 Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) As the U.S. Senate prepares to finalize the confirmation of Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) scored some partisan points about the Democrats’ disdain for Acting Director Bill Pulte. The senator said: “Democrats were so worked up over the president's temporary choice for this position, they allowed our nation’s most important counterterrorism tool to go dark for the first time ever.” This was a reference to the ongoing debate – and delayed vote – on the reauthorization of Section 702, the authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that allows U.S. intelligence agencies to surveil foreign threats on foreign soil, but has often been used to examine the communications of American citizens on American soil who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. It is true that the deadline for Section 702’s reauthorization has come and gone. But the important – and vital – task of surveilling foreign threats and terrorists has not stopped. All that has happened is that the authority’s statute has expired. Its surveillance programs continue to operate under court orders that allow intelligence collection to continue until March 2027. We have that much time – until the spring of next year – to debate reasonable guardrails that can curtail the program’s rampant surveillance of American citizens. There is no reason to stiff-arm all debate about reform amendments. This surveillance authority was never intended to spy on Americans when Congress enacted it to track foreign threats. Section 702 is not “dark for the first time ever.” Nor do we expect it ever to be. We have the luxury of time to hold a fulsome debate over how Section 702 is used and misused – and the best ways to improve it. Comments are closed.
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