ACLU Statement on RESTORE ACT, ACLU Urges Congress to Include Individual Warrants for Americans Washington, DC – Today the Democratic leadership unveiled the RESTORE Act. What follows are the ACLU’s comments on that draft.
The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office:
“The ACLU sees one major flaw in the RESTORE Act. As drafted, the RESTORE Act still allows for the US government to collect phone calls and emails from Americans without an individual warrant.
Program warrants - sometimes called basket warrants, sometime called blanket warrants - included in the draft bill are a crucial sticking point. There is no specific target when you use basket warrants, which contradicts the heart of the Fourth Amendment. Essentially, a basket warrant really means no real warrant.
Program warrants are the 21st century version of King George’s heavy-handed intrusions on individual privacy. We would not tolerate allowing government agents to sit in our living rooms recording our personal conversations, so why would we permit it to monitor us remotely and without our knowledge? The Fourth Amendment requires individual warrants if Americans are involved and without them, the RESTORE Act won't pass constitutional muster.”
More at the link.