Surveillance

Question and Answers

Q:
Why is this a racial justice issue?
A: From Stingray and facial-recognition technologies police use to surveil Black, Muslim and Latinx communities to America’s shameful history of racist surveillance programs targeting Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panther Party and others, government surveillance has always disproportionately impacted people of color. And in 2017, the FBI drafted a dangerous report classifying Black activists as “Black Identity Extremists” who allegedly pose a national-security threat.
Q:
Does the government need a warrant to surveil me?
A: Congress recently voted to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. While the intended and supposed targets of Section 702 surveillance are foreign entities, the program allows for dragnet-like monitoring of domestic phone and internet conversations. It permits the government to conduct backdoor searches into a massive NSA database containing private information about people in the United States. Meanwhile, under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the government can seek a court order to collect phone records for specific targets.