A federal district court has delivered a landmark ruling declaring that backdoor searches of Americans' private communications collected under Section 702 generally require a warrant. This decision comes after over a decade of legal battles and marks a major shift in digital privacy protection.
The ruling emerged from the United States v. Hasbajrami case, where law enforcement accessed emails between a U.S. resident and a foreign individual without obtaining a warrant. These communications were initially collected through Section 702 programs and later searched using specific terms related to the defendant.
Under FISA Section 702, intelligence agencies can collect vast amounts of overseas communications data for national security purposes. However, when these communications involve U.S. persons, the data gets stored in searchable databases accessible to federal law enforcement. Until now, agencies claimed they didn't need warrants to search this already-collected information.
The court determined that even if the government can legally collect communications between foreigners and Americans without warrants under Section 702, law enforcement cannot routinely bypass the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement when searching these communications. The court emphasized that reading private communications without proper authorization violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.
This ruling gains particular relevance considering that in 2021, the FBI conducted 3.4 million warrantless searches of U.S. persons' data through Section 702 databases. The decision arrives as Congress faces the upcoming expiration of Section 702 in April 2026, adding pressure for legislative reforms including mandatory warrant requirements for searching U.S. persons' data.
The court's decision challenges the current "finders keepers" approach to communication data and sets a new precedent for protecting Americans' privacy rights in the digital age. Privacy advocates are now calling for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to revise its rules and require the FBI to obtain warrants before conducting backdoor searches.