FBI Director Christopher Wray delivered a chilling warning about what could happen if FISA Section 702 expires at a hearing Thursday, just as Republicans debate how to move forward on reauthorizing the controversial spy tool.
Section 702 of the Foreign Information Surveillance Act (FISA) will expire on April 19, after which the intelligence community will not be allowed to go “blind” to the conversations of suspected terrorists abroad when communicating with an American citizen on American soil.
“Section 702 is indispensable to keeping Americans safe from an entire onslaught of rapidly advancing foreign threats,” Wray insisted during a hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
‘It is crucial to identify terrorists in the country of origin, who work with or are inspired by a gallery of foreign terrorist organizations and who have publicly called for attacks against our country. It helps us find out who these terrorists are working with… and what we need to stop them before they kill Americans.’
“Section 702 is indispensable to keeping Americans safe from an onslaught of rapidly advancing foreign threats,” Wray insisted.
Alleged Crocus Town Hall terrorist, Dalerjon Mirzoev, 32 years old
Fire smoke rises over the burning Crocus City Hall concert hall following a shooting, outside Moscow, Russia, on March 22.
FISA Section 702 is credited with helping intelligence officers thwart terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, but it has also been prone to abuse when spying on U.S. citizens.
“So if Congress lets 702 expire, which is scheduled to happen now next week, it will greatly increase the risk of overlooking crucial information during a time of growing national security threats on multiple fronts,” Wray said. .
‘If we are blind Looking at who our adversaries are, who they’re working with, I can tell you that that will definitely have implications for our ability to protect the American people, because I can assure you that none of our adversaries are tying their hands. So now is not the time to hang up the gloves.’
Wray was on Capitol Hill testifying before the Appropriations Committee about his $11.6 billion budget request to run the FBI in 2025.
A FISA reauthorization bill with new barriers to transparency failed to advance in the House of Representatives on Wednesday after a hardline conservative revolt. He is expected to reappear on Friday.
Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning before the vote, urging that the bill be killed.
‘KILLING FISA, WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPY ON MY CAMPAIGN!!! DJT’, exclaimed the former president.
Another part of the law not subject to reauthorization, Title 1, was used to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016 when he was suspected of having communications with the Russians.
Section 702 specifically allows the U.S. government to monitor foreign nationals with suspected terrorist ties who are not located on U.S. soil, even if the party on the other end of such communications is a U.S. citizen in the United States.
Wray said Thursday that the “greatest terrorist threat” to the United States is “posed by lone actors or small cells of individuals who typically become radicalized toward online violence.”
That includes ISIS, which recently carried out a terrorist attack on a theater in Russia.
Russian social media is abuzz with the ‘Men in Blue’ conspiracy theory (marked) linking the terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall to the FSB
Wray was on Capitol Hill testifying before the Appropriations Committee about his $11.6 billion budget request to run the FBI in 2025.
If an intelligence officer were to consult Section 702 to capture the communications of a suspected terrorist and were speaking to a US citizen in the states, they would only be able to see half of the terrorists’ conversation without a court order to look at the US. . the National.
President Mike Johnson responded to Trump’s message before the vote: “Trump used the information from this program to kill terrorists.”
The speaker stated that the bill as it stands now “kills the abuses” that took place under FISA in the past.
He has warned that if the compromise bill fails, the Senate will “jam” the House with a clean reauthorization without oversight reforms before FISA expires on April 19.
The House will try again to vote on FISA on Friday morning, after discussing new amendments and a shorter timeline for reauthorization (two years) that conservatives hope will allow them to debate FISA under a possible future Trump administration.
Hardliners on the right and left have become strange bedfellows over accusations that FISA has trampled Americans’ civil liberties.
They are advocating for an amendment that would require intelligence officers to obtain a court order before intercepting communications from any U.S. citizen who is speaking with suspected foreigners.
That amendment pits the Judiciary Committee and its allies against the Intelligence Committee and national security hawks who say the intelligence community should not get bogged down in trying to obtain warrants when potential terrorist plots involve communications with Americans.
A May 2023 report detailed how the FBI used Section 702 to ‘query’ (or search for) names of people suspected of being on Capitol grounds during the January 6, 2021 riots, Black Lives Matters protesters, victims of crime and their families and donors to a campaign for Congress.
In total, the FBI misused Section 702 more than 278,000 times, according to the document. The FBI says FISA abuses have plummeted in recent years.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., asked Wray if the FBI is currently compliant “in every way” with 702.
“My understanding is that we comply with the law,” Wray insisted.
While many of the uses of Section 702 remain classified, intelligence officials leaked late last year that they had used the controversial tool to thwart arms sales to Iran.
The CIA and other intelligence agencies had used information gathered by monitoring the electronic communications of foreign weapons manufacturers and stopping several shipments of advanced weapons to Iran.