Grassley on Senate Floor: “Let’s Reauthorize FISA Section 702”

VIDEO

In five short days, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, is set to expire.

Section 702 is an essential national security tool. That law is responsible for over 60% of the intelligence in the president's daily brief.

Section 702 enables our intelligence and law enforcement communities to thwart attacks before they occur.

It's, as I see it, a preventative national defense [and] national security issue.

Section 702 has saved countless lives in the United States and even abroad.

It gives our military a strategic edge, allows us to hunt down foreign terrorists and rescue hostages and helps us defend critical infrastructure from cyberattacks.

More recently, Section 702 has enabled more than 90% of CIA-driven synthetic drug disruptions abroad and prevented a mass casualty terrorist attack at a Taylor Swift concert overseas.

So, there's no doubt that this is a powerful, critical tool to protect Americans. But there's also no doubt that powerful tools like this require strong oversight and accountability.

I've put a lot of attention into the fact of congressional oversight, as it applies to Section 702.

I have and will continue to demand transparency, and I will faithfully make sure that we execute, in Congress, [our] duty to [engage in] oversight. But we must balance our oversight responsibilities with our responsibility to protect our country and countrymen.

I refuse to incapacitate our intelligence community at a time of conflict, and when threats to our national security and prosperity continue to [multiply].

Two years ago, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, RISAA for short, added critical and successful reforms to Section 702 in response to some abuse and overreach.

I've been monitoring the implementation of these reforms for two years, and so I want to discuss with you some of my concerns.

One important RISAA reform was a provision that grants access to select members of Congress to attend and conduct oversight of "any proceeding" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

This ensures that these hearings, which necessarily occur in secret because of national security, are subject to congressional oversight in a secure way. That was intended in our legislation.

But at the end of the Biden administration, the Justice Department imposed a set of unlawful restrictions on congressional access to these proceedings.

Among other things, the rules DOJ imposed allowed the Justice Department to kick members out of the courtroom at will, also prohibiting them from even taking notes and even prohibiting them from requesting information or sharing what they learned with their colleagues.

From my standpoint of emphasis on oversight and following the law, this was an untenable position and situation. And, of course, [it was] contrary to the compromise that was worked out during the last reauthorization two years ago.

I've been fighting to fix this issue for months. I even wrote a letter to Attorney General Bondi with my Democratic colleague Senator Durbin demanding change.

We both recognize that transparency and congressional oversight is not a Republican or Democrat responsibility or issue, but it's rather a separation of powers issue.

Something that you learn in eighth grade civics, or high school government classes - checks and balances.

Around here we don't use that term, we use the term of "oversight."

In other words, Congress passes laws and appropriates money, and we have a responsibility after we do that to make sure that the executive branch faithfully executes these laws.

So today, I'm happy to say that this issue has now been resolved, and an important transparency and accountability tool has been returned to the Congress.

So, I'm really grateful to the Trump administration and the Department of Justice for revising and repairing the misguided and noncompliant procedures that were written by the previous administration.

This new Department of Justice policy restores the intent of RISAA and the constitutional separation of powers to its proper boundaries with Congress as a co-equal branch.

Additionally, because of my oversight, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is working to create overflow space to ensure that all eligible members and their staff will be able to attend proceedings and thus exercise their oversight authority.

I have no reason to understand how the Department of Justice under Biden thought they could get away with violating this responsibility that the compromise gave us to exercise our oversight responsibility.

But that's the way it worked out, and now we have that corrected.

Now that DOJ has made this right, the reforms from the last reauthorization are in full effect.

In the last public audit, the FBI achieved a 99% compliance rate with its U.S. person queries, which have also decreased sharply overall in recent years.

The reforms that we imposed in RISAA are working. If it expires, so do its civil liberties protections and many of its oversight mechanisms.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board recently reported that Section 702 targeting and querying compliance remains at nearly 100% throughout the intelligence community.

FISA, including Section 702, remains subject to intense agency, judicial and congressional oversight and scrutiny. So, if Section 702 expires, so do the civil liberties protections.

I've spent my career in the Senate holding government accountable.

I'll never stop asking questions or abandon my oversight duties.

That doesn't mean we should blind ourselves and gamble with the safety of our communities.

So, with these oversight reforms fulfilling the intent of the previous reauthorization, I will support this year's reauthorization.

Let's reauthorize [Section] 702 before it expires.

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