At a Senate audience on Thursday, Tulsi Gabbard, the election of President Donald Trump for the National Intelligence Director, will have to convince the Republican senators to support a surveillance program that once tried to repeal.
How Gabbard manages that problem, instead of his previous sympathizers on Russia or his controversial meeting with the then Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, he could determine if he becomes the intelligence official of the best rank in the country.
As Hawaii Democratic congressman from 2013 to 2021, Gabbard described the electronic surveillance program a case of “overreach” by intelligence agencies and a violation of the civil freedoms of the Americans. In 2020, Gabbard and a republican legislator proposed legislation to repeal section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Law, the law that allows the program.
In an interview with Joe Rogan in 2019, he praised Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who leaked a treasure of data on the 702 surveillance program, and said that he should be forgiven by spy charges because he had informed Americans about a threat to your rights. .
But this month, with his Senate confirmation, Gabbard told the media that he now saw the program as a “crucial” tool and that the amendments to the law adopted last year had addressed their concerns.
“If confirmed as an ID, I will maintain the rights of the fourth amendment of the Americans while I keep vital tools of national security such as section 702 to guarantee the security and freedom of the US people,” Gabbard said in a statement to Punchbowl News.
A Gabbard spokesman declined to comment.
Republicans have a close majority of 9-8 in the Senate Intelligence Committee. With the Democrats in the Senate Intelligence Committee that is expected to oppose it, Gabbard will need the votes of each Republican on the panel to keep their way to confirmation alive. If the committee does not support it, the complete Senate could vote on its confirmation, but that would require a majority of 60 votes, a politically unlikely scenario.
At his audience, Gabbard will probably face difficult questions about the statements he has set aside with Russia, his 2017 meeting with Assad in Damascus and his qualifications to supervise 18 espionage agencies. But his position in the vast foreign surveillance program of the country could represent the most difficult challenge for confirmation, the congress assistants say.
Gabbard’s past position in section 702 aligns with many progressive Democrats in Congress, as well as the Republicans of libertarian mentality, but disagree with the national security hawks that dominate the Senate Intelligence Committee. Kash Patel, the president’s president for the director of the FBI, has been an open opponent of the surveillance program.
Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted against Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has indicated that she is still an skeptic that Gabbard completely supports the surveillance authorities of Section 702.
“His answers to written questions were very covered,” Collins told The Hill. “I know there have been many reports that his position has changed. This is not how I read your answers. I read them as, ‘I will take a look at the reforms and see if they satisfy my concerns. “
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal has called Gabbard’s explanation of his “barely persuasive” heart change.
The president of the Committee, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Ark., An open hawk and proponent of the surveillance program, said he is satisfied with Gabbard’s responses on the subject.
“Tulsi Gabbard has assured me in our conversations that support section 702 as recently amended and that the law will continue and support its re -authorization as an ID,” Cotton said in an email.
Senator Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana, could also be a key vote for Gabbard’s political destination. He has said little about how he sees Gabbard or the problem of surveillance, saying that he has questions he wants to ask at Thursday’s audience.
“I am waiting for the audience to ask questions I have. I would not characterize any of them as concerns at this time, but there are things that I need to learn. There are answers that I intend to provoke, ”Young told journalists last week.
Surveillance without court order
Intelligence and application officials of the United States Law under republican and democratic administrations have argued that the surveillance program is vital to prevent terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and cyber attacks. Civil freedom groups and members of both parties that oppose the program are called a violation of the right of the fourth amendment to be protected from arbitrary searches and intruders.
According to section 702, the United States government is authorized to listen to foreigners communications outside the country without an arrest warrant to collect intelligence. But when he listens to foreigners, US agencies also often incidentally collect the communications of Americans who are in contact with foreigners target.
The opponents have long argued that a provision of the “Guardians of search engines” law, which allows the government Obtain an order to make known through data. collected in Americans.
The surveillance program was first authorized in 2008 and has been extended several times since then. Last April, with the legal authority of the program about to expire, Congress approved its renewal for another two years with amendments that were supposed to approach the concerns raised by the national security hawks and the defenders of civil liberties. But critics said the final result did little to change surveillance authorities and even expanded which organizations the federal government could force cooperating with surveillance efforts.
The new law encoded the rules that the FBI says that it had adopted to ensure that the authorities have reasons to recover information about an American whose communications are obtained in surveillance efforts. The FBI has recognized a litany of errors in the past with agents that break the rules of the office on the exploration of the foreign intelligence surveillance data deposit that are looking for Americans. The consultations included a member of the Congress and people who participated in the disturbances of the Capitol of January 6, 2021 in the Capitol and the Racial Justice protests of 2020.
DNI’s role in surveillance
As DNI, Gabbard would have an “absolutely crucial” role in the supervision of how the surveillance program is carried out, according to Glenn Gerstell, who served as general advisor of the National Security Agency from 2015 to 2020.
By law, every year, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, must jointly direct the intelligence agencies on the rules and procedures on how electronic surveillance against foreign objectives will be carried out under the program of Section 702.
The rules or “certifications” define the types of foreign objectives that will be traced and the procedures that will be used to safeguard the information of US citizens who are incidentally trapped in spy operations. The DNI and the Attorney General present these rules to the foreign intelligence surveillance court for approval.
Last month, a federal judge in the District Court ruled that the 702 program violated the rights of Americans and that the authorities of application of the law must obtain a court order before seeking surveillance data for Americans. It is not clear how the case will develop in court, but marked the first time that a judge ruled that searches for surveillance data required a court order, legal experts say.
