A House panel approved a bill Friday to re-authorize an intelligence community surveillance program which allows for the collection of information on foreign adversaries and terrorists located outside the U.S. without the need for a warrant.
The House Intelligence Committee voted 13-8 to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for another four years to 2021, ahead of its expiration at the end of this month.
The FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017, introduced on Wednesday, has garnered criticism for not offering reforms to Section 702 or clarifying concerns on the incidental collection without a warrant by the National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI of Americans overseas.
FBI Director Christopher Wray urged support for Section 702 and the role it plays in his agency’s ability to thwart potential terrorist attacks during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last Thursday.
“It’s one of the most powerful tools that we have to help us evaluate leads, and prioritize threat information. It can tell us quickly whether a person here in the U.S. has ties to a terrorist overseas, or if there is someone overseas who is planning an attack,” said Wray, during his opening remarks at the hearing on global threats.
Following the bill’s passage, digital civil liberties watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a statement detailing their concerns over 702’s warrantless approach to information gathering and some of the details included in the reauthorization bill by Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)
“This expansion of potential surveillance targets would extend not just to the NSA’s Section 702 surveillance, but also to all other kinds of foreign intelligence gathering. In this regard, far from reforming the federal government’s surveillance activities, the Nunes bill would significantly expand them,” the EFF said in a statement. “While some of the other pending Section 702 reauthorization bills have proposed warrant requirements on backdoor searches of Americans’ communications, the Nunes bill gives the government the option whether or not to seek a warrant before reading these communications.”
The NSA uses 702 to justify the incidental collection of Americans overseas who may have their communications with foreign persons of interests picked up during intelligence gathering operations.
EFF contends that Nunes’ bill does not address concerns that 702 may be used as a means to expand the NSA’s ability to collect information on U.S. citizens abroad without a warrant.
The committee’s vote on the bill was split down party lines, with all Republicans in favor Democrats opposed.