correction
An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly described the number of times the FBI made non-compliant Section 702 queries of the FISA system. Agents made non-compliant Section 702 queries thousands of times in 2020 and early 2021, according to the FBI. This version has been updated.
As the U.S. government intercepts foreigners’ communications, conversations with or about Americans inevitably get swept up. Once again, Congress is battling over whether and how the FBI should be able to access this information.
The House plans to consider a measure this week reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The law governing how federal agencies may collect and use data collected from overseas targets must be reauthorized, as it was in 2012 and 2017. Yet this time there is a pronounced danger that, in an understandable drive to strike the right balance between privacy and security, lawmakers could hollow out, rather than sensibly reform, an important tool to combat terrorism, cyberattacks and espionage.
