Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows the United States government to gather foreign intelligence information concerning persons located outside of the country that are, or are connected to, a potential threat against the nation. In addition to protecting national security, the communications data collected under Section 702 has been used for criminal prosecution in domestic court cases. Since it passed in 2008, scholars have raised questions over the act’s constitutionality, especially about its consistence with the Fourth Amendment which protects both US and non-US persons against unreasonable searches and seizures. These scholars argue that not all communications gathered under Section 702 meet the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment and should therefore not be used in criminal cases. However, Section 702 mainly conflicts with the Constitution only when the act is used inappropriately by agencies to investigate people residing within the US rather than for its intended purpose of gathering foreign intelligence. In order to ensure that the Fourth Amendment is not violated in the process of gathering foreign surveillance intelligence or using such intelligence in a domestic court case, FISA Section 702 must be amended. …show more content…
Three amendments that should be made to the act are that only communications to or from a target may be gathered by the NSA, US persons located outside of the United States may only be targeted if they have connections to foreign powers, and that before use in domestic courts, prosecutors must ensure that all data used in the investigation is gathered