On October 14,  almost 4 dozen civil rights organizations (including Media Alliance) wrote to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte and John Conyers about pending reform to Section 702  of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The letter states:  “Last week, many of the undersigned groups wrote to you expressing concern regarding news reports that suggested that the Section 702 reform bill being drafted failed to completely address concerns with the so-called “backdoor search loophole.” The government uses this loophole to conduct warrantless searches for the information of individuals who are not targets of Section 702, including U.S. citizens and residents. Unfortunately, the Section 702 reform bill introduced last week, the USA Liberty Act, fails to address many of the concerns raised in our letter. We cannot support the USA Liberty Act at this stage without further changes to strengthen the warrant requirement for searching databases containing Section 702 information”

The full letter can be read here.

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