The Perversion of FISA and FISC

Written by Robert W Malone MD, MS on December 21, 2023. Posted in Current News

Section 702 must only be used for the surveillance of foreigners on foreign soil, not domestic surveillance of US Citizens

When Congress passed The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, it sought to provide judicial and congressional oversight of foreign intelligence surveillance activities while maintaining the secrecy necessary to effectively monitor national security threats.

In theory, FISA sets out procedures for physical and electronic surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence information.

Initially, FISA addressed only electronic surveillance, but was significantly amended to include programs monitoring Internet communications, trap and trace devices, physical searches, and business records.

This bill also set-up the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). This is a special U.S. Federal court that holds nonpublic sessions to consider issuing search warrants under FISA.

Proceedings before the FISC are ex parte. “Ex parte” means that the government is the only party present. So individuals being tried in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are not even aware that they are being judged and they have no right to an attorney.

This includes US citizens who may have had information gathered up in the FISA net. These are often large data sweeps through their Internet communications monitoring, AI/machine learning – algorithmic searches as well as trap and trace devices.

FISA violations occur at a rate of more than 4,000 per year and these illegal data collection practices and warrants must end.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is set to expire on December 31, 2023, and there are two competing bills set to re-athuroize FISA and FISC. So there is currently a race in the House to see what committee bill will renew the intelligence community’s favorite policing tool.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and the House Committee on the Judiciary (HJC) produced up two very different bills. They are HR 6611, the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2023 in HPSCI and H.R. 6570 – Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act in HJC.

These two competing bills would both reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) but in completely different ways. Both bills head to the House floor next week under a procedural rule called “Queen of the Hill,” where the bill with the most votes gets sent to the Senate for consideration.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) produced the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2023. This bill could be voted on as early as today and would re-authorize the original unconstitutional surveillance FISA bill.

This bill from the HPSCI would renew the mass surveillance authority Section 702 for another eight years.

Furthermore, it would grant new authorities to the intelligence community that have been denied by the courts. This bill would codify the indiscriminate collection of U.S. citizen’s communications arbitrarily gathered by FISA for use by domestic law enforcement.

This was not the intention of this national security program, and people on U.S. soil should not have their communications collected and used without a warrant because of a loophole.

This loophole which enables collection of communications by American citizens should not be codified into law by the US Congress. The HPSCI bill would expand FISA’s reach to include hardware providers through which people communicate on the Internet, and would greatly expand FISA’s scope.

Despite years of public outrage about FISA’s over reach, this bill would re-authorize FISA with no real reforms or new oversight, and would grant them vast new powers which are only partially understood and likely to be broadly “administratively” interpreted.

Section 702 was designed to allow the government to warrantlessly surveil non-U.S. citizens abroad for foreign intelligence purposes.

Increasingly, it’s this U.S. side of digital conversations that domestic law enforcement agencies trawl through—all without a warrant.

FBI agents have been using the Section 702 databases to conduct millions of invasive searches for Americans’ communications, including those of protesters, racial justice activists, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, journalists, and even members of Congress.

H.R.6611, purported authored by the Intelligence Committee is a bad bill.

Please contact your congressperson immediately and ask them to vote NO on HR 6611, the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2023 in HPSCI.

Although not perfect, the alternative bill, named House Judiciary Committee bill H.R. 6570 and called “Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act” only authorizes Section 702 for three years.

This would allow Congress to make further amendments in the near future. The bill, “Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act” would prohibit warrantless backdoor searches of Section 702 databases for Americans’ communications and would also ban law enforcement from buying Americans’ data that they would otherwise need a warrant to obtain.

This law enforcement practice is in direct violation of constitutional protections and can not be allowed to continue.

It should not be codified by Congress, which is why the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act is an important piece of legislation.

The FBI and the US government has come to treat Section 702 as a domestic surveillance program of American citizens.

This was not the intent of Section 702, which originally enabled FISA AND FISC.

The purpose of Section 702 is for the surveillance of foreigners on foreign soil and amendments need to reflect its original intent.

See more here substack.com

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