Congress passed and President Biden signed a reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), approving a bill that opponents say includes a “major expansion of warrantless surveillance” under Section 702 of FISA.

Over the weekend, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act was approved by the Senate in a 60-34 vote. The yes votes included 30 Republicans, 28 Democrats, and two independents who caucus with Democrats. The bill, which was previously passed by the House and reauthorizes Section 702 of FISA for two years, was signed by President Biden on Saturday.

“Thousands and thousands of Americans could be forced into spying for the government by this new bill and with no warrant or direct court oversight whatsoever,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Friday. “Forcing ordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying is what authoritarian countries do, not democracies.”

Wyden and Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) led a bipartisan group of eight senators who submitted an amendment to reverse what Wyden’s office called “a major expansion of warrantless surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was included in the House-passed bill.” After the bill was approved by the Senate without the amendment, Wyden said it seemed “that senators were unwilling to send this bill back to the House, no matter how common-sense the amendment before them.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he voted against the reauthorization “because it failed to include the most important requirement to protect Americans’ civil rights: that law enforcement get a warrant before targeting a US citizen.”

  • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    He fucked over queer people in the us

    Biden is just letting states pass transphobic legislation and has so far done nothing about it.

    he increased the federal debt by 7 trillion

    Oh no not the debt ceiling that keeps getting pushed higher

    grossly mismanaged the pandemic (killing a lot of people)

    Biden said he had a strategy, did fuck all about it after throwing out a handful of cheap test kits per household, and then told states to use any residual COVID aid to hire more pigs. His admin has also slowly been rolling back any reporting.

    did horrible stuff for the environment

    Biden is currently having the US drill for oil at all time high levels.

    passed a bunch of shit laws, including repealing net neutrality

    Biden plans on ‘partially’ bringing it back, but he’s still gonna let ISPs gatekeep and gouge on things like ‘fast lanes’, so…

    deported a bunch of ppl for no reason

    Biden’s AG argued that immigrants in the United States are not entitled to a bond hearing and got that wish. He’s also still deporting people so…

    You need to disabuse yourself of this liberal notion that blue team is better because they’re blue. No one here will ever defend Trump, but you need to understand that this binary thinking is how you stay trapped in this endless cycle of supporting things slowly getting shittier.