Security News > 2023 > November > FBI Director: FISA Section 702 warrant requirement a 'de facto ban'

FBI director Christopher Wray made yet another impassioned plea to US lawmakers to kill a proposed warrant requirement for so-called "US person queries" of data collected via the Feds' favorite snooping tool, FISA Section 702.

As the deadline draws near, and reform looms, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are pulling out all the stops to convince lawmakers to greenlight Section 702 without making any changes to the spying tool - and especially without any warrant requirements.

This isn't good enough for the FBI or the White House, which last week called the warrant requirement a "Red line."

"A warrant requirement would amount to a de facto ban, because query applications either would not meet the legal standard to win court approval; or because, when the standard could be met, it would be so only after the expenditure of scarce resources, the submission and review of a lengthy legal filing, and the passage of significant time - which, in the world of rapidly evolving threats, the government often does not have," Wray said.

Uncle Sam snooping on US folks? Not without a warrant, lawmakers agree FBI boss: Congress must renew Section 702 spy powers - that's how we get nearly all our cyber intel FBI abused spy law but only like 280,000 times in a year Feds rethink warrantless search stats and - oh look, a huge drop in numbers.

"Moreover, as we publicly announced in June, the FBI is implementing further measures both to keep improving our compliance and to hold our personnel accountable for misuse of Section 702 and other FISA provisions, including through an escalating scheme for employee accountability, including discipline and culminating in possible dismissal." .

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/15/fbi_director_fisa_section_702/