« on: January 16, 2025, 04:31:04 pm »
https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/16/top-senate-republicans-ask-bondi-to-support-a-fisa-system-that-spies-on-americans/During Pam Bondi’s confirmation hearings for attorney general, top Senate Republicans asked her to support the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which federal agents have abused to spy on Americans.
The FBI and Department of Justice used FISA to spy on former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, as The Federalist previously reported. Section 702 of the legislation allows federal agencies to collect communications of noncitizens, outside the country, without a warrant. It supposedly bars the government from spying on Americans, but the CIA was caught in 2022 using the law — which Congressional Republicans reauthorized last year — to spy on Americans.
“I would like to have a strategy to deal with the ISIS threat that’s beyond just the law enforcement model,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C. said to Bondi. “Does that make sense to you, that we should use every tool in the toolbox?”
Such an approach “includes wrapping in our state and local officials” and “better cooperation” across the nation and world, Bondi replied.
“Do you support reauthorizing FISA in 2025?” asked Graham.
“I believe [section] 702 is up in 2026,” Bondi said. “We will closely be looking at FISA as a very important tool.”
“Do you agree that 702 provides important intel-gathering capability to protect our nation?” Graham asked. Bondi called it “extremely important.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also pushed Bondi on the matter. He said 60 percent of the president’s intelligence brief comes from Section 702. “It’s been called the crown jewel of U.S. intelligence,” he said.
Cornyn claimed Section 702 “cannot be legally used to spy on American citizens” and if that happens, it should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” He then discussed Biden’s temporary extension of the law until 2026 “for the use of the intelligence community to target foreign threats to our national security.”
“I’d like you just confirm here on the record that you will enforce that law and you can support the law as it is written,” Cornyn said.
“Senator, I haven’t read the entire 702 in front of you, but I will commit to reading that and doing everything I can to keep America safe again,” Bondi replied.
Cornyn suggested concerns about Section 702 are “misinformation.”
EXCERPT
Except that we already know that the FBI abused it and nobody was prosecuted for it.
What burns me is that it's now
Republicans pushing to save this thing. They got to Gabbard too.
Logged
aka "nasty degenerate SOB," "worst of the worst at Free Republic," "Garbage Troll," "Neocon Warmonger," "Filthy Piece of Trash," "damn $#%$#@!," "Silly f'er," "POS," "war pig," "neocon scumbag," "insignificant little ankle nipper," "@ss-clown," "neocuck," "termite," "Uniparty Deep stater," "Never Trump sack of dog feces," "avid Bidenista," "filthy Ukrainian," "war whore," "fricking chump," "psychopathic POS," "depraved SOB," "Never Trump Moron," "Lazarus," and "sock puppet."
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." ---George Orwell
