You know, that, that to me signaled that, that we had conveyed our message.

Yeah, that, that's really interesting kind of 'cause, you know, it's, it's a common sort of concern both for courts when you're talking to judges and also with lawmakers of how much do they understand new technology.

Um, but like you say, it, it did seem like a lot of this was resonating of this isn't some sort of complex, convoluted new tech.

This is sort of the, the ins and outs of daily life, these, these types of tools.

It, it, it does kinda feel like that sort of, that is resonating, and it's interesting to hear kind of, yeah, that, the thought of, like, keeping the stakes personal is important even w- at some level here where, like, where the stakes are so high.

Um, so two of the justices, uh, Justice Alito and Thomas, seemed like they were not really eager [laughs] to even have this case in front of them.

They said that basically you guys were asking for an advisory opinion because changes in the Google policy that we talked about and also something called the, the Good Faith Doctrine rendered this case moot.

The NACDL has, um, filed amicus briefs on that point in particular, mourning about the application of the, the good faith doctrine and, and the way that it stifles development of, of Fourth Amendment law and, and privacy rights.

Are you aligned with that, that thinking?

Yeah, I think that's exactly right, and that's where, you know, the vast majority of privacy advocates calling for these reforms are, is that, you know, we don't dispute that the program has value.

We're not saying just tear it all down.

Um, it's an effort to get key reforms, especially this effort on queries.

Um, kind of just an example from the last week of sort of how these things can be conflated.

Um, a report came out last Thursday highlighting that there's an ongoing issue with queries even now that the FBI and, and other intelligencies have been sort of conducting queries using this sort of filter tool that allows them to not call them queries and allows them to bypass these types of internal rules and, um, safeguards that Sharon mentioned earlier.

That's in a FISA court opinion that's still secret that we don't know about exactly what's happening or how many queries are even occurring or, or what potential misconduct might be going on with them.

A-and other reforms.

And how has government surveillance changed since then?

There's been a big back and forth, I would say.

So after this kind of big influx with 9-11, just sort of that ramp up that happened, the next big sort of inflection point was the Snowden disclosures.

And a lot of what was revealed, there were things that had been happening for a long time, some completely out of public knowledge, some a little more just in the dark.

But that was, I think, a big, real reckoning point for the country to say, oh, wait, you know, we're now over a dozen years out from 9-11.

This sort of natural fear about it has... pared down a good bit.

Suddenly we see all the consequences of what was unleashed, not just through the Patriot Act, but through a lot of secretive programs that the public, even in a lot of time, members of Congress did not know was going on.

What's going on with that app and what is it doing?

Where, where does Congress stand right now on FISA and what it's gonna be able to do when they're done voting?

So Congress right now seems to be, um, frozen on FISA.

This is the, um, section of it, FISA seven oh two I mentioned earlier, that's a warrantless surveillance authority.

Because it's so sensitive and warrantless, it has to be reauthorized every few years.

And there's an odd political coalition of progressives and, and, um, the folks all the way on the right, the House Freedom Caucus, that tend to object to this and say, "No, we want protections, especially for Americans.

If you're going to sift through this database trying to find an American who was-- whose communications were vacuumed up, you should have to get a warrant for that." Um, the White House and Speaker Johnson are trying toAvoid any reforms and push through a clean reauthorization.

Um, but right now there seems to be enough opposition that they've been sort of pushed into a stalemate on that where they don't seem to have the votes for a clean reauthorization, um, but are not willing to engage on reforms such as a warrant requirement or, as we've been talking about, closing this data broker loophole that's used for large-scale collection around any sort of court requirements.

What security risk are cities citing when they're cutting ties with Flock? Why in some places is the political tide turning?