Indeed, this sensitive data is not destroyed after the NSA vacuums it up. Rather, the government has written its own internal rules — called “minimization” procedures — that allow spy agencies such as the NSA to retain Americans’ private communications for years.

Far from minimizing any invasion of privacy, the rules expressly allow government officials to read our emails and listen to our phone calls without a warrant — the very kinds of violations that the Fourth Amendment was written to prohibit.

Finally, once this information — collected illegally and without any probable cause — is ingested into NSA servers, other government agencies can often search through the databases to make criminal cases against Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism or anything national security-related. One Justice Department lawyer called the database the “FBI’s ‘Google.’”

In other words, the NSA, an unaccountable institution filled with unelected bureaucrats, operates a massive database that contains the intimate and personal communications of countless Americans.

Warrantless mass surveillance of American citizens is wrong, un-American, and unconstitutional.

It’s time to let Section 702 expire or reform the law to ensure that millions and millions of Americans are not being victimized by a government that no longer respects its constitutional limits.