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Podcast: Cato Event Podcast
Episode: The Future of Surveillance: Reform, Repeal, or Renewal for Section 702?
Description: One of the most potent and controversial tools in the American intelligence community’s arsenal is set to lapse at the end of this year. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 allows the government to intercept the communications of foreign targets as they cross U.S. soil—including conversations with American citizens. Spy agencies claim it’s a vital weapon against terrorists and should not only be reauthorized but also made permanent. Civil libertarians, however, worry that the law’s incredible scope—targeting some 100,000 people and hauling in hundreds of millions, if not billions, of communications each year—makes it rip...