Source: The Hill
by Elizabeth Goitein
“Buried in a bill the House passed Friday is a provision that would create the largest expansion of government surveillance on U.S. soil since the Patriot Act. The potential for abuse of this new power, included in the House’s reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is staggering. … Under current law, the government can compel ‘electronic communications service providers’ that have direct access to our communications, such as Verizon, AT&T, Google or Microsoft, to provide assistance — generally by turning over the communications of targets identified by the government. Under the House-passed bill, the government can compel the assistance of individuals or companies that provide any service at all, as long as they have access to the equipment (for instance, servers, routers or cell towers) on which communications are transmitted.” (04/17/24)