Sarah Taitz and Patrick C. Toomey report:
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—the law the U.S. government relies on to conduct sweeping, warrantless surveillance—is once again coming under intense scrutiny. Judicial review of this surveillance is essential in our system of checks and balances, but for years the government has taken steps to block or limit courts’ ability to rule on the lawfulness of Section 702 spying, including by concealing the use of Section 702 in domestic criminal investigations. In the past five years, the Department of Justice’s Section 702 notices—which are required by law whenever DOJ intends to use “any information obtained or derived from” Section 702 surveillance of the defendant in a criminal case—have disappeared altogether. Their disappearance closes off one of the few avenues for robust court review of novel and controversial spying practices like the FBI’s widespread “backdoor searches” of Americans. DOJ’s failure to provide notice is a recurring problem in this arena, and it is essential that Congress take action as it weighs fundamental reforms to Section 702.
Read more at Just Security.
h/t, Joe Cadillic