US can spy on world citizens living abroad as per renewed bill
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The US Senate extends a bill permitting electronic spying on non-US citizens residing outside the country.
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The seal of the National Security Agency (NSA) hangs at the Threat Operations Center inside the NSA in Maryland in 2018 (AFP)
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan announced on Saturday that the US Senate has approved a bill to revise and extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), after it expired on April 19, permitting electronic spying on non-US citizens outside the country.
The House of Representatives backed the bill on Tuesday, prolonging the law for two years instead of the initially proposed five. Simultaneously, it declined an amendment mandating intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant to access information on US citizens gathered during the surveillance of foreigners.
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"We applaud the Senate’s passage of H.R. 7888, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act ... The President will swiftly sign the bill into law," a White House said.
FISA Section 702 permits the US government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the US. However, lawmakers have been pursuing reforms to the authority, after an investigation revealed that the US government abused the surveillance power hundreds of thousands of times.
Without a warrant
This comes as legislators have been seeking changes in the authority granted by FISA following an inquiry that uncovered hundreds of thousands of instances of the US government misusing its surveillance capabilities.
House members reformed the bill to include international narcotics trafficking activities and foreign passengers in the purview of Section 702 authority, to require reporting to Congress on US person searches, and to alter the definition of a digital service provider under Section 702.
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US Congressman Thomas Massie wrote on X that this was "how the Constitution dies. The Speaker [Mike Johnson] doesn’t always vote in the House, but he was the tiebreaker today. He voted against warrants."
Given the context of a series of abuses and mistakes by FBI analysts in improperly using the intelligence repository for information about Americans or others in the US, FBI Director Chris Wray explained, “While it is imperative that we ensure this critical authority of 702 does not lapse, we also must not undercut the effectiveness of this essential tool with a warrant requirement or some similar restriction, paralyzing our ability to tackle fast-moving threats."
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Back in December, Congressman Matt Rosendale said that the bill "allowed the FBI to spy on U.S. citizens more than 278,000 times without a warrant! FISA should not be combined with our national defense, and it is unacceptable that the DC Cartel is bypassing regular order to jam Members by forcing them to vote on two unrelated bills in one vote."
