Rights Groups to Dems: Don't Give Stephen Miller What He Wants on Mass Surveillance

More than 90 civil society groups on Thursday urged congressional Democrats to "stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers" by renewing "without new safeguards" a highly controversial surveillance authorization historically abused by federal agencies.

Free Press Action and Demand Progress are leading the call to senior Democratic lawmakers to not reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—a controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—without first enacting privacy reforms.

“Section 702 has been used to conduct millions of warrantless ‘backdoor’ searches for the phone calls, text messages, and emails of people in the United States,” the groups said in a letter to six senior Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York.

The groups—which include the ACLU, Center for Biological Diversity, Color of Change, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Indivisible, National Immigrant Justice Center, Public Citizen, and UltraViolet Action—cited recent reporting from Politico stating that Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's xenophobic deputy chief of staff, supports extending the program that empowers federal agencies to surveil and collect the data of noncitizens abroad without a warrant.

As Free Press Action explained Thursday:

Congress has until April 20 to reauthorize Section 702. Stephen Miller is a leading advocate for extending Section 702 without any reforms, and President Trump is now openly supporting this approach. The groups urge Democratic members of Congress to refuse to reauthorize these powers without key reforms, including reforms to the government’s warrantless querying of communications of people in the United States without prior court approval. Such surveillance allows government officials to conduct sweeping backdoor searches, accessing the private communications of millions of people.

“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States,” the letter adds. "These surveillance authorities have long jeopardized privacy, and efforts by Miller to continue them without meaningful reforms and sufficient oversight are deeply troubling.”

The groups emphasize the imperative to close the so-called backdoor search loophole—via which domestic law enforcement agencies can access Americans’ communications without a warrant—and the data broker loophole, which lets the government to buy its way around Fourth Amendment proscriptions on warrantless search and seizure by purchasing sensitive information from private vendors.

Earlier this month, more than 70 congressional Democrats demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans’ location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act, which would protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance by requiring authorities to obtain a FISA Title I order or a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications.

The civil society groups that signed the letter are also urging lawmakers to fix the "overbroad" expansion of electronic communication service providers and remove barrier to the FISA legal process.

"There are terrifying risks to reauthorizing government surveillance powers that have been abused to spy on protesters, immigrants, journalists, and even political candidates under any presidential administration," said Jenna Ruddock, advocacy director at Free Press Action. "People across the country and on both sides of the aisle agree, and overwhelmingly support urgently needed reforms to FISA."

“This White House in particular has relentlessly labelled perceived political opponents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ justifying in their minds the relentless surveillance and persecution of those who oppose the administration’s agenda," Ruddock added. "Congress must insist on these common-sense reforms and put the civil and constitutional rights of Americans above the authoritarian desires of Miller and others in the Trump administration.”

Demand Progress senior policy adviser Hajar Hammado said that “Democrats do not want this or any administration to have the power to trawl through Americans’ private emails and texts without warrants. Democratic leaders need to listen to the people and not just rubber-stamp the spy powers that Miller is asking for."

"This extends beyond partisan politics," Hammado continued. "No president should have the powers to hoover up Americans’ private communications, force janitors and security guards to spy on other Americans for them, or circumvent court orders by purchasing sensitive information about people in the United States from data brokers."

"As the government’s plans to supercharge surveillance with AI come into view," she added, "Congress must enact real reforms to curb invasive government spying.”