The statute that authorizes monitoring US citizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act should be modified to eliminate the law’s application for domestic criminal investigations, a new review by the Biden Administration suggests, Reuters reports.
Criticized by members of both sides of the political aisle, FISA’s Second 702 has been used by the FBI to get evidence against US citizens, including those who participated in the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, not involved with foreign agents.
The White House review recommended Attorney General Merrick Garland “remove FBI’s authority to conduct queries for evidence of a non-national security-related crime in its Section 702 data. … FBI’s use of Section 702 should be limited to foreign intelligence purposes only and FBI personnel should receive additional training on what foreign intelligence entails.”
While the law as it currently reads has numerous critics, the White House believes that it simply needs tweaks and additional oversight to ensure it’s not abused, but it should be renewed prior to its slated automatic expiration later this year: “If Congress fails to reauthorize Section 702, history may judge the lapse of Section 702 authorities as one of the worst intelligence failures of our time,”