Miguel Afonso Caetano"Under two legal authorities — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as well as Executive Order 12333 — U.S. intelligence agencies claim vast authority to target those overseas for surveillance. The executive order is especially broad, allowing bulk surveillance of foreign communications.
In theory, these surveillance powers are not supposed to be used to spy on Americans. But in practice, we know that under these authorities, the U.S. collects Americans’ data, such as their communications with foreigners. Under current law, it can then search that data without a warrant.
Recently, six legislators have also alerted the public to another way the government may be using its foreign surveillance powers to spy on Americans. In March, the lawmakers wrote a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, asking her to clarify whether using a VPN could subject Americans to warrantless government surveillance.
The problem, as the letter points out, is that it’s not always readily apparent whether VPN traffic is coming from an American or someone abroad. This raises the question: How does the intelligence community currently handle the data of Americans using VPNs?
The lawmakers’ letter notes that the government has taken the position that data of unknown origin should be treated as foreign and, as a result, “subject to few privacy protections.” In other words, the government may be treating all VPN users as “foreign,” exposing Americans using VPNs to government surveillance.
This has a number of important implications."
https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/vpn-surveillance-time-for-transparency-and-limits-on-spy-powers/
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