February 14, 2024–Due Process Institute and a broad bipartisan coalition of privacy, civil rights, civil liberties, and government transparency organizations joined in a statement on the House’s plan to move at least part of the public debate over mass and often secret surveillance behind closed doors in a secret session:
“It is appalling that the U.S. House of Representatives has not learned the lessons of the last secret session on warrantless surveillance in 2008, which perpetuated a mass violation of constitutional rights. This week, the House is poised to repeat those mistakes by going into another extraordinarily rare and wholly unnecessary secret session to shut out the public and potentially move toward another expansion of warrantless surveillance powers.
The reason why there is bipartisan support among civil society and members of Congress for warrantless surveillance reform is the well-documented abuses of FISA authorities by the federal government for well over a decade. These powers have been used to conduct tens of thousands of inappropriate searches, some related to the exercise of constitutionally protected activities. Members of Congress have been surveilled, average Americans have been surveilled, and unless there is reform now, the abuses will continue.
According to a recent poll, 78% of Americans think Congress should “strengthen privacy protections for people in the U.S. against warrantless government surveillance.” Congress has a duty to continue public debate and not circumvent the American people. To conduct proceedings in secret on a set of authorities that directly impact Americans is antithetical to a free society.”