Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast

We open this episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast with some actual news about the debate over renewing section 702 of FISA. That’s the law that allows the government to target foreigners for a national security purpose and to intercept their communications in and out of the U.S. A lot of attention has been focused on what happens to those communications after they’ve been intercepted and stored, and particularly whether the FBI should get a second court authorization—maybe even a warrant based on probable cause—to search for records about an American. Michael J. Ellis reports that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released new data on such FBI searches. Turns out, they’ve dropped from almost 3 million last year to nearly 120 thousand this year. In large part the drop reflects the tougher restrictions imposed by the FBI on such searches. Those restrictions were also made public this week. It has also emerged that the government is using section 702 millions of times a year to identify the v