Biden created warrantless surveillance program for border crisis, triggering new civil liberty fears

Escaping most notice in that ruling was the court's approval of a major new National Security Agency program that Biden created as the migrant surge at the southern border began in 2021.

The court ruling issued in April and made public July 21 states that the new NSA program was created by national security directives signed by Biden in 2021 and 2022 to help the State Department and Homeland Security Department in "Ensuring that applicants do not pose a threat to national security" and to "Support the federal government's vetting of non-United States persons who are being processed for travel to the United States or a benefit under U.S. immigration laws." You can read the full ruling here.

The court bluntly acknowledged such queries are likely to turn up information on U.S. citizens or people living inside U.S. border who are protected by the Constitution.

"Privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment are substantially implicated in the Vetting Process when NSA analysts are alerted communications of persons protected by the Fourth Amendment," the court declared.

"The Court expects it would rarely be necessary to disseminate U.S.- person information to another agency in order to dispose of a travel or immigration application." "Despite the use of suspicionless queries, the Vetting Process as authorized by NSA 's querying and minimization procedures is a reasonably effective means of furthering a compelling government interest that intrudes on Fourth Amendment-protected interests only to a limited degree," it added.

"The Court concludes that the Vetting Process under those procedures and ultimately the procedures themselves, are consistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment." The court ruling reflects that the outside privacy experts that the court consulted secretly during the process had greater reservations about the new vetting program, which were expressed in amici curaie briefs, but the court overruled those concerns.

Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said while he was encouraged the FISC recognized the civil liberties dangers, he was disheartened the court did not take more assertive action to protect Americans from abuses by requiring any search that involves an American be approved in advance by a court. 

https://justthenews.com/government/security/monbiden-created-warrantless-surveillance-program-border-crisis-and-new-civil