On Tuesday, senior US government officials warned of serious national security risks if a key surveillance program expiring this year is not renewed, but declined to share details about where it has been useful.
Enacted in 2008, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows US agencies to conduct warrantless searches of information about non-US citizens living outside the US, including communications conducted by ISPs, email or US telecommunications services.
This database is critical to combating threats against the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). But the agency has already abused the program several times to spy on Americans, because the program also allows access to information about Americans communicating with foreigners.
A court order revealed last month showed the FBI had improperly searched the database for information about Americans more than 278,000 times over several years, including details of people arrested during protests against police violence in the country.
Before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the law on Tuesday, three US government officials told reporters that seeking information from Americans is often important in alerting victims to harmful activity.
They came up with some previously unknown instances where the law has been useful to US intelligence, but declined to share any further details.
Source: Terra
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