#Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

[mypatchworkreflection]

"The authority allows U.S. agencies to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country, but it has been abused extensively by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency to collect the communications of American lawmakers, activists, journalists, and others without a warrant."

"Wyden said during his floor speech Tuesday that some of his colleagues "say they aren't worried about President Biden abusing these authorities."

"In that case, how about [former President Donald] Trump? Imagine these authorities in his hands," said Wyden. "If you're worried about having a president who lives to target vulnerable Americans, to pit Americans against each other, to find every conceivable way to punish perceived enemies, you ought to find this bill terrifying.""

[imkeepinit]

18 U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material

As president, Trump approved a law increasing penalties for mishandling classified info. It could come back to bite him.

[tmarshconnors]

FISA

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed in 1978, represents a cornerstone of American national security and intelligence law. Born out of an era of Cold War tensions and heightened awareness of the need for intelligence oversight, FISA established the framework for surveilling foreign agents and other national security threats within the United States while balancing those actions with the protection of civil liberties. In recent decades, however, FISA has often sparked intense debates, especially as technology has evolved and the boundaries of surveillance have shifted.

A Brief History: The Origins of FISA

FISA emerged in the wake of a series of public revelations during the 1970s concerning widespread abuse by the government in surveilling American citizens. The Church Committee, a Senate investigation into intelligence practices, uncovered decades of unauthorised surveillance of civil rights activists, journalists, and political figures. These discoveries led to a recognition that greater oversight of the intelligence community was essential.

In response, FISA was passed to ensure that intelligence agencies had a legal pathway to conduct surveillance on foreign targets, particularly when those targets might be communicating with individuals inside the United States. However, FISA also placed critical safeguards to prevent this surveillance from infringing on the rights of American citizens. It created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a secretive court responsible for approving or denying government requests for surveillance of foreign agents within U.S. borders.

How FISA Works: Key Provisions

FISA is focused on protecting U.S. national security by regulating surveillance that targets foreign powers or their agents. This is typically understood to mean individuals or groups who are suspected of espionage or terrorism. There are three key components to how FISA operates:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC): This special court reviews requests by federal agencies, like the FBI or NSA, to authorise electronic surveillance or physical searches of foreign targets suspected of engaging in espionage or terrorism. The FISC’s proceedings are classified, and its judges serve as a safeguard, ensuring that there is a legal basis for the requested surveillance.

Warrants and Approvals: Under FISA, agencies must demonstrate probable cause to the FISC that the target of surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. If approved, the warrant permits electronic surveillance, such as phone taps or data collection.

Amendments and Extensions: FISA has evolved over the years through a series of amendments. One of the most notable is the Patriot Act of 2001, passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Patriot Act expanded FISA’s reach, allowing broader surveillance powers, including the ability to surveil communications involving individuals with suspected ties to terrorism, even if they are American citizens. Later amendments, such as the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, introduced controversial provisions like Section 702, which allows the government to collect communications of foreign targets without a warrant, so long as the targets are outside of the U.S.

FISA and Civil Liberties: Controversies and Criticisms

Since its inception, FISA has walked a fine line between protecting national security and safeguarding individual rights. Critics have often expressed concern about the secretive nature of the FISC and the lack of transparency surrounding its rulings. While the court is designed to ensure that surveillance is justified, it operates behind closed doors, and the public rarely knows when a surveillance request is made, or why it was approved.

The expanded powers introduced by the Patriot Act and the subsequent rise of mass digital surveillance programs (like PRISM, revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013) further ignited debates over privacy rights. Section 702, in particular, has drawn scrutiny for allowing warrantless collection of communications that may involve U.S. citizens, raising concerns that the government could overreach, accessing private data without proper oversight.

Moreover, the "backdoor searches" problem—where the government queries databases for U.S. person information collected under foreign intelligence authorities—has fuelled arguments that FISA could be used to erode Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

FISA in the Digital Age: The Ongoing Debate

As technology has evolved, so too has the nature of intelligence collection. In a world where most communication takes place via the internet, the lines between foreign and domestic surveillance have blurred. The original framework of FISA, crafted in the late 1970s, didn’t anticipate the global, interconnected nature of digital communications. Modern surveillance technologies, like metadata collection and algorithmic analysis, are far more invasive than wiretapping a phone line.

The question now facing lawmakers and the public is whether FISA and its amendments need to be overhauled to adapt to this new landscape. Proponents of reform argue that the current structure allows for too much surveillance without adequate oversight or accountability, leaving room for potential abuses of power. They call for greater transparency in FISC proceedings and tighter restrictions on the use of surveillance on U.S. persons. Meanwhile, national security experts warn that any efforts to rein in FISA could hinder the ability of intelligence agencies to detect and thwart threats in a fast-moving, digital world.

The Balancing Act Between Security and Privacy

FISA remains a vital tool for protecting the United States from foreign threats, but its broader implications for civil liberties continue to provoke debate. The challenge lies in striking a balance between ensuring national security and upholding the privacy rights of individuals. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, the legal and ethical dilemmas surrounding surveillance will likely only intensify, making FISA a topic of ongoing relevance for policymakers, civil libertarians, and citizens alike.

As for me, I’m a bit OCD when it comes to my own privacy. I believe it's a fundamental right that shouldn’t be compromised, no matter the justification. The idea of being under constant surveillance by tech giants like Microsoft or government agencies like the NSA and CIA makes me uneasy. I can’t shake the feeling that, with so much power and so little transparency, these entities could easily overstep boundaries. Trust is something I don’t give lightly—especially when it comes to protecting my personal information.

Sources:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978)

The USA Patriot Act (2001)

The FISA Amendments Act (2008)

Church Committee Hearings (1975)

[adastra-sf]

A pivotal moment in the history of spycraft that opened the door to today's surveillance state.

Alternate-history question: What if, instead of permitting electronic surveillance they had forbidden it? What might the world look like today?

Or how might alien societies address the question of to mass-surveil or place privacy as top priority?

Either decision would reshape society in unanticipated ways and cause unintended consequences - and exploring second and third-level effects of change is where speculative fiction shines.

Conference Report of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (S. 1566)

Record Group 46: Records of the U.S. Senate Series: Committee Papers of the Committee on the Judiciary File Unit: Legislative Files of the Committee on the Judiciary for the 95th Congress

95th Congress } HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES { REPORT 2d Session } {NO. 95-1720 FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978 ________________________________________________ OCTOBER 5, 1978 - Ordered to be printed ________________________________________________ MR. BOLAND, from the committee of conference, submitted the following CONFERENCE REPORT [To accompany s. 1566] The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the amendments of the House to the bill (S. 1566) to authorize electronic surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence information, having met, after full and free conference, have agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective Houses as follows: That the Senate recede from its disagreement to the amendment of the House to the text of the Senate bill, and agree to the same with an amendment as follows: In lieu of the matter proposed to be inserted by the House amendments insert the following: That this Act may be cited as the "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978". TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE I - ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE WITHIN THE UNITED STATES FOR FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PURPOSES Sec 101. Definitions. Sec. 102. Authorization for electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. Sec. 103. Designation of Judges. Sec. 104. Application for an order. Sec. 105. Issuance of an order. Sec. 106. Use of information. Sec. 107. Report of electronic surveillance. Sec. 108. Congressional oversight. Sec 109. Penalties. Sec. 100. Civil liability. Sec. 111. Authorization during time of war. TITLE II - CONFORMING AMENDMENTS Sec. 201. Amendments to chapter 119 of title 18, United States Code. TITLE III - EFFECTIVE DATE Sec. 301. Effective date.

[fatehbaz]

was thinking about this

To be in "public", you must be a consumer or a laborer.

About control of peoples' movement in space/place. Since the beginning.

"Vagrancy" of 1830s-onward Britain, people criminalized for being outside without being a laborer.

Breaking laws resulted in being sentenced to coerced debtor/convict labor. Coinciding with the 1830-ish climax of the Industrial Revolution and the land enclosure acts (factory labor, poverty, etc., increase), the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 establishes full-time police institution(s) in London. The "Workhouse Act" aka "Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834" forced poor people to work for a minimum number of hours every day. The Irish Constabulary of 1837 sets up a national policing force and the County Police Act of 1839 allows justices of the peace across England to establish policing institutions in their counties (New York City gets a police department in 1844). The major expansion of the "Vagrancy Act" of 1838 made "joblessness" a crime and enhanced its punishment. (Coincidentally, the law's date of royal assent was 27 July 1838, just 5 days before the British government was scheduled to allow fuller emancipation of its technical legal abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean on 1 August 1838.)

---

"Vagrancy" of 1860s-onward United States, people criminalized for being outside while Black.

Widespread emancipation after slavery abolition in 1865 rapidly followed by the outlawing of loitering which de facto outlawed existing as Black in public. Inability to afford fines results in being sentenced to forced labor by working on chain gangs or prisons farms, some built atop plantations.

---

"Vagrancy" of 1870s-onward across empires, people criminalized for being outside while being "foreign" and also being poor generally.

Especially from 1880-ish to 1918-ish, this was an age of widespread mass movement of peoples due to the land dispossession, poverty, and famine induced by global colonial extraction and "market expansion" (Scramble for Africa, US "American West", nation-building, conquering "frontiers"), as agricultural "revolutions" of imperial monoculture cash crop extraction resulted in ecological degradation, and as major imperial infrastructure building projects required a lot of vulnerable "mobile" labor. This coincides with and is facilitated by new railroad networks and telegraphs, leading to imperial implementation or expansion of identity documents, strict work contracts, passports, immigration surveillance, and border checkpoints.

All of this in just a few short years: In 1877, British administrators in India develop what would become the Henry Classification System of taking and keeping fingerprints for use in binding colonial Indians to legal contracts. That same year during the 1877 Great Railroad Strike, and in response to white anxiety about Black residents coming to the city during Great Migration, Chicago's policing institutions exponentially expand surveillance and pioneer "intelligence card" registers for tracking labor union organizing and Black movement, as Chicago's experiments become adopted by US military and expanded nationwide, later used by US forces monitoring dissent in colonial Philippines and Cuba. Japan based its 1880 Penal Code anti-vagrancy statutes on French models, and introduced "koseki" register to track poor/vagrant domestic citizens as Tokyo's Governor Matsuda segregates classes, and the nation introduces "modern police forces". In 1882, the United States passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1884, the Ottoman government enacts major "Passport Nizamnamesi" legislation requiring passports. In 1885, the racist expulsion of the "Tacoma riot".

Punished for being Algerian in France. Punished for being Chinese in San Francisco. Punished for being Korean in Japan. Punished for crossing Ottoman borders without correct paperwork. Arrested for whatever, then sent to do convict labor. A poor person in the Punjab, starving during a catastrophic famine, might be coerced into a work contract by British authorities. They will have to travel, shipped off to build a railroad. But now they have to work. Now they are bound. They will be punished for being Punjabi and trying to walk away from Britain's tea plantations in Assam or Britain's rubber plantations in Malaya.

Mobility and confinement, the empire manipulates each.

---

"Vagrancy" amidst all of this, people also criminalized for being outside while "unsightly" and merely even superficially appearing to be poor. San Francisco introduced the notorious "ugly law" in 1867, making it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view". Today, if you walk into a building looking a little "weird" (poor, Black, ill, disabled, etc.), you are given seething spiteful glares and asked to leave. De facto criminalized for simply going for a stroll without downloading the coffee shop's exclusive menu app.

Too ill, too poor, too exhausted, too indebted to move, you are trapped. Physical barriers (borders), legal barriers (identity documents), financial barriers (debt). "Vagrancy" everywhere in the United States, a combination of all of the above. "Vagrancy" since at least early nineteenth century Europe. About the control of movement through and access to space/place. Concretizing and weaponizing caste, corralling people, anchoring them in place, extracting their wealth and labor.

You are permitted to exist only as a paying customer or an employee.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI’s backdoor

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

State-affiliated Chinese hackers penetrated AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others; they entered their networks and spent months intercepting US traffic – from individuals, firms, government officials, etc – and they did it all without having to exploit any code vulnerabilities. Instead, they used the back door that the FBI requires every carrier to furnish:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/u-s-wiretap-systems-targeted-in-china-linked-hack-327fc63b?st=C5ywbp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

In 1994, Bill Clinton signed CALEA into law. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires every US telecommunications network to be designed around facilitating access to law-enforcement wiretaps. Prior to CALEA, telecoms operators were often at pains to design their networks to resist infiltration and interception. Even if a telco didn't go that far, they were at the very least indifferent to the needs of law enforcement, and attuned instead to building efficient, robust networks.

Predictably, CALEA met stiff opposition from powerful telecoms companies as it worked its way through Congress, but the Clinton administration bought them off with hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to acquire wiretap-facilitation technologies. Immediately, a new industry sprang into being; companies that promised to help the carriers hack themselves, punching back doors into their networks. The pioneers of this dirty business were overwhelmingly founded by ex-Israeli signals intelligence personnel, though they often poached senior American military and intelligence officials to serve as the face of their operations and liase with their former colleagues in law enforcement and intelligence.

Telcos weren't the only opponents of CALEA, of course. Security experts – those who weren't hoping to cash in on government pork, anyways – warned that there was no way to make a back door that was only useful to the "good guys" but would keep the "bad guys" out.

These experts were – then as now – dismissed as neurotic worriers who simultaneously failed to understand the need to facilitate mass surveillance in order to keep the nation safe, and who lacked appropriate faith in American ingenuity. If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can build a security system that selectively fails when a cop needs it to, but stands up to every crook, bully, corporate snoop and foreign government. In other words: "We have faith in you! NERD HARDER!"

NERD HARDER! has been the answer ever since CALEA – and related Clinton-era initiatives, like the failed Clipper Chip program, which would have put a spy chip in every computer, and, eventually, every phone and gadget:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

America may have invented NERD HARDER! but plenty of other countries have taken up the cause. The all-time champion is former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who, when informed that the laws of mathematics dictate that it is impossible to make an encryption scheme that only protects good secrets and not bad ones, replied, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will-trump-the-laws-of-mathematics-turnbull/

CALEA forced a redesign of the foundational, physical layer of the internet. Thankfully, encryption at the protocol layer – in the programs we use – partially counters this deliberately introduced brittleness in the security of all our communications. CALEA can be used to intercept your communications, but mostly what an attacker gets is "metadata" ("so-and-so sent a message of X bytes to such and such") because the data is scrambled and they can't unscramble it, because cryptography actually works, unlike back doors. Of course, that's why governments in the EU, the US, the UK and all over the world are still trying to ban working encryption, insisting that the back doors they'll install will only let the good guys in:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

Any back door can be exploited by your adversaries. The Chinese sponsored hacking group know as Salt Typhoon intercepted the communications of hundreds of millions of American residents, businesses, and institutions. From that position, they could do NSA-style metadata-analysis, malware injection, and interception of unencrypted traffic. And they didn't have to hack anything, because the US government insists that all networking gear ship pre-hacked so that cops can get into it.

This isn't even the first time that CALEA back doors have been exploited by a hostile foreign power as a matter of geopolitical skullduggery. In 2004-2005, Greece's telecommunications were under mass surveillance by US spy agencies who wiretapped Greek officials, all the way up to the Prime Minister, in order to mess with the Greek Olympic bid:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004%E2%80%9305

This is a wild story in so many ways. For one thing, CALEA isn't law in Greece! You can totally sell working, secure networking gear in Greece, and in many other countries around the world where they have not passed a stupid CALEA-style law. However the US telecoms market is so fucking huge that all the manufacturers build CALEA back doors into their gear, no matter where it's destined for. So the US has effectively exported this deliberate insecurity to the whole planet – and used it to screw around with Olympic bids, the most penny-ante bullshit imaginable.

Now Chinese-sponsored hackers with cool names like "Salt Typhoon" are traipsing around inside US telecoms infrastructure, using the back doors the FBI insisted would be safe.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea

Image: Kris Duda, modified https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahorcado/5433669707/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[thefirsthogokage]

(link to post) (link they put in bio)

This is the article they put in the comments:

[reality-detective]

FISA: Unraveling the Military Coup – Trump’s Treason Call

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is no longer just a tool for foreign surveillance. It’s the key to exposing the darkest coup in American history. President Trump’s bold declaration: “It’s TREASON,” has sparked a firestorm, pointing to forces within the government using FISA for their agenda—against you, the American people. They never expected this to come to light, but now it’s all unraveling.

3.4 million warrantless searches. That’s what the FBI did to Americans in 2021. No oversight, no transparency—just raw power. They hijacked FISA, originally intended to spy on foreign entities, and turned it on innocent citizens. It’s a massive invasion of privacy, but it doesn’t end there. This is about control, about silencing dissent, and yes, about installing their puppets in place of real patriots. Think back—who ordered these searches? Who benefits from this totalitarian abuse?

The Flynn factor. They tried to destroy him, but why? What did General Flynn know that made him a target of FISA? Trump’s inner circle was never just about politics; it was a battle for control over America’s soul. The FISA warrants weren’t just about Flynn. They were about dismantling Trump’s influence and crushing anyone who dared to resist.

QAnon warned us. The signs were always there. Every cryptic message, every drop hinted at FISA’s role in this covert war. FISA is the hidden thread connecting corrupt global maneuvers—from the Middle East to Washington, D.C. The attempt to overthrow leaders like Bin Salman and the engineered revolutions point to FISA’s global reach. What the elite don’t want you to know is that FISA is a weapon in their game to reshape the world—and the U.S. is just one of their targets.

Military Coup in Motion? The whispers are growing louder—U.S. generals, split and at war within the ranks, may be gearing up for an internal coup. The deep state’s stranglehold on military leadership is being challenged, and the outcome could shift the balance of power forever. But don’t forget—there are white hats in the military, patriots ready to blow the whistle and reveal the plot. These patriots are gathering evidence, working behind the scenes, and preparing to expose the deep state’s crimes at the 11.3 moment.

Blinken’s tangled web. White hats have him in their sights. His ties to Obama and secret dealings with Iran paint him as a key player in the shadow government’s plans. Did you know? Blinken was at the center of the fake Osama Bin Laden operation. The revelations to come will rock the establishment, implicating him in high treason.

It all leads back to the Biden Crime Family. Hunter’s dirty deals, the Biden’s criminal empire—it's all coming out. But it’s not just about corruption; it’s about national security. Hunter’s laptop holds classified military secrets. The elites thought they could bury this, but the truth is about to explode.

Stay tuned. The storm is brewing. 🤔

[probablyasocialecologist]

During a senate briefing last week, a federal counterterrorism official cited the October 7 Hamas attack while urging Congress to reauthorize a sprawling and controversial surveillance program repeatedly used to spy on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. “As evidenced by the events of the past month, the terrorist threat landscape is highly dynamic and our country must preserve [counterterrorism] fundamentals to ensure constant vigilance,” said Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Christine Abizaid to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, after making repeat references to Hamas’s attack on Israel. She pointed to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which enables the U.S. government to gather vast amounts of intelligence — including about U.S. citizens — under the broad category of foreign intelligence information, without first seeking a warrant. Section 702 “provides key indications and warning on terrorist plans and intentions, supports international terrorist disruptions, enables critical intelligence support to, for instance, border security, and gives us strategic insight into foreign terrorists and their networks overseas,” Abizaid said. “I respectfully urge Congress to reauthorize this vital authority.” The controversial program is set to expire at the end of the year, and lawmakers sympathetic to the intelligence community are scrambling to protect it, as some members of Congress like Sen. Ron Wyden push for reforms that restrain the government’s surveillance abilities. According to Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, plans are underway to prepare a stopgap measure to preserve Section 702 of FISA as a long-term reauthorization containing reforms is hammered out. 

[simply-ivanka]

Democrats Lie To Defeat Trump

The Steele dossier was bogus.

Today we know the truth: The Hillary Clinton campaign paid for the document and fed the information to intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.

It’s discredited now, but only after Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants on a Trump adviser were issued, Pulitzer Prizes were won, and the Trump administration was roiled by the charges.

The larger point is that truth takes a back seat on such efforts.

The New York Post broke the story of Hunter’s laptop three weeks before Election Day. The statement by the former intelligence officials implying it was all Russian disinformation—along with a press that helped bury the story—served its purpose by giving Mr. Biden a way to kill the story until the election was over.

Likewise, it doesn’t really matter to Democrats if Mr. Trump’s conviction is tossed next year on appeal, or if the Supreme Court eventually overturns the decision.

Truth may come out in the end, but the end will be too late.

[staring-at-a-blank-pagee]

This is copy/pasted from the Stop Internet Censorship discord server and is very important KOSA-related information, so please take the time to look at this!!

The House is considering an expansion of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has been historically used to surveil activists and gives cops a backdoor to our information through data brokers. Fight For the Future is cohosting a phonebanking call in a few minutes to jam Congress's phones opposing this racist mass surveillance program. You can call them anytime using THIS tool!

Also, please check out and share these posts about it if you're able:

1.

2.

Please spread the word!!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Harry Davies, Bethan McKernan, Yuval Abraham, and Meron Rapoport at The Guardian:

When the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders, he issued a cryptic warning: “I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately.” Karim Khan did not provide specific details of attempts to interfere in the ICC’s work, but he noted a clause in the court’s foundational treaty that made any such interference a criminal offence. If the conduct continued, he added, “my office will not hesitate to act”. The prosecutor did not say who had attempted to intervene in the administration of justice, or how exactly they had done so. Now, an investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call can reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret “war” against the court. The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries.

Israeli intelligence captured the communications of numerous ICC officials, including Khan and his predecessor as prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, intercepting phone calls, messages, emails and documents. The surveillance was ongoing in recent months, providing Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, with advance knowledge of the prosecutor’s intentions. A recent intercepted communication suggested that Khan wanted to issue arrest warrants against Israelis but was under “tremendous pressure from the United States”, according to a source familiar with its contents. Bensouda, who as chief prosecutor opened the ICC’s investigation in 2021, paving the way for last week’s announcement, was also spied on and allegedly threatened. Netanyahu has taken a close interest in the intelligence operations against the ICC, and was described by one intelligence source as being “obsessed” with intercepts about the case. Overseen by his national security advisers, the efforts involved the domestic spy agency, the Shin Bet, as well as the military’s intelligence directorate, Aman, and cyber-intelligence division, Unit 8200. Intelligence gleaned from intercepts was, sources said, disseminated to government ministries of justice, foreign affairs and strategic affairs.

A covert operation against Bensouda, revealed on Tuesday by the Guardian, was run personally by Netanyahu’s close ally Yossi Cohen, who was at the time the director of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad. At one stage, the spy chief even enlisted the help of the then president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila. Details of Israel’s nine-year campaign to thwart the ICC’s inquiry have been uncovered by the Guardian, an Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Local Call, a Hebrew-language outlet. The joint investigation draws on interviews with more than two dozen current and former Israeli intelligence officers and government officials, senior ICC figures, diplomats and lawyers familiar with the ICC case and Israel’s efforts to undermine it. Contacted by the Guardian, a spokesperson for the ICC said it was aware of “proactive intelligence-gathering activities being undertaken by a number of national agencies hostile towards the court”. They said the ICC was continually implementing countermeasures against such activity, and that “none of the recent attacks against it by national intelligence agencies” had penetrated the court’s core evidence holdings, which had remained secure.

A spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister’s office said: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.” A military spokesperson added: “The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] did not and does not conduct surveillance or other intelligence operations against the ICC.” Since it was established in 2002, the ICC has served as a permanent court of last resort for the prosecution of individuals accused of some of the world’s worst atrocities. It has charged the former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, the late Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi and most recently, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Khan’s decision to seek warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, along with Hamas leaders implicated in the 7 October attack, marks the first time an ICC prosecutor has sought arrest warrants against the leader of a close western ally.

[...] That “war” commenced in January 2015, when it was confirmed that Palestine would join the court after it was recognised as a state by the UN general assembly. Its accession was condemned by Israeli officials as a form of “diplomatic terrorism”. One former defence official familiar with Israel’s counter-ICC effort said joining the court had been “perceived as the crossing of a red line” and “perhaps the most aggressive” diplomatic move taken by the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank. “To be recognised as a state in the UN is nice,” they added. “But the ICC is a mechanism with teeth.” [...] Israel, like the US, Russia and China, is not a member. After Palestine’s acceptance as an ICC member, any alleged war crimes – committed by those of any nationality – in occupied Palestinian territories now fell under Bensouda’s jurisdiction.

The Guardian's report on how Israel led a 9-year intimidation war campaign against the ICC is a must-read.

[lokiinmediasideblog]

FISA 702 HAS PASSED THE HOUSED. WE MUST STOP IT!

Fax your legislators! TELL THEM YOU WON'T VOTE FOR THEM IF THEY VOTE YES ON FISA (Fy-zah) 702!

You can also fax your legislators for FREE at:

From Edward Snowden's Twitter:

If you were mad about your House rep voting to let the government spy on you without a warrant ("FISA 702" - fy-za seven-oh-two), we may have one last shot. CALL YOUR REP @ (202) 224-3121 and say "𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟳𝟬𝟮, 𝗜 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂."

From the article link:

House lawmakers voted on Friday to reauthorize section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or Fisa, including a key measure that allows for warrantless surveillance of Americans. The controversial law allows for far-reaching monitoring of foreign communications, but has also led to the collection of US citizens’ messages and phone calls.

Lawmakers voted 273–147 to approve the law, which the Biden administration has for years backed as an important counterterrorism tool. An amendment that would have required authorities seek a warrant failed, in a tied 212-212 vote across party lines.

Donald Trump opposed the reauthorization of the bill, posting to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday: “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!”

The law, which gives the government expansive powers to view emails, calls and texts, has long been divisive and resulted in allegations from civil liberties groups that it violates privacy rights. House Republicans were split in the lead-up to vote over whether to reauthorize section 702, the most contentious aspect of the bill, with Mike Johnson, the House speaker, struggling to unify them around a revised version of the pre-existing law.

Republicans shot down a procedural vote on Wednesday that would have allowed Johnson to put the bill to a floor vote, in a further blow to the speaker’s ability to find compromise within his party. Following the defeat, the bill was changed from a five-year extension to a two-year extension of section 702 – an effort to appease far-right Republicans who believe Trump will be president by the time it expires.

Section 702 allows for government agencies such as the National Security Administration to collect data and monitor the communications of foreign citizens outside of US territory without the need for a warrant, with authorities touting it as a key tool in targeting cybercrime, international drug trafficking and terrorist plots. Since the collection of foreign data can also gather communications between people abroad and those in the US, however, the result of section 702 is that federal law enforcement can also monitor American citizens’ communications.

Section 702 has faced opposition before, but it became especially fraught in the past year after court documents revealed that the FBI had improperly used it almost 300,000 times – targeting racial justice protesters, January 6 suspects and others. That overreach emboldened resistance to the law, especially among far-right Republicans who view intelligence services like the FBI as their opponent.

Trump’s all-caps post further weakened Johnson’s position. Trump’s online remarks appeared to refer to an FBI investigation into a former campaign adviser of his, which was unrelated to section 702. Other far-right Republicans such as Matt Gaetz similarly vowed to derail the legislation, putting its passage in peril.

Meanwhile, the Ohio congressman Mike Turner, Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told lawmakers on Friday that failing to reauthorize the bill would be a gift to China’s government spying programs, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah.

“We will be blind as they try to recruit people for terrorist attacks in the United States,” Turner said on Friday on the House floor.

The California Democratic representative and former speaker Nancy Pelosi also gave a statement in support of passing section 702 with its warrantless surveillance abilities intact, urging lawmakers to vote against an amendment that would weaken its reach.

“I don’t have the time right now, but if members want to know I’ll tell you how we could have been saved from 9/11 if we didn’t have to have the additional warrants,” Pelosi said.

Debate over Section 702 pitted Republicans who alleged that the law was a tool for spying on American citizens against others in the GOP who sided with intelligence officials and deemed it a necessary measure to stop foreign terrorist groups. One proposed amendment called for requiring authorities to secure a warrant before using section 702 to view US citizens’ communications, an idea that intelligence officials oppose as limiting their ability to act quickly. Another sticking point in the debate was whether law enforcement should be prohibited from buying information on American citizens from data broker firms, which amass and sell personal data on tens of millions of people, including phone numbers and email addresses.

Section 702 dates back to the George W Bush administration, which secretly ran warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. In 2008, Congress passed section 702 as part of the Fisa Amendments Act and put foreign surveillance under more formal government oversight. Lawmakers have renewed the law twice since, including in 2018 when they rejected an amendment that would have required authorities to get warrants for US citizens’ data.

Last year Merrick Garland, the attorney general, and Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, sent a letter to congressional leaders telling them to reauthorize section 702. They claimed that intelligence gained from it resulted in numerous plots against the US being foiled, and that it was partly responsible for facilitating the drone strike that killed the al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 2022.

[mariacallous]

The need for good intelligence has never been more visible. The failure of the Israeli security services to anticipate the brutal surprise attack carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 reveals what happens when intelligence goes wrong.

In contrast, in late February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s planned three-day “special military operation” to invade Ukraine and topple the government was pushed onto the back foot by the U.S. and U.K. intelligence communities. While Putin’s rapid seizure of Crimea by a flood of “little green men”  in 2014 was a fait accompli, by the time of the 2022 invasion, anticipatory moves including the public declassification of sensitive intelligence ensured that both the intelligence community and Ukraine remained a step ahead of Putin’s plans.

Yet, despite the clear and enduring need for good intelligence to support effective statecraft, national security, and military operations, U.S. intelligence agencies and practitioners are undermined by a crisis of legitimacy. Recent research investigating public attitudes toward the U.S. intelligence community offers some sobering trends.

A May 2023 poll conducted by the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies and Harris Poll found that an eye-watering 70 percent of Americans surveyed were either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about “interference by the FBI and intelligence agencies in a future presidential election.”

A separate study, conducted in 2021 and 2022 by the Intelligence Studies Project at the University of Texas at Austin and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, found that only 56 percent of Americans thought that the intelligence community “plays a vital role in warning against foreign threats and contributes to our national security.” That number is down 10 points from a previous high—if it can even be called that—of 66 percent in 2019, and the downward trend does not give us cause for optimism. Reframed, that statistic means that in 2022, an alarming (in our view) 44 percent of Americans did not believe that the intelligence community keeps them safe from foreign threats or contributes to U.S. national security.

Worse, despite abundant examples of authoritarian aggression and worldwide terror attacks, nearly 1 in 5 Americans seem to be confused about where the real threats to their liberty are actually emanating from. According to the UT Austin study, a growing number of Americans thought that the intelligence community represented a threat to civil liberties: 17 percent in 2022, up from 12 percent in 2021. A nontrivial percentage of Americans feel that the intelligence community is an insidious threat instead of a valuable protector in a dangerous world—a perspective that jeopardizes the security and prosperity of the United States and its allies.

The most obvious recent example of the repercussions of the corrosion of trust in the intelligence community is the recent drama over reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). First introduced in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, Section 702 is an important legal authority for the U.S. intelligence community to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States, with the compelled assistance of electronic communication service providers. According to a report published by Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI), 702 is “extremely valuable” and “provides intelligence on activities of terrorist organizations, weapons proliferators, spies, malicious cyber actors, and other foreign adversaries.”

Section 702 was scheduled to “sunset” at the end of 2023 if not reauthorized. Yet Congress failed to reauthorize 702 by the end of 2023, electing to punt the decision—as is so often the case—to this spring, when it was finally reauthorized (with some important reforms) in late April 2024, but it was only extended for two years instead of the customary five. An unusual alliance of the far right and the far left squeezed centrists and the Biden administration, which was strongly pushing for a renewal that would protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and not needlessly hobble the intelligence community in protecting the United States itself.

But the frantic down-to-the-wire negotiations about reauthorizing some recognizable form of 702 obscured a deeper problem at the heart of the contemporary Americans’ relationship with intelligence that has been brewing over the last decade: The fundamental legitimacy of a strong intelligence community—and the integrity of its practitioners—has been questioned by U.S. lawmakers on the far left and the far right, perhaps reflecting a misguided but increasing consensus of tens of millions of Americans.

This trend is now a crisis.

Section 702’s troubled journey faced queries from the privacy-oriented left, where those with overblown concerns about potential abuse by the intelligence community viewed reauthorizing 702 is tantamount to “turning cable installers into spies,” in the words of one opinion contributor published in The Hill. The intelligence community’s revised authorities (some adjustments were required given the 15 years of communications technology development since the amendment was first passed) were called “terrifying” and predictably—the most hackneyed description for intelligence tools—“Orwellian.” On the power-skeptical right, Section 702 is perceived as but another powerful surveillance tool of the so-called deep state.

In response to legitimate concerns about past mistakes, the intelligence community has adopted procedural reforms and enhanced training that it says would account for the overwhelming majority of the (self-reported) mistakes in querying 702 collection. According to a report from the Justice Department’s National Security Division, the FBI achieved a 98 percent compliance rate in 2023 after receiving better training. Further, the Justice Department and the DNI have gone to unprecedented lengths to publicly show—through declassified success stories—the real dangers that allowing 702 to lapse would bring to the United States and its allies.

Never before has an intelligence community begged, cajoled, and pleaded with lawmakers to enable it to do its job. After all, a hobbled intelligence community would still be held responsible should a war warning be missed, or should a terrorist attack occur.

For instance, Gen. Eric Vidaud, the French military intelligence chief, was promptly fired over intelligence failings related to Putin’s (re)invasion of Ukraine despite the Elysée’s criticisms of the warnings made by the United States and United Kingdom as “alarmist.” And Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, director of Israeli military intelligence, recently resigned over the Oct. 7 attacks despite the fault probably lying across Israel’s political landscape as well. Intelligence professionals pay more than their share of the bill when their crystal ball stays cloudy.

The hullabaloo over 702 is not the only recent instance painting the actions of the U.S. national security apparatus as questionable state activity conducted by dishonest bureaucrats, and some recent history helps put the recent events into a broader downward trend in trust.

In 2013, National Security Agency (NSA) mass-leaker Edward Snowden, a junior network IT specialist with a Walter Mitty complex, sparked a needed but distorted global conversation about the legitimacy of intelligence collection when he stole more than 1.5 million NSA documents and fled to China and ultimately Russia. The mischaracterization of NSA programs conveyed by Snowden and his allies (painting them as more intrusive and less subject to legal scrutiny than they were) led to popular misunderstandings about the intelligence community’s methods and oversight.

It was not only junior leakers whose unfounded criticism helped to corrode public faith in intelligence; it has also been a bipartisan political effort. In 2009, then-U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that the CIA had lied to her after she wished to distance herself from the agency’s “enhanced interrogation techniques”—which critics call torture. But Pelosi’s comments earned a “false” rating from Politifact’s “truth-o-meter.” Then-CIA Director Leon Panetta countered that “CIA officers briefed truthfully.”

Some suspicion of a powerful intelligence community stems from genuine failings of the past, especially the CIA’s activities in the early and middle stages of the Cold War, which included some distasteful assassination plots, the illegal collection of intelligence domestically (such as surveillance of Americans on political grounds, including illegally opening their mail), and the LSD experimentation on unwitting Americans as part of its infamous MKULTRA program.

Most of these excesses—characterized as the CIA’s “Family Jewels”—were reported to Congress, which held explosive hearings in 1975 to publicize these activities, bringing the intelligence agencies into the public realm like never before. Images of Sen. Frank Church holding aloft a poison dart gun, designed by the CIA to incapacitate and induce a heart attack in foreign leaders, became front page news. These serious failings in accountability were the dawn of rigorous intelligence oversight.

Public trust in government was already sinking when, in 1971, the Pentagon Papers revealed that politicians had lied about US activities in the deeply unpopular Vietnam war. The Watergate scandal the following year added fuel to fire. Although the CIA was not directly involved in Watergate, the involvement of former agency employees led to a wider belief that the agency was tainted. And in the late 1970s, CIA morale sank to an all-time low when then-President Jimmy Carter began the process of sharply reducing its staff, attributing the decision to its “shocking” activities.

In response to congressional findings and mountains of bad press, subsequent directors of the CIA considered the criticisms and made numerous changes to how the intelligence community operates. While the intelligence community (and its leaders) made good-faith efforts to operate strictly within its legal boundaries, be more responsive to congressional oversight, and embrace some level of transparency, the public image of the CIA and the broader intelligence community didn’t change. After the Cold War ended, the preeminent vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, called twice for the disbanding of the CIA. Such political pummeling of the role of intelligence and the integrity of its practitioners was bound to leave a mark.

The politics of distrust are back to the bad old days. By 2016, distrust of the intelligence community had returned with a vengeance: then-presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed that NSA was circumventing domestic legal constructs to spy on his campaign through its close partnership with the Government Communications headquarters (GCHQ), the British signals intelligence agency. (The NSA said those claims were false and GCHQ called them “utterly ridiculous”.) As president-elect, Trump also compared U.S. intelligence to “living in Nazi Germany.” Once Trump entered the Oval Office, the FBI was a frequent target for his invective thanks to the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.

While the intelligence community is a long way away from the excesses of the 1970s, it is not perfect. Intelligence is an art, not a science. It is not prediction so much as narrowing the cone of uncertainty for decision-makers to act in a complex world. Even when acting strictly within the law and under the scrutiny of Congress and multiple inspectors general, the intelligence community has been wrong on several important occasions. It failed to stop the 9/11 attacks, got the assessment that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction spectacularly wrong, and was made to look impotent by Osama bin Laden for nearly a decade before the U.S. Navy SEALs caught up with him on a CIA mission in Pakistan in May 2011.

Errors still happen because intelligence is hard, and the occasional failure to warn, to stop every attack, or to prevent every incorrect search query is inevitable. Today, mistakes are self-reported to Congress; they are no longer hidden away as they sometimes were in the past. Yet the intelligence community has done a poor job telling its own story and self-censors due to widespread over-classification—a problem that the DNI has acknowledged, if not yet remedied. It has only belatedly begun to embrace the transparency required for a modern intelligence apparatus in a democratic state, and there is much work yet to be done.

It is the job of the intelligence agencies to keep a calm and measured eye on dark developments. In a world in which the panoply of threats is increasing, the role of the intelligence community and its responsibilities within democratic states has never been greater. If the community cannot be trusted by its political masters in the White House and Congress, much less the American people, then it will not be given the ability to “play to the edge,” and the risk is that the United States and its allies will be blind to the threats facing them. Given the adversaries, the consequences could be severe.

U.S. intelligence has had a rebirth of confidence since 9/11 and the incorrect judgments of the Iraqi weapons program. It was intelligence and special operations that hunted and killed bin Laden, U.S. law enforcement that has kept the U.S. homeland safe from another massive terror attack, and the intelligence community correctly predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That increased sense of purpose and morale is moot if the U.S. people, Congress, or the president (sitting or future) do not trust them. This crisis of legitimacy is a trend that may soon hamper the intelligence community, and the results could be unthinkable. Getting the balance between civil liberties and security right isn’t an easy task, but the intelligence community must have the tools, trust, and oversight required to simultaneously keep faith with the American people while serving as their first line of defense.

[eretzyisrael]

by Michael Rubin

On Jan. 7, an Israeli airstrike killed two Al Jazeera journalists in the Gaza Strip. The Qatar-run news outlet immediately accused Israel of targeting journalists and labeled their death an "assassination."

No serious journalist, diplomat, or human rights activist should give Al Jazeera benefit of the doubt. Terrorists have long used media to amplify reach. Chechen rebels would cancel missions rather than move without cameramen to leverage their attack into effective propaganda.

During the Iraq War, U.S. soldiers became accustomed to seeing Al Jazeera journalists pre-positioned to film booby-traps meant to maim and murder Americans. Legitimate journalists do not know about attacks before they occur; terrorists do.

Al Jazeera has a long history of crossing the journalistic line. Al Jazeera journalist Fahad Yasin, for example, used Qatari cash to propel himself to become Somalia's intelligence chief, a position he used to fund terrorism further.

Were Hamza Wael Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria, the two Al Jazeera employees Israel killed, illegitimate targets? No. Both were traveling in a vehicle with a terrorist. They were operating a drone to surveil Israeli forces and enable Hamas attacks. To knowingly travel with a terrorist with the purpose of supporting that terrorist forfeits one's immunity, just as medics or school teachers lose their immunity if they transport terrorists or give cover for their operations. If press freedom groups are angry, they should not blame Israel but instead launch lawsuits against Al Jazeera for violating the Geneva Conventions in a manner that imperils all war correspondents.

It is in not only Gaza, however, where Al Jazeera violates the norms and ethics of journalism in pursuit of terrorism, violence, or espionage, but also on Capitol Hill. As Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) has pointed out, Congress credentials 136 Al Jazeera "journalists" to enable them into House and Senate galleries and expansive access to senators, members of Congress, and staff. Compare that to the New York Times that credentials only 82 members. The discrepancy in coverage — the New York Times produces far more — suggests that something other than journalism may motivate Al Jazeera.

The danger is multifold. The Justice Department has designated Iran's PressTV, Russia's RT, and Turkey's TRT to be foreign agents. Al Jazeera is no different. They are agents of a foreign power that flirts dangerously with terrorism sponsorship even if the State Department and Pentagon are reticent to designate the emirate formally, often for narrow bureaucratic reasons such as the lavish lifestyle servicemen enjoy in Qatar or access to sheikhdom's strategically superfluous al Udeid Air Base.

Al Jazeera may cynically resist measures to bring its credentialed staff in line with journalistic needs by citing First Amendment protections, nevermind that Qatar does not respect any such privilege domestically, nor does it allow open access to its palaces. That Al Jazeera has violated journalistic ethics by conducting surveillance on alleged opponents of Qatar's pro-Hamas, anti-Israel policies simply underscores it is a network of operatives operating under the cover of journalism.

House Resolution 189, introduced by Bergman, is a commonsense measure that should appeal across the partisan spectrum. It plugs a loophole in which foreign agents can claim press credentials to avoid compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Perhaps its only flaw is it does not go far enough: All journalists receiving access to roam not only the halls of Congress but also the Pentagon and State Department should undergo background checks, whether they are American citizens or not. In addition, the access foreign journalists receive should be proportional to that which American outlets enjoy in their countries.

Democracies and liberal societies rest upon a basis of rule of law. Too often, illiberal opponents shield themselves behind their opponents' idealism and mirror imaging without subscribing to it. With Hamas, this has meant corruption of protected institutions such as schools and hospitals and treating journalism as a shield for terrorism and espionage.

Al Jazeera may mourn its journalists, but they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. For too long, Al Jazeera has played the outside world for fools. Enough is enough.