(Ken Silva, Headline USA) For the past two-plus years, top FBI and Homeland Security officials have spent their time during congressional hearings to bloviate about the threat posed by right-wing domestic terrorists.
The DHS and FBI received pushback from some GOP lawmakers as a result, and those agencies risk losing certain domestic surveillance powers that allow them to spy on the American people.
But all that has changed in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. At a Senate Homeland Security Committee meeting on Tuesday, FBI Director Chris Wray and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pleaded with Congress to renew their spying powers—insisting that they’re necessary to stop Hamas.
Wray and Mayorkas specifically called for the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which currently allows for the warrantless surveillance of Americans.
Unless reauthorized by Congress, Section 702 will expire at the end of the year.
“That would be a significant blow to the FBI,” Wray said Tuesday.
“These authorities have produced intelligence over the years that has been vital to our homeland security, and that intelligence is all the more vital now in light of the threat environment we are facing in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks in Israel,” Mayorkas added.
Mayorkas and Wray were joined by Christine Abizaid, the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s counterterrorism center, who also called for the renewal of Section 702 to fight groups like Hamas.
“We regularly leverage the essential authority of Section 702 to provide insight on foreign terrorists and their networks overseas,” she said.
However, none of them explained how spying on Americans will prevent attacks from Hamas. As noted by the Project for Privacy & Surveillance Accountability, Section 702 failed to detect Hamas’s attack.
“While U.S. intelligence detected rising activity in Gaza, it did not detect the threat that resulted in the killing of more than 1,400 Israelis and at least 30 Americans,” PPSA said earlier this month.
Meanwhile, as of the publication of this article, none of the committee members questioned Wray about his bureau targeting Trump voters—even though Newsweek revealed earlier this month that the FBI is infiltrating MAGA groups ahead of the 2024 election.
“Experts agree that as the 2024 election approaches, there will be greater pressure to prevent law-breaking, one that necessitates infiltration of political circles and other controversial government activity,” Newsweek reported this month—not elaborating on what that “other controversial government activity” might consist of.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
