This is a critical moment to shut down one of the worst parts of the Patriot Act and stop Trump, or his successors, from conducting unlawful, intrusive, and racist government surveillance.
Section 215 is a provision of the Patriot Act that allows the government to collect an astonishing amount of our personal information - we still don't even know exactly how much - without ever needing a warrant or suspicion of a crime. Passed after 9/11, Section 215 has never prevent a single terrorist attack. Snowden showed that this provision was being used to spy on essentially all Americans by collecting records of whom you call and who calls you (also known as "metadata").
Millions of people have been spied on under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, but we're not all being surveilled equally. The government wrongfully spies on communities of color and immigrants more than others. For example, the FBI's recent designation of "Black Identity Extremists" as domestic terrorists has allowed the Trump administration to justify spying on Black Lives Matter activists. People who communicate with family and friends overseas are particularly exposed, which feeds the oppression immigrants and Muslim communities experience in this country. Despite all this surveillance, NSA itself now says they have suspended the program and that it's not effective at thwarting terrorism - so what does the President still want it for?
We cannot let Trump, or anybody else, have the legal authority to conduct this surveillance.
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