By Lee Fang
April 13, 2024
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to extend warrantless surveillance through an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Intelligence agencies collect information on an industrial scale. Google, Facebook, AT&T, Verizon, and other communication platforms provide the government massive troves of private communications — emails, texts, phone calls, and much more.
Section 702 allows law enforcement to access the database for foreigners’ messages and phone calls without a court order, including when foreigners communicate with Americans. The program, critics charge, gives the government broad powers to spy on Americans over incidental contacts with foreigners.
The system has been abused repeatedly, with agents inappropriately searching the database for messages from journalists, left-wing activists, campaign donors, and one of Donald Trump’s campaign aides during the 2016 presidential election. In one of the most startling revelations, the FBI also used the database to search the private communications from Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., a sitting member of Congress.
The snooping on LaHood was revealed last year in a declassified Office of the Director of National Intelligence report. The report, without naming names, noted that the mass surveillance database had been improperly used to dig into the communications of a lawmaker. Not long after the report was released, news emerged that the lawmaker was LaHood, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
Rep. LaHood, representing a northern Illinois district known for its significant soybean exports to Asia, was reportedly targeted due to his involvement in trade discussions with Chinese trade officials. FBI agents made multiple broad searches of LaHood’s private communications.
“The FBI’s inappropriate querying of a duly elected Member of Congress, as stated in the ODNI report footnote, is an egregious violation that not only degrades trust in FISA and the Intelligence Community but is a threat to the foundational values of our democracy,” LaHood thundered in March 2023 statement, confirming that he was the lawmaker targeted by the FBI.
“The FBI’s actions raise further questions about the serious reforms needed to FISA,” he added.
Fast-forward to today. The FBI, the intelligence community, the Biden administration, and leading figures of both parties have pushed for a renewal of the program and expanded surveillance powers, citing the threat of terrorism and foreign adversaries such as China and Russia. The pressure campaign is having dazzling results.
LaHood took to the House floor yesterday to urge his colleagues to support a two-year expansion of Section 702. He claimed that the system only targets bad actors.
“It’s important to state at the outset that Section 702 is used only to target bad actors overseas and our adversaries who are not protected under the Fourth Amendment,” said LaHood. “It is not used to surveil or target Americans.”
LaHood claimed that the law had been meaningfully reformed and warned that not extending it would risk America’s national security. He pointed to support from former Trump administration officials, such as former CIA chief Mike Pompeo, who urged support for the program. Later in the day, he joined 272 other House Republicans and Democrats to pass the bill.
But far from an improved version, civil liberty experts point out that the new Section 702 bill in fact radically expands the reach of government snooping. Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center, noted that the revised bill contains language allowing the NSA to access private businesses’ Wi-Fi routers.
* This article was automatically syndicated and expanded from Lee Fang – Substack.
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