’s largest prison and jail telecom corporations. Collectively, they dominate about 80 percent (theappeal.org › securus bankruptcy prison telecom industry) of the U.S. telecom market. In addition to its contracts with the federal government, this duopoly has agreements with at least 43 different states and over 800 county jails. They facilitate (themarshallproject.org › this call may be monopolized and recorded) hundreds of millions of calls and electronic messages between incarcerated