The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in the report that 7,845 search terms were used in 2024 to query raw communications collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that were linked to known or presumed U.S. persons, up from 3,755 terms in the prior year.
Section 702 lets the FBI and NSA collect emails, texts and other communications of foreign targets overseas without a warrant by requiring tech and telecom companies to hand over data linked to specific users.
But the ordinance is contested because the law, as it stands, permits spy agencies to scoop up the communications of Americans who incidentally talk to foreign suspects, which privacy hawks argue creates an end-run around Fourth Amendment rights that bar unreasonable searches and seizures.
Collected 702 communications are stored in databases, where analysts query them for foreign intelligence. Civil libertarians have argued for a warrant measure for querying U.S. person data, a view long contested by intelligence officials who contend it would slow timely national security investigations and kneecap the intelligence-gathering tool’s practicality.
U.S. person statistics tied to 702 are closely tracked by civil liberties advocates because they offer a window into how often Americans’ communications are accessed under a program designed mainly for foreign spying that was only codified after post-9/11 intelligence abuses were
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