Trump targets surveillance program in tweet; suggests possibility of political spying

Lieu’s amendment to the law would have restored privacy protections that Americans are entitled to enjoy.

The House bill before Congress would extend section 702 to 2021.

When pressed about Trump’s tweets, Sanders became combative.

Trump was referring to the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on January 19.

Civil liberties advocates said that’s too late in the process, and said they feared investigators would avoid officially opening an investigation in order to avoid having to get a warrant.

On Wednesday evening, the White House put out a statement expressing the administration’s opposition to the bipartisan effort.

Then Fox and Friends happened.

Passage comes after a morning of confusing tweets by President Donald Trump.

The legislation, which passed 256-164 and split party lines, is the culmination of a years-long debate in Congress on the proper scope of USA intelligence collection – one fueled by the 2013 disclosures of classified surveillance secrets by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. And now he wants to institutionalize this.

“Mr. President”, Napolitano continued, looking straight into the camera to address Trump directly, “this is not the way to go”.

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Trump’s tweets drew criticism from a top democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Democrats mocked Trump for his criticism of the FISA law, and his repeated claims he was subjected to it.

FISA is basically the wiretapping law introduced in the wake of Watergate that allows electronic surveillance (and that means you, computer user) if you are a foreign power suspected of doing things that might hurt America, Americans or American interests.

“The Bill of Rights requires that information be gathered under the 4th Amendment with probable cause, and naming the person, naming the papers”, Paul said.

“This is irresponsible, untrue, and frankly it endangers our national security”.

Congress votes today on whether to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial piece of counterterrorism legislation passed in the wake of 9/11.

Paul said he’s spoken with Trump, and the president has indicated that he believes any reauthorization should have “significant reforms”, meaning that a warrant should be required before looking at records involving Americans. After a couple of extensions, that sunset is now scheduled to take effect later this month.

“I agree with Chairman Goodlatte that Section 702 should be reauthorized”. But civil liberties groups are anxious about two controversial practices that could compromise the privacy of Americans.

Without congressional action, legal support for Section 702 will expire next week, although intelligence officials say it could continue through April.

One new limit focuses on “backdoor searches”. They argued that restrictions on the use of Americans’ data in the Nunes bill are so narrow and allow so many exceptions that they’re virtually meaningless. And the government saves many of these phone calls, text messages, emails, and other communications in a massive database. Those who backed the measure argued that the Federal Bureau of Investigation should not be able to query Americans’ information in the database without a warrant.

The bill allows “abouts” collection, which is when the government scoops up communications that mention a target, even if he or she isn’t the sender or receiver. The USA RIGHTS amendment is necessary to both protect citizens’ privacy and impose much needed accountability and transparency upon government surveillance of US citizens.

The reauthorization is potentially a politically fraught issue on Capitol Hill, and the House is expected to vote on the bill later Thursday. House leaders also opposed the amendment. But Republicans and Democrats dispute whether there is any need for the change.

Trump’s conviction-free malleability is not surprising, and what may be most troubling here is his mischaracterization of the legislation at hand. But the Democratic caucus isn’t unified either. The Senate must still pass the bill before it is sent to the White House for the president’s signature. “I understand its importance to the intelligence agencies”, he said.