CDT Joins Brennan Center & Others in Letter Urging Congress to Protect Protesters by Supporting Critical Reforms to Section 702 of FISA
The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) joined the Brennan Center and other civil liberties, free speech, and New York organizations in a letter urging Congress to protect protesters in the United States by opposing any reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that does not close the backdoor search and data broker
loopholes.
From the letter:
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As you’re aware, backdoor searches of Section 702 have been abused to spy on political activists from across the ideological spectrum, including at least 141 people engaged in protests after the murder of George Floyd. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board noted that there were “tens of thousands” of baseless searches “related to civil unrest” over a one-year period. The government’s purchase of sensitive information from data brokers is an additional threat to protesters, because it lets law enforcement and intelligence agencies buy lists of people who engage in Constitutionally protected activity and run facial recognition and other analytical processes on protesters.
The real-world impact of such surveillance on protest and dissent is profound and undeniable. When people understand that their involvement in First-Amendment protected demonstrations could subject them to unwarranted government spying, they inevitably think twice about — and may be deterred from — exercising their constitutional rights. This erosion of democratic participation undermines the bedrock principles of free speech, assembly, and petition upon which this nation was founded.
