Right-wing trashing of FBI imperils post-9/11 foreign surveillance program: report

The ongoing conservative trash talk against the FBI has imperiled a key foreign surveillance program developed in the aftermath of 9/11, The New York Times reports.

Section 702 allows the law enforcement agency to collect the communications of targeted foreigners abroad from American soil without obtaining a warrant, the report said, noting that the surveillance program includes communications with Americans.

Officials say the program is crucial to protect against terrorists, hackers and others who aim to cause harm to Americans.

The program, that had long faced criticism from progressives who viewed it as a threat to civil liberties, is now being assailed by MAGA conservatives, the report said.

“There’s no way we’re going to be for reauthorizing that in its current form — no possible way,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said.

“We’re concerned about surveillance, period.”

Leaders of both parties have warned the Biden administration that, without wholesale changes, Congress will not renew the program.

It was last extended in 2018 but the GOP’s view of data collection has changed dramatically since then.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) backed the program in 2018, and his shift reflects his party’s metamorphosis.

“You couldn’t waterboard me into voting to reauthorize 702,” Gaetz said.

“These 702 authorities were abused against people in Washington on January 6 and they were abused against people who were affiliated with the B.L.M. movement, and I’m equally aggrieved by both of those things.”

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was created by Congress in 2008 and has since been extended twice with solid Republican backing.

Opposition to the program today offers a rare glimpse of bipartisanship.

“We’ve been very clear with the administration that there is not going to be a clean reauthorization — there’s no path to that,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said.

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