(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Unsealed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court documents revealed last month that the FBI improperly searched through Americans’ communications more than 278,000 times—spying on Black Lives Matter activists, Jan. 6 protestors and more than 19,000 political donors.
According to FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, those searchers were “unintentional.” Abbate said this to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Tuesday at a hearing on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“Wow, so you’re saying that 280,000 queries of Americans was unintentional?” Hawley asked.
“That’s how they were assessed by the team that did the review,” Abbate responded. “I’m not satisfied with that, which is why we implemented further measures.”
Abbate’s assertion that the illegal searches were “unintentional” is because Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows U.S. government agencies to target foreigners outside the U.S. for intelligence purposes—which often results in the “incidental” collection of Americans’ communications.
But given the rampant abuse of Section 702, there’s an emerging bipartisan consensus that the law should be reformed to require a warrant to spy on Americans. Section 702 sunsets at the end of the year unless reauthorized by Congress.
Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle reiterated their calls for a Section 702 warrant requirement at Tuesday’s hearing.
“There is no doubt that Section 702 is a valuable tool for collecting foreign intelligence, but, as I have said for years, Section 702 also raises serious constitutional concerns,” said the committee’s chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, added: “Democrats and Republicans agree that FBI can’t be trusted to wield its FISA authority responsibly. It’s time to clip FBI’s wings. I’m working on bipartisan FISA reforms to protect Americans from warrantless ‘backdoor’ FISA searches.”
The Senate’s calls for Section 702 reform are similar to those coming from the House. After the aforementioned FISC court documents were unsealed last month, top members from the House Judiciary Committee both called for the institution of warrant requirements.
“Chris Wray told us we can sleep well at night because of the FBI’s so-called FISA reforms. But it just keeps getting worse,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said last week in reaction to the opinion.
His colleague, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., made a similar statement.
“The FBI says that they have instituted new procedures to make this kind of abuse impossible. They have made that promise before,” he said. “Without significant changes to the law to prevent this abuse, I will oppose the reauthorization of this authority.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
