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Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jerry McNerney (CA-11) applauded passage of the RESTORE Act, which will reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to allow the intelligence community to conduct the surveillance necessary to keep our nation safe as well as protect the Constitutional rights of individual American citizens.
The RESTORE Act, H.R. 3773, passed today by a vote of 227 to 189.
“The RESTORE Act strikes a balance between the constitutional rights of American citizens and the needs of the intelligence community to do the work that will keep our nation safe,” said Rep. McNerney. “This bill will provide the government the authority it needs to intercept terrorist communications, while safeguarding the phone calls, emails, and other private communications of American citizens.”
The RESTORE Act enables the intelligence community to conduct the electronic surveillance necessary to protect against terrorism and threats to our national security. Yet, in a significant step towards protecting civil liberties for American citizens, it enhances oversight responsibilities of the FISA court by requiring an individual court order to conduct surveillance of an American citizen.
The RESTORE Act eliminates any ambiguity about foreign to foreign communication by making clear that such communication does not require a court order, even if the communication is routed through the United States.
The legislation also includes a new provision that allows intelligence agencies to apply for a court order to conduct ongoing surveillance of targets, reasonably presumed to be foreign-based, where there is a reasonable likelihood the communication is related to terrorist activity and national security. However, the bill strengthens oversight of the intelligence community by requiring an agency to apply to the FISA court for such a warrant.
In reviewing applications for such “blanket” court orders, which would be valid for up to one year, the FISA court would review and ensure the following:
- That the government’s proposed minimization procedures to reduce the amount of irrelevant information and to lessen the aggregation and retention of sensitive information about U.S. citizens are sufficient;
- That the targeting procedures take reasonable steps and are designed to target only people outside the United States; and
- That there are guidelines in place to ensure that if a target becomes a person in the United States for whom collection requires a court order, an individualized order will be sought.
The ability to seek such warrants addresses expressed concern about the need to seek individualized warrants in an era of rapid, global communication.
In addition, the bill takes other steps to increase oversight by requiring the Justice Department’s Inspector General to make regular audits on the communication collected, as well as the number of United States citizens involved in making intercepted communications.
This legislation corrects the lack of protection for innocent Americans in the Protect America Act, a bill was enacted last August just prior to the district work period.
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