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⚡️Everything You Need To Know About FISA's 702 Reform Act
@takebackourtech

With the renewal of FISA now making waves, I decided to make a 4 part post that satisfied my own curiousity of what it is, how it gets used, and what it means for everyday people. Here's part 1:

What is FISA?

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was created to give federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies a process for surveilling foreign targets using communication service providers within the reach of the US government.

Areas of surveillance include electronic surveillance, wiretraps / pen-registers, physical searches, and business records. The NSA is primarily responsible for this data collection by compelling these providers and working with 30 different countries to conduct foreign surveillance. The NSA itself estimates it only ‘touches’ 1.6% of the internet.

Agencies like the NSA, FBI are authorized to search this database, and information can be shared with other agencies if useful:

- There are hundreds of thousands of targets, and queried the database this 3.4M on Americans without a warrant
- The FBI abused this system 278,000 times, including Americans suspected of crimes, up to 10,000 FBI agents used this system.
- The NSA Stellar Wind program collected e-mails, telephone conversations, financial transactions, and internet activity.

What is happening now with FISA?

FISA was set to expire this April, however the The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) proposed an amendment that renewed FISA and expanded its scope. On the surface the bill appeared to curb surveillance by limiting the amount of authorized FBI agents, but in reality the bill is a trojan horse that alters small phrases that drastically change the extent of surveillance.

Why the renewal is making FISA stronger:
- Expands scope from communications provider to ‘any service provider’ who has access to the equipment that is being used to transmit or store such communications
- The bill still does not require a warrant to conduct surveillance on Americans
- The bill still does not require the agency to inform the target of surveillance unless they are in Congress
- If you travel outside of the US you are eligible for surveillance

Several representatives pushed back to include an amendment that would require a warrant for gathering the data of Americans, however this was tabled for a future vote that must occur by tomorrow.

This means that the NSA could ‘compel’ any service provider, or anyone who has access to the equipment. This could be anyone from the CEO of the communications provider, owner of the data center, building owner, or to the person who sweeps the floors at night.

Pt. 2 will look into how the NSA builds the FISA 702 database.

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