Dear All,

Last week, we wrote to this list to express our support for a meaningful reform of Section 702 of the United States’ Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is up for reauthorization at the end of this year. Section 702 is the statute under which the National Security Agency allegedly has authority to conduct the mass surveillance practices that we are challenging in Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA.

We are writing on this matter again to let you know that we have joined a letter to the ranking members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, encouraging specific reforms to Section 702. It was also signed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Library Association, PEN America, and many other organizations with a variety of mandates and interests. The letter places special emphasis on closing the “backdoor search” loophole, which allows law enforcement to query certain government surveillance databases for individuals’ personal information in national security investigations without needing to demonstrate probable cause.