Amidst the noise today generated by President Donald Trump’s contradictory and inaccurate tweets about Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act this morning and his awful-yet-predictable comments on immigration that were publicized later in the day, I managed to have a quick conversation with frequent Just Security contributor and surveillance reform expert, Liza Goitein, on the possible effect of the House’s vote today to reauthorize that act and with it, Section 702.
We went over the type of intelligence-gathering Section 702 is supposed to govern and the type of intelligence-gathering that’s actually done in its name. We discussed what she sees as serious flaws in this piece of legislation that may, in effect, authorize warrantless spying on Americans via techniques such as the strange-sounding “backdoor search loophole.”
As always with these “specials,” forgive the rushed format.