Bill To End Warrantless Surveillance Introduced in House

would prohibit warrantless searches of government databases for information about U.S. citizens and would forbid government agencies from mandating or requesting “back doors” be put into commercial products that can be used for surveillance, the release said. Though Poe said the USA Freedom Act that passed last week out of the House Judiciary Committee is an improvement, he said Congress must stop warrantless searches under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702. “Right now, under Section 702 the government is allowed to snoop and spy on the content of a citizen’s phone calls, texts and emails -- all without a warrant,” Poe said. “Failure to address this gaping loophole in FISA leaves the constitutional rights of millions of Americans vulnerable and unprotected,” he said. “If Congress truly wants to end bulk collections of U.S. persons['] data, then we must also look at the warrantless surveillance occurring under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333,” Lofgren said. “Failing to do so all but ensures the nation’s spy agencies will continue to violate Americans’ privacy and the Fourth Amendment,” she said. “Surveillance under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act is arguably worse than the collection of records allowed under Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” Massie said. New America’s Open Technology Institute supported the amendment to end surveillance under Section 702 proposed by Poe during last week’s markup of the USA Freedom Act, and on Tuesday said it supported HR-2233. “If USA Freedom Act is the first step toward comprehensive surveillance reform, then the End Warrantless Surveillance Act is the next,” OTI Policy Director Kevin Bankston said. “We need to shut the surveillance backdoor."