Bill Text: CA AJR8 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Republican 3-1)

Status: (Engrossed) 2024-04-11 - Motion to reconsider made by Assembly Member Essayli. [AJR8 Detail]

Download: California-2023-AJR8-Amended.html

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Amended  IN  Assembly  June 30, 2023

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Joint Resolution

No. 8

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Introduced by Assembly Member Essayli
(Principal coauthor: Senator Wahab)

June 20, 2023

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Relative to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AJR 8, as amended, Essayli. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

This measure would urge the United States Congress to allow refrain from reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to sunset at the end of 2023. absent fundamental reform of the program, which must include requiring agencies to obtain a warrant before searching Section 702-acquired information from Americans’ communications.

Digest Key

Fiscal Committee: NO  

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Bill Text

WHEREAS, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows the United States government to engage in mass, warrantless surveillance of Americans’ and foreigners’ phone calls, text messages, emails, and other electronic communications; and

WHEREAS, Information collected under the law without a warrant can be has been used to prosecute and imprison people, even for crimes that have nothing unrelated to do with national security; and

WHEREAS, Due to the secrecy surrounding the program, there is concern that Section 702 is and will be used to disproportionately target disfavored groups, whether minority communities, political activists, or even journalists; and

WHEREAS, Section 702 is justified as a counterterrorism tool, but in reality, it permits surveillance far beyond what is needed to protect national security and allows the government to target foreigners abroad if it believes they possess “foreign intelligence information,” which is a term so broadly defined that it can include ordinary information about foreign affairs that has nothing to do with national security; allows the government to cast a wide net that ensnares the communications of ordinary Americans on a massive scale; and

WHEREAS, Targets of surveillance could include human rights defenders, journalists, whistleblowers, or business owners; and

WHEREAS, The government collects the personal information of these individuals, including any emails, text messages, and other communications they may have with people in the United States, and stores it in databases for years, and in some cases, indefinitely; and

WHEREAS, Once the government collects vast amounts of information, including emails, text messages, and other communications, under Section 702, that content is stored in databases for years at a time, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Security Agency (NSA) officials routinely search through this vast trove of data for information specifically about Americans despite the fact that these communications were all collected without a warrant; warrant and despite legal requirements that prevent “reverse targeting” of Americans through Section 702 collection; and

WHEREAS, The FBI exploited “backdoor searches” to warrantlessly search Americans’ communications 204,090 times in 2022 alone; and

WHEREAS, Information found through these “backdoor searches” can be used to prosecute Americans for crimes that are not related to national security; and

WHEREAS, The government can use information collected under Section 702 in a wide variety of contexts, from criminal cases to immigration proceedings, and despite the fact that the government is legally required to provide notice to defendants when information collected under Section 702 is to be used against them, in only a handful of cases has this notification ever been provided; and

WHEREAS, The government has a history of using surveillance to target activists, government critics, political candidates, and minority communities; and

WHEREAS, In the past, prominent civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez were labeled national security threats and targeted for surveillance by the FBI; and

WHEREAS, More recently, there have been reports that the NSA targeted prominent Muslim leaders who were never charged with a crime and used the derogatory slur “Mohammed Raghead” as a fake name in internal documents designed to instruct personnel on how to properly format FISA-related memos; FBI agents have searched the communications of a United States congressman, a local political party, multiple current and former United States government officials, journalists, political commentators, two “Middle Eastern” men flagged by a witness because they were loading boxes of cleaning supplies into a vehicle, business, religious, and community leaders who applied to participate in the FBI’s “Citizens Academy,” and colleagues and relatives of the FBI agent performing the search; and

WHEREAS, Recent declassified information revealed 278,000 instances of FBI misusing Section 702, including to investigate protestors involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, individuals suspected of involvement in the January 6 Capitol breach, and more than 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign; and

WHEREAS, As written, Section 702 contains virtually no minimal protections to prevent these types of surveillance abuses, and the FBI and other federal agencies routinely search through the Section 702 database without a warrant in cases unrelated to national security, which results in that authority being used to support government fishing expeditions selectively targeted at targeting certain communities without cause; and

WHEREAS, Despite repeated urging from Congress, the government has refused to release even an estimate of the number of Americans whose communications are swept up under Section 702 surveillance, and, similarly, the FBI has not released information about how often it searches the Section 702 database for information about Americans; and

WHEREAS, The This broad, warrantless collection of data under Section 702 creates an understandable fear that private messages may be read or used by the government; violates Americans’ constitutional rights; and

WHEREAS, This fear creates a chilling effect on anyone using the internet to communicate and has a particularly significant impact on the sensitive work done by journalists and lawyers who have reported changing what they say and with whom they communicate in light of these surveillance practices; and

WHEREAS, Section 702 has become a domestic spying tool, which is something Congress never intended; and

WHEREAS, Section 702 is set to expire at the end of 2023; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature of the State of California urges the United States Congress to allow Section 702 to sunset; refrain from reauthorizing Section 702 absent fundamental reform of the program, which must include requiring agencies to obtain a warrant before searching Section 702-acquired information from Americans’ communications; and be it further

Resolved,That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States, and to the author for appropriate distribution.