how is that even constitutional?
I was hoping you all would tell me!!!!
Not Constitutional. They don’t care.
“how is that even constitutional?”
It isn’t. The Constitution is now officially dead.
SNOT..! But just maybe it's only to be used for the illegal aliens.....maybe. As far as I'm concerned, they don't have any Constitutional rights anyway...
how is that even constitutional?
It is constitutional if performed against an alien outside the United States where the U.S. Constitution does not apply.
However, the agencies routinely use the power criminally against American citizens. It is beyond clear that the agencies cannot be trusted to restrict themselves to lawful use of the authority.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fisa-section-702-civil-rights-abuses
November 2023FISA Section 702: Civil Rights Abuses
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was enacted to make it easier for the government to address foreign terrorist threats. The law gives the government broad authority to surveil non-Americans located abroad, but targeting Americans is prohibited.
Unfortunately,intelligence agencies have used legal loopholes to turn Section 702 into a go-to domestic spying authority, using it to conduct hundreds of thousands of warrantless “backdoor” searches for Americans’ private communications every year.
Backdoor searches and other warrantless surveillance techniques raise both civil liberties and civil rights concerns because when intelligence and law enforcement officials can access Americans’ sensitive information without a warrant, they are more likely to rely on improper considerations such as conscious or unconscious biases or political beliefs.
Section 702 has been repeatedly subject to such abuse. Some recently publicly disclosed misuses of backdoor searches, which the FISA Court says may exclude “large numbers” of abuses, include:
Searches for 141 racial justice protestors and political activist groups that organized protests.
Searches based on a witness’s report that two men “of Middle Eastern descent” were loading cleaning supplies into a truck.
Searches for mosques that were intentionally mislabeled to avoid oversight.
Searches for Professor Xiaoxing Xi, an American academic who was wrongly accused of unlawfully sharing sensitive technology with scientists in China.
Searches for a state court judge who reported civil rights violations to the FBI.
Searches for immigrants, even with no indication they pose a risk to national security.
“Batch” searches that included current and former federal government officials, journalists, political commentators, and 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign.
Searches for a sitting Congressman, a US Senator, and a state senator.
Searches for a local political party.
Congress can help end these abuses by passing the Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2023, a comprehensive surveillance reform bill that requires government officials, absent an emergency, to obtain a probable-cause court order or the subject’s consent before searching for Americans’ communications or other sensitive data in foreign intelligence holdings obtained without a warrant.
Questions? Please contact Noah Chauvin at chauvinn@brennan.law.nyu.edu.