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- We Still Don’t Know the Full Extent of the Government’s Warrantless Electronic Spying Program
We Still Don’t Know the Full Extent of the Government’s Warrantless Electronic Spying Program
The reauthorization of Section 702 is one of the most important issues facing Congress in the second half of this year.
by Eric Boehm Reason.com
Fifteen years after Section 702 was first authorized by Congress as a tool for foreign surveillance, there’s never been an accounting of how many Americans have had their electronic communications scooped up.
Even attempting to calculate such a figure “would not be feasible,” Sharon Bradford Franklin, chair of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent executive branch agency responsible for advocating on behalf of Americans’ rights in national security matters, told a House committee during an April hearing.
Franklin said the extent of that so-called incidental collection matters, “because the greater the number of Americans who are directly affected, the greater the need for Congress to ensure the safeguards throughout the 702 program are sufficient.”