The Privacy Advisor Podcast: What will Congress do with Section 702?

Under the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, Section 702 allows U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct surveillance on persons overseas it believes to be a potential threat. But the government is forbidden from collecting intelligence via Section 702 on persons “reasonably believed” to be within the U.S. or even a U.S. person outside of U.S. borders. But critics say there’s reason to believe U.S. persons are often incidentally the target of investigations, despite the rules stating otherwise, and that the secrecy surrounding intelligence operations allows it to happen en masse. 702 is set to expire on Dec. 31, and intelligence officials have argued it should be renewed wholesale. But critics of the program say it should be renewed only with amendments that increase privacy protections for innocent Americans whose data may be swept up in the data collected. And what happens with 702 may have a broader impact on international agreements like the Privacy Shield, for example, which is already on shaky ground, in part, because of concerns over U.S. intelligence agencies use of the data it collects. In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Angelique Carson, CIPP/US, travels to American University to talk to law professor Jennifer Daskal to talk about what she thinks might happen on or before Dec. 31.