U.S. Senate and Biden Administration Shamefully Renew and Expand FISA Section 702, Ushering in a Two Year Expansion of Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance

One week after it was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate has passed what Senator Ron Wyden has called, “one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history.” President Biden then...

Bad Amendments to Section 702 Have Failed (For Now)—What Happens Next?

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted against considering a largely bad bill that would have unacceptably expanded the tentacles of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, along with reauthorizing it and introducing some...

The White House is Wrong: Section 702 Needs Drastic Change

With Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act set to expire later this month, the White House recently released a memo objecting to the SAFE Act—legislation introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Mike Lee that would reauthorize...

The SAFE Act to Reauthorize Section 702 is Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is one of the most insidious and secretive mass surveillance authorities still in operation today. The Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act would make some much-needed and long...

Podcast Episode: 'I Squared' Governance

Imagine a world in which the internet is first and foremost about empowering people, not big corporations and government. In that world, government does “after-action” analyses to make sure its tech regulations are working as intended, recruits...

NSA Spying Shirts Are Back Just In Time to Tell Congress to Reform Section 702

We’ve been challenging the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of ordinary people since we first became aware of it nearly twenty years ago. Since then, tens of thousands of supporters have joined the call to fight what became Section 702...

Privacy Isn't Dead. Far From It.

Welcome! The fact that you’re reading this means that you probably care deeply about the issue of privacy, which warms our hearts. Unfortunately, even though you care about privacy, or perhaps because you care so much about it, you may feel that...

The Intelligence Committees’ Proposals for a 702 Reauthorization Bill are Beyond Bad

Both congressional intelligence committees have now released proposals for reauthorizing the government's Section 702 spying powers, largely as-is, and in the face of repeated abuse. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in...

Reauthorizing Mass Surveillance Shouldn’t be Tied to Funding the Government

Section 702 is the controversial and much-abused mass surveillance authority that expires in December unless Congress renews it. EFF and others have been working hard to get real reforms into the law and have opposed a renewal, and now, we’re...

The Government Surveillance Reform Act Would Rein in Some of the Worst Abuses of Section 702

With Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) set to expire at the end of the year, Congress is considering whether to reauthorize the law and if so, whether to make any necessary amendments to the invasive surveillance...

The Federal Government’s Privacy Watchdog Concedes: 702 Must Change

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has released its much-anticipated report on Section 702, a legal authority that allows the government to collect a massive amount of digital communications around the world and in the U.S....

Don’t Fall for the Intelligence Community’s Monster of the Week Justifications

In the beloved episodic television shows of yesteryear, the antagonists were often “monsters of the week”: villains who would show up for one episode and get vanquished by the heroes just in time for them to fight the new monster in the following...

The White House Acknowledges the Pressure on Section 702, But Much More Reform is Needed

After months of continued public confirmation that Americans’ privacy is being violated by surveillance under Section 702, and widespread criticism from civil society, activists, surveillance-skeptical bipartisan congressional committees, and even...

Deja Vu: The FBI Proves Again it Can’t be Trusted with Section 702

The FBI doesn’t believe that either our rights or the limitations that Congress has placed upon them matter when it comes to the vast amount of information about us collected under FISA Section 702. The latest exhibit in this is in yet another...

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Has Made a Mockery of the Constitutional Right to Privacy

The latest evidence that Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA) must be ended or drastically reformed came last month in the form of a newly unsealed order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) detailing...

Newly Public FISC Opinion is The Best Evidence For Why Congress Must End Section 702

A surveillance court order unsealed last week that details massive violations of Americans’ privacy by the FBI underscores why Congress must end or radically change the unconstitutional spying program enabled by Section 702 of the Foreign...

10 Years After Snowden: Some Things Are Better, Some We’re Still Fighting For

On May 20, 2013, a young government contractor with an EFF sticker on his laptop disembarked a plane in Hong Kong carrying with him evidence confirming, among other things, that the United States government had been conducting mass surveillance on...

At Congressional Hearing, PCLOB Members Suggest Bare Minimum of 702 Reforms

Last week, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance held a hearing on “Fixing FISA: How a Law Designed to Protect Americans Has Been Weaponized Against Them,” ahead of the December 2023 expiration of the...

Internal Documents Show How Little the FBI Did to Correct Misuse of Section 702 Databases

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released internal documents used to guide agency personnel on how to search the massive databases of information collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including communications...