Government Agencies Can Read Americans' Messages Without Permission

U.S. spy agencies can search through a huge database of nearly 350,000 people's messages from around the world—and many of those messages belong to Americans. They can do this without asking a judge for permission first. This happens under a law called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was created to spy on foreign people living outside the U.S. But the law has a side effect: it also captures Americans' communications by accident. Right now, Congress (the lawmakers who create U.S. laws) is working on new bills that would require spy agencies to get a judge's approval before they can search for and read Americans' messages in this database.