washington — A top US law enforcement official is warning lawmakers that a failure to renew key surveillance authorities would amount to unilate
washington — A top U.S. law enforcement official is warning lawmakers that a failure to renew key surveillance authorities would amount to ‘unilateral disarmament’ in the face of growing threats from terrorism as well as countries like China and Iran.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging the panel to renew the bureau’s ability to gather electronic data under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, before the law expires at the end of the year.
Section 702, as it is commonly known, allows agencies such as the FBI and the National Security Agency to gather electronic data of non-Americans without first obtaining a warrant. But its use has stirred controversy because of repeated incidents in which officials have collected information on U.S. citizens.
‘Reckless at best…irresponsible at worst’
Wray assured lawmakers that reforms have been put in place to protect U.S. citizens, cautioning that a failure to renew the authority, or to renew the authority with additional restrictions, would put the country in danger.
‘Blinding ourselves through either allowing 702 to lapse or amending it in a way that guts its effectiveness would be reckless at best and dangerous and irresponsible at worst,’ he said.
‘The whole reason we have 702 focused on foreign threats from overseas is to protect America from those threats,’ he said. ‘It’s not to admire foreign threats from afar and study them and think about them. It’s to know what they are and to make sure they don’t hurt Americans here.
