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Source: Congress.gov
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Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on federal government surveillance. I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Moore, to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. I welcome my colleagues to this important hearing, and I welcome our witnesses and thank them for being here today. The Fourth Amendment guarantees all Americans the right to be free of unreasonable government searches and seizures. With advances in technology, Americans' personal data has become easily tracked and collected, and the government can and does obtain this information without acquiring a warrant and without ever notifying an individual who is subject to a search. This is especially prevalent in the context of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Reports in recent years detail how the FBI, under the leadership of past FBI directors, abused its authorities under FISA. The FBI used its authorities under Section 702 of FISA to conduct millions of queries of US person communications. At its peak, the FBI conducted nearly 3 million such searches in 2021. In recent years, those numbers have begun to decline But the FBI still conducts thousands of U.S. person queries every month. These actions violate the privacy and civil liberties of Americans and likely infringe on their Fourth Amendment protections. I've called for serious reforms to FISA for years. And last Congress, we undertook the task of attempting to rein in years of FISA abuses. Congress enacted a bill that included various reforms, such as new and heightened criminal and civil penalties for those who violate FISA.
We significantly reduced the number of FBI personnel authorized to approve queries. We required audits of U.S. person queries and implemented many new reporting and transparency measures. But we must still work to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of all Americans. I introduced an amendment to require a warrant for all U.S. person queries. This amendment included various exceptions to allow the FBI and the intelligence community to do its vital work of defending our homeland while protecting Americans' privacy rights. This amendment had broad bipartisan support, and we worked closely with our colleagues across the aisle in an attempt to address this issue. I believe such a reform is necessary to end the abuses of Americans' rights, but reforming FISA itself is not enough. The government has plenty of other tools at its disposal to collect information on Americans. Currently, the laws governing how the Fourth Amendment is applied in the digital context is the Wild West. Key legislation in this space is the Electronics Communications Privacy Act, which was written in 1986 and did not take into account all the advances in digital communications that have occurred since. The iPhone, for example, did not show up for two decades after this law was written. These cell phones have become such an integral part of our lives that as the Supreme Court has held, they now, quote, hold for many Americans the privacies of life, close quote. Federal agencies are able to sidestep the requirements of the Fourth Amendment and access and collect massive amounts of private information on Americans by exploiting a legal loophole in this act. Rather than obtain a warrant, government agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security can simply turn to data brokers and purchase mass amounts of Americans' data. This includes such private information like location and health information and so on. Currently, with a disturbing amount of frequency, data brokers sell Americans' personal information to law enforcement and intelligence agencies without any court oversight.
In contrast to strict rules that prevent phone companies and social media sites from selling such information to the government. We also are aware of reports of the federal government using facial recognition technology. This is a powerful tool that can be used to help solve crimes, but this technology also raises serious issues concerning First and Fourth Amendment rights. Law enforcement agencies could potentially use this technology to surveil individuals who are not engaged in any illegal activity whatsoever. For example, we've seen reports of ATF using facial recognition to find gun owners. The federal government has also returned to private companies like Clearview AI to purchase access to facial recognition technology. Clearview AI pulls publicly available photographs from social media sites and puts them into a database marketed to law enforcement. Clearview AI's founders called the service a search engine for faces. The Government Accountability Office has conducted studies of federal law enforcement entities' use of this technology in recent years. It found that federal law enforcement agencies had not properly assessed privacy and other risks associated with the use of this technology. And some did not even know which systems their agents were using. As technology continues to develop, the government has more and more information about Americans available to it. Used improperly, this will continue the pattern of government surveillance of U.S. citizens that we have fought so hard against. Congress must protect the privacy rights of Americans and uphold the guarantees of the Fourth Amendment.
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