Update: It doesn't look like a vote is going to take place today, but this fight isn't over— Congress could still sneak an expansion of mass surveillance into law this week. We have to keep the pressure on.

Update 2: That's a wrap! Thanks for your questions and for your help in the fight to rein in government spying powers.

A mass surveillance law is set to expire on December 31, and we need to make sure Congress seizes the opportunity to reform it. Sadly, however, some members of Congress actually want to expand the authority. We need to make sure their proposals do not become law.

Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the National Security Agency operates at least two spying programs, PRISM and Upstream, which threaten our privacy and violate our Fourth Amendment rights.

The surveillance permitted under Section 702 sweeps up emails, instant messages, video chats, and phone calls, and stores them in databases that we estimate include over one billion communications. While Section 702 ostensibly allows the government to target foreigners for surveillance, based on some estimates, roughly half of these files contain information about a U.S. citizen or resident, which the government can sift through without a warrant for purposes that have nothing to do with protecting our country from foreign threats.

Some in Congress would rather extend the law as is, or make it even worse. We need to make clear to our lawmakers that we’re expecting them to rein government’s worst and most harmful spying powers. Call your member here now.

Today you’ll chat with:

u/ashgorski , Ashley Gorski, ACLU attorney with the National Security Project

u/neema_aclu, Neema Singh Guliani, ACLU legislative counsel

u/suddenlysnowden, Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower

Proof: ACLU experts and Snowden

Comments: 2732 • Responses: 1  • Date: 

Silent_Hysteria-2 karma

Hopefully you can squash all of this. Where were you when obama was doing it? Expanding NDA, Prism, Snowden..... its like people took a vacation for 8 years

aclu2 karma

We were fiercely, loudly, and publicly advocating for surveillance reform. Lots more info about all of that work here.

It's especially worth revisiting our lawsuit challenging the NSA's call tracking program (brought in 2013 after the Snowden revelations), our persistent advocacy during the last big surveillance reform debate in Congress (in 2015), and our ongoing lawsuit challenging surveillance under Section 702 (brought in 2015).