Protecting Americans from Unauthorized Surveillance Act

Key Points

• This bill creates a new FISA Oversight Office inside the Department of Justice. The office would review every government request to secretly spy on someone for national security reasons, acting as an independent check on the process.
• When the government targets an American citizen for surveillance, the new office must intervene if it believes the evidence is not strong enough. It would go to court and argue against the surveillance request, giving the targeted person a form of representation they currently lack.
• The bill also requires the secret FISA Court to appoint an outside legal expert, known as an amicus curiae, for every single surveillance case. Right now, this appointment is optional, meaning many cases only hear the government's side of the argument.
• The Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence would have to send Congress a yearly report. It would detail how many surveillance requests the oversight office challenged and how many it let pass, along with information about who was being targeted and what data was being collected.
• The bill also ensures that the office filing a surveillance application must share all available evidence with the new Oversight Office, giving it the tools it needs to do a thorough review.