Gabbard’s surveillance flip will be in spotlight by dni -hearing

At a Senate consultation on Thursday, Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s election to Director of National Intelligence, has to convince Republican Senators that she supports a surveillance program she once tried to cancel.

How Gabbard handles this question rather than her previous sympathetic comments on Russia or her controversial encounter with the then Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad could determine if she will be the country’s top-ranking intelligence officer.

As Democratic Congress Woman from Hawaii from 2013 to 2021, Gabbard called The electronic surveillance program a case of “overreach” of intelligence agencies and a violation of Americans’ bourgeois freedoms. In 2020, Gabbard and a Republican legislator proposed legislation In order to repeal section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Act, the law that allows the program.

In one interview With Joe Rogan in 2019, she praised Edward Snowden – the former government contractor who leaked a trove of data on the 702 surveillance program – and said he should be pardoned on espionage fees because he had informed Americans about a threat to their rights.

But this month, with her confirmation of the Senate, Gabbard told the media that she now regarded the program as a “decisive” tool and that changes to the law passed last year had taken her concerns.

“If I am confirmed as DNI, I will maintain the fourth change rights of Americans while maintaining important national security tools such as section 702 to ensure the security and freedom of the American people,” Gabbard said in a statement to Punchbowl News.

A spokesman for Gabbard refused to comment.

Republicans have a narrow majority of 9-8 in the Senate Intelligence Committee. With Democrats in the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is expected to oppose her, Gabbard needs the votes of any Republican on the panel to keep his way to affirmation alive. If the committee fails to support her, the full Senate could vote on her confirmation, but it would require a majority of 60 votes-a politically unlikely scenario.

At her hearing, Gabbard is likely to face harsh questions about statements she has made siding with Russia, her 2017 meeting with Assad in Damascus and her qualifications to oversee 18 espion agencies. But her attitude towards the country’s huge foreign surveillance program could pose the most difficult challenge for her confirmation, says congress supporters.

Gabbard’s previous position in section 702 puts her in accordance with many progressive democrats in Congress as well as Libertarian-Minded Republicans, but contrary to the national security hawk that dominate the Senate Intelligence Committee. Kash Patel, the president’s election for the FBI director, has been an obvious opponent of the surveillance program.

Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted against Trump’s nominees for defense secretary, Pete Hegeth, has signaled that she remains skeptical that Gabbard fully supports section 702 monitoring authorities.

“Her answer to the written questions was very uncovered on it,” Collins told The Hill. “I know there has been a lot of reporting that she has changed her position. That’s not how I read her answer. I read them like, ‘I look at the reforms and see if they meet my concerns.’ “

Wall Street Journal’s editorial has called Gabbard’s explanation of her change of heart “Hardly convincing.”

The chairman of the committee, Senator Tom Cotton, R-Sheet, a free-speaking Hawk and spokesman for the surveillance program, said he is pleased with Gabbard’s answer on the question.

“Tulsi Gabbard has assured me in our conversations that she supports section 702 as recently changed and that she will follow the law and support its approval as DNI,” Cotton said in an E email.

Late. Todd Young, R-in., Can also be an important vote for Gabbard’s political fate. He has said a little about how he looks at Gabbard or the surveillance question and says he has questions he will ask during Thursday’s consultation.

“I wait for the consultation to ask questions I have. I would not characterize any of them as concerns at this time, but there are things I need to learn. There are answers I intend to induce, “Young told Journalists last week.

Warrantless monitoring

US intelligence and law enforcement authorities under both Republican and Democratic Administrations have claimed that the surveillance program is crucial to preventing terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and cyberattacks. Civil Liberties groups and members of both parties against the program call it a violation of the fourth change to be protected from arbitrary searches and intrusions.

According to section 702, the US government is authorized to intercept communication from foreigners outside the country without a justification for collecting intelligence. But when the interception of foreigners, American agencies also often collect the communication from Americans who are in contact with the targeted foreigners.

Opponents have long claimed that a “Finder Keepers” supply of the law, which lets the government silent through Americans, otherwise collected communication, violate Americans’ constitutional rights, and that the FBI and other agencies must be required to get a justification to silence through data Overall on Americans.

The monitoring program was first approved in 2008 and has been expanded several times since. Last April, with the program’s legal authority by expiring, Congress approved its renewal for another two years with changes to tackle concerns raised by both the National Security Hawks and the Civil Liberties Advokater. But critics said the end result did little to change the surveillance authorities and even expanded what organizations the federal government could force to cooperate with surveillance efforts.

The new laws codified rules that the FBI says it had adopted to ensure that the authorities have reason to obtain information about an American whose communication is collected in monitoring efforts. The FBI has recognized a litany of errors in the past in which agents break the agency’s rules to scour the repository of foreign intelligence monitoring data looking for Americans. The questions included a member of Congress And people there participated In January 6, 2021, Riot protested at Capitol and 2020 racial justice.

DNI’s role in monitoring

Like DNI, Gabbard would have an “absolutely crucial” role in overseeing how the monitoring program is performed, according to Glenn Gerstell, who served as Attorney General of the National Security Agency from 2015 to 2020.

By law, the Director of the National Intelligence and the Law Attorney must jointly directly intelligence agencies on rules and procedures for how electronic monitoring will be implemented against foreign goals in accordance with section 702 program.

The rules or “certifications” define the types of foreign goals to be traced and the procedures to be used to protect information from US citizens who are otherwise trapped in interception operations. The DNI and the Law Attorney submit these rules to the foreign intelligence monitoring court for approval.

Last month, a federal judge in the court court steered That the 702 program violated the rights of Americans and that the law enforcement authorities need to receive an order before they sought surveillance data for Americans. It is unclear how the case will play out in the courts but it marked first time A judge had decided that the searches for surveillance data demanded a justification, legal experts say.