The intelligence community is deploying a full-court press across Washington to woo skeptics to support renewing surveillance powers that are set to expire later this year, with new overtures to civil liberties advocates and policymakers.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is organizing a September meeting for public interest groups to huddle with senior intelligence officials to discuss the spying powers, according to an invitation viewed by The Washington Times.
The spying powers contained in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will disappear at the end of 2023 unless Congress acts.
Intelligence officials view the snooping authorities as critical to their work, but critics question whether sufficient limits on spying exist, given the millions of warrantless searches of Americans’ data conducted by federal officials.
“The ODNI Civil Liberties office is looking to host engagements between Intelligence Community Officials and various public interest groups who focus on civil liberties issues regarding intelligence activities,” said an invitation from an intelligence officer viewed by The Times. “The topic at hand is FISA Section 702, but there will be other topics in engagements going forward.”
Cato Institute senior fellow Patrick Eddington received his invitation earlier this month and said he has no intention of attending. Mr. Eddington, a former CIA analyst and policy adviser on Capitol Hill, said the Section 702 spying powers should be eliminated.
“The fact that the ODNI & other IC elements are labeling a taxpayer-funded lobbying and legislative strategy/intelligence gathering event as a ‘listening session’ with civil society organizations is an insult,” Mr. Eddington said. “Since last August at least, the ODNI & other IC elements have been lobbying the House and Senate to reauthorize the FISA Section 702 program, despite its 15-year history of serial abuses of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.”
The intelligence community’s overtures elsewhere look to have been more fruitful.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and other bureau officials met privately with Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat, on Tuesday to discuss the spying powers.
Mr. Durbin leads the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held an oversight hearing on the spying powers in June, and he said the meeting with the FBI in Illinois was productive.
“As I’ve said before and reiterated to Director Wray today, I will only support the reauthorization of Section 702 if there are significant reforms addressing the warrantless surveillance of Americans,” Mr. Durbin said in a statement. “The FBI plays an integral part in our government’s responsibility to keep Americans safe from a wide range of threats, including bad-faith foreign actors, drug trafficking, and violent crime.”
Top intelligence community officials are also making public pleas for renewing the surveillance powers, including Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, leader of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command.
In remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday, Gen. Nakasone said the Section 702 authorities have helped save lives.
“702 is perhaps our most important authority, that we utilize day in and day out,” he said.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that the spying powers have helped combat terrorism, disrupt fentanyl trafficking and mitigate the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021 that was linked to Russian cyberattackers.
The powers have also fueled extensive searches on Americans. Approximately 1.9 million warrantless searches of Americans’ data happened because of a Russian cyber threat in 2021, according to information from the intelligence community and the FBI last year. The searches did not require a warrant because of Section 702, and the FBI has said it made changes to its processes to protect people’s privacy.
Mass surveillance has enabled the wrongful targeting of individual Americans. FBI employees impermissibly searched a foreign surveillance database last year for the names of a U.S. senator and a state legislator, according to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion from April that was declassified last month.
Intelligence community leaders are hoping such problems do not scuttle the renewal of its surveillance powers afforded through Section 702, but a growing appetite exists in Washington to crack down on federal government surveillance.
For example, the House Judiciary Committee advanced legislation without opposition in July to require federal agencies to get a court order to acquire information from data brokers. The bipartisan push came after the intelligence community revealed it gathered data from brokers who sell information from people’s cars, phones, and other devices.
President Biden’s advisers have also recommended restrictions on the FBI’s surveillance authorities. The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and Intelligence Oversight Board published a report last month saying the bureau should stop using a database of foreigners’ communications for investigations outside the national security realm.
Growing criticism of the intelligence community’s surveillance powers may not yield a rewrite of Section 702 spying powers, but Mr. Eddington is cheering for its demise.
“Like all mass surveillance programs before it, this one too is irredeemable and should be allowed to expire on New Year’s Eve 2023,” Mr. Eddington said.
The intelligence officer who authored the invitation to the September meeting and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.