Strengthening the Privacy Rights of American Citizens by Ending Warrantless FISA Court Spying

Description

The Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY, ACUF Lifetime 97%) amendment (1586) to the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020 would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to end warrantless surveillance and data collection on United States citizens by abusing the FISA courts. The FISA courts are designed to surveil foreign threats to U.S. national security but have been abused to permit warrantless searches and seizures of Americans. This amendment would prohibit the use of FISA courts to surveil U.S. citizens, while maintaining the ability of law enforcement to obtain a warrant from a court under the traditional justice system. ACU supports the founders’ belief in privacy as protected under the Fourth Amendment, supports this measure to help protect Americans from the unlawful search and seizure of their data and supported this amendment. The Senate defeated the amendment on May 14, 2020 by a vote of 11-85.