CAPAC, CHC and CPC Chairs Lead 53 Members of Congress in Urging Leadership to Include Fourth Amendment Protections in FISA Reauthorization

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, 53 Members of Congress — led by the Chairs of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus — sent a letter to House and Senate leadership calling for meaningful Fourth Amendment protections for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Section 702, which is set to expire on April 20, authorizes the federal government to conduct surveillance of non-U.S. citizens abroad. However, the program has long been used to collect and search Americans' private communications without a warrant, and under the Trump Administration, that threat has escalated dramatically.

“The Trump Administration has demonstrated an unparalleled appetite for collecting and exploiting Americans' personal data,” the Members wrote. “Without independent guardrails on Section 702, this Administration has repeatedly shown that it cannot be trusted to police its own use of this sweeping surveillance authority.”

The letter highlights how federal agencies are already purchasing Fourth Amendment-protected data from commercial data brokers without warrants or court orders, including the FBI, DHS, the Department of Defense, and the IRS. The proposed reforms in the letter include closing the “data broker loophole,” the gap in existing law that allows companies to skirt data privacy requirements by selling information to a data broker middleman who can then resell it to the federal government; ending warrantless searches of Americans’ communications; and repealing the “visa vetting provision” which permits completely suspicionless searches of communications data of all immigrants entering the country.

The letter was endorsed by over 30 advocacy organizations, including: Access Now, ACLU, Amnesty International USA, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), Black Voters Matter Fund, Center for Democracy & Technology, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Color Of Change, Common Cause, Courage California, Defending Rights & Dissent, Due Process Institute, Earth Ethics, Inc., Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Fight for the Future, Free Press Action, Indivisible, Japanese American Citizens League, Lucy Parsons Labs, Make the Road States, Muslims for Just Futures, NTEN, Oakland Privacy, People Power United, Project On Government Oversight, Restore The Fourth, RootsAction, Snake River Alliance, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, The Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology, UltraViolet Action, WA People's Privacy.

The full letter is available HERE.