Technology

Non-sensationalized summary from the article:

Although Section 702 authorizes electronic surveillance of non-US people overseas, the official summary of the reauthorization bill notes that "information about US persons may incidentally be acquired by this type of surveillance and subsequently searched or 'queried' under certain circumstances.”

The reauthorization bill imposes some new limits on data collection. For example, FBI personnel must obtain prior approval from an FBI supervisor or attorney before making queries about US people. But this provision has an exception allowing such queries without prior approval if "the query could assist in mitigating or eliminating a threat to life or serious bodily harm."

There are also some new limits on queries involving elected US officials, political candidates, political organizations, media organizations, journalists, and religious groups. There is a prohibition on "the involvement of political appointees in the approval process for such politically sensitive query requests," and a requirement that the FBI director "establish consequences for noncompliant querying of US person terms, including zero tolerance for willful misconduct.”