Beyond Section 702: How Prison Telecom Firms Extend Government Surveillance

Congress failed to renew FISA Section 702, but U.S. authorities and prison-phone companies continue to collect massive data on Americans, often without warrants.

After Congress could not agree on a renewal, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expired on June 12, stalling discussions about its reform. The program, which permits monitoring of foreigners and their U.S. contacts, also sweeps up routine communications of American citizens without warrants, storing the data for extended periods. Parallel to this, prison-telecom monopolies Securus and ViaPath control roughly 80% of the U.S. jail-call market and have been implicated in recording calls, including those between inmates and their attorneys, citing broad "security" justifications.

Investigations uncovered illegal access to location data from Sprint and T-Mobile and a 2015 leak of 70 million call records, many of which were privileged. Recent lawsuits target the New York City Department of Correction for a mass-surveillance system that allegedly breaches state and federal law, disproportionately impacting Black, Brown, and low-income communities. These overlapping surveillance efforts raise serious constitutional concerns about privacy and government overreach.