New/exclusive: The government has used Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect logs of visitors to a website, according to an ODNI letter to @RonWyden. /1 nytimes.com/2020/12/03/us/…
Whether to preserve an ability to use this technique aimed at foreign web users (but necessarily risking collection of American web users) appears to map onto the Schiff-Lofgren negotiations over whether/how to narrow the Wyden-Daines amendment to the FISA bill in May. /2
FBI/ODNI disclosed that one of the 61 FISA court orders under Section 215 in 2019 involved collection of visitor logs for a particular (unnamed) web page from a foreign (unnamed) country. We don't know how often they do this, nor whether they always try to screen out Americans./3
FBI/ODNI also said that they do NOT use Section 215 to collect words people submit to Internet search engines because they consider that content. (The proposal is to ban 215 collection of both web browsing and search terms, so the latter would have no operational impact.) /4
Why does this matter? It's very easy for the FBI to get a 215 order to collect records - just has to say they are "relevant" to a national-security investigation. It's much harder for it to get a warrant, which requires evidence showing probable cause against a targeted person./5
Since its enactment after 9/11, Section 215has been at the center of repeated fights over balancing the ability of national security investigators to uncover threats & protecting people's freedom/privacy to read things & contact people without fear of drawing govt scrutiny. /6
The first iteration was fears the FBI would use Section 215 to get library records, making people afraid to check out books that could look suspicious. Civil libertarian calls to ban that potential use subsided, in part bc it didn't look like that was actually happening. /7
Then in 2013, the first, and most important for domestic purposes, @Snowden leak to be published revealed that the NSA was using Section 215 to collect bulk logs of all Americans' phone calls (and text message metadata), leading to an uproar and reform. /8
Now the question has turned to web browsing data, with the added complication that there's no foolproof way to vacuum up which foreigners are visiting suspicious websites (e.g. extremist content, bombmaking instructions?) w/out risking collection of American visitors, too. /9
Anyway, negotiations over the FISA bill broke down after Trump, who has displayed no understanding of any of this, erratically told Republicans to vote against the bill until the Russia investigation was investigated some more. /10
Republicans don't want to get crosswise with the White House & Trump has given no coherent signal about what he'd sign, so McConnell killed the bill - even tho he's a surveillance hawk & that means Section 215 stays partly expired. Congress will take it up again under Biden. /end
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