Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, have introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act.
According to a press release issued Thursday by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the proposed measure seeks to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — a.k.a. FISA, which will sunset by April 19 — while introducing reforms that would mitigate abuses like warrantless government surveillance of U.S. citizens perpetrated under FISA.
Section 702 of FISA was passed by Congress in 2008. Its provisions permitted the government to conduct from within the United States warrantless surveillance of communications of almost any person or group abroad who were suspected of being foreign terrorists.
In the process of doing so, however, the government also swept up the communication of American citizens, resulting in the compilation of databases containing the contents of Americans’ emails, phone calls and text messages, which authorities could then search without a warrant.
Proposed reforms under the SAFE Act include allowing intelligence agencies to run queries on American communications collected under Section 702 but requiring a FISA Title I order or a warrant before the actual contents of the communications can be accessed. This reform is meant to allow for sufficient flexibility to accommodate legitimate security needs.
Another proposed reform permits intelligence agencies to continue purchasing from commercial data brokers data sets that may include Americans’ information, like their location, as recorded by phone apps, provided that the information cannot be identified or excluded before the purchase. Afterward, the government agency would be required to enforce strict minimization procedures.