Top Biden administration national security officials kicked off a campaign to reauthorize specific authorities under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
ahead of expected pushback from congressional Republicans.
Originally conceived as mainly a counterterrorism tool in the wake of the deadly
9/11
attacks by al Qaeda, the Biden administration sought on Tuesday to emphasize the role FISA plays in combating threats posed by
China
and other foreign foes as well.
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The reauthorization, which must be done before the specific FISA authorities expire at the end of 2023, is sure to meet opposition from at least some Republicans in the House and Senate, given FISA abuses unearthed related to the FBI’s use of
British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s
discredited dossier
to obtain flawed FISA surveillance against
Trump
campaign associate
Carter Page
during and after the 2016 election.
The portion of the FISA law that the Biden administration is seeking reauthorization for is not directly connected to the Carter Page saga, but rather relates to Section 702, which the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
describes
as “a key provision of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 that permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States, with the compelled assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information” from U.S. intelligence targets.
In a full-court press on Tuesday, Biden officials repeatedly pointed to the China challenge.
“Let me stress the point about the threat we face from China, in particular. At this moment, when China is ramping up its aggressive efforts to spy on Americans, it would be a grievous mistake to blind ourselves to that threat by allowing this critical authority to expire,” Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen, head of DOJ’s national security division,
said
in a Tuesday morning speech at the Brookings Institution, contending that Section 702 has “played a key role in countering threats from China — as well as Russia, Iran, and North Korea.”
Olsen added: “Repressive and authoritarian regimes, like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, pose a range of threats to our country and our allies, while terrorist groups continue to plot violent attacks in secret. … Against this backdrop, renewing 702 is a national security imperative.”
The DOJ official, who previously worked under Attorney General Eric Holder, announced the
launch of a new DOJ domestic terrorism unit
in January 2022 during a hearing focused on the Capitol riot. Olsen
shut down the Trump-era China Initiative,
which had been aimed at combating Beijing’s espionage inside the United States, in February 2022.
Olsen did not directly answer a Washington Examiner question about his decision to shutter the China Initiative on Tuesday.
Biden’s national security adviser
Jake Sullivan
said
Tuesday that “Section 702 has proven a cornerstone of U.S. national security” and that it is an “invaluable tool” in responding to “threats from the People’s Republic of China, Russia, nefarious cyber actors, terrorists, and those who seek to harm our critical infrastructure.”
Director of National Intelligence
Avril Haines
and Attorney General
Merrick Garland
put out a joint letter on Tuesday calling for Democratic and Republican congressional leaders in the House and Senate to “promptly reauthorize” the Section 702 authorities.
“Section 702 has been used to identify and protect against national security threats to the United States and its allies, to include both conventional and cyber threats posed by the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Haines and Garland told Congress.
Senior officials from ODNI and DOJ also told the Washington Examiner that the FISA authorities were key in combating China’s challenge.
Haines and Garland also said Section 702 authorities “contributed to the United States’s successful operation” against al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in 2022, who was
killed in a U.S. airstrike in Kabul following the Taliban takeover
.
The National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program is authorized under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The program often stems from U.S. tech companies assisting the NSA overseas with intercepting the communications of foreign targets — some of whom are communicating with U.S. citizens.
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Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and leader of the newly-formed
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization
of the Federal Government, expressed skepticism about the FISA renewal last year.
“We need to make changes to the FISA process,” Jordan
said
on Fox News in October 2022. “I think we should not even reauthorize FISA, which is going to come up in the next Congress.”
