But "never give up," the Biden advisory panel admits! Allow monitoring of non American violations of surveillance rights around the world advisory panel | United States | Americans
According to the Associated Press, on July 31st local time, a panel of advisors to US President Biden released a report proposing restrictions on the FBI's use of a controversial and unauthorized surveillance program to search for information about Americans. However, the panel also urged U.S. congressmen to extend legal authorization for the program.
The advisory panel acknowledges that allowing US intelligence agencies to monitor non Americans around the world is controversial and violates monitoring rights, but insists that this plan, called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is crucial to US national security and must not be abandoned. They also state that allowing the plan to fail would be an "intelligence failure" and a regression of the changes made after the 9/11 attacks.
According to reports, the validity period of Article 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is about to expire, and the White House is urging the US Congress to extend the validity period.
According to Article 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US intelligence agencies such as the FBI can electronically monitor non US individuals outside the United States, including checking emails, without the need for court authorization.
"There is no evidence to suggest that the FBI intentionally abused these powers for political purposes." The advisory panel also defended the FBI, claiming that out of the millions of pieces of information collected through Section 702 so far, only three pieces of information were related to "deliberate misconduct," and warned that repealing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "could be one of the most serious intelligence oversight failures of our time."
According to a Reuters report in May this year, a ruling shows that the US Foreign Intelligence Investigation Court has found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has illegally searched 278000 times in foreign intelligence databases in the United States over the years, including information about Americans suspected of committing crimes.
The court stated that these searches occurred during the FBI's investigation into criminal incidents in the United States, including the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot and the protests sparked by the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
This intelligence database stores numbers and other information about individuals. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the FBI to search the communication of foreign nationals, including their conversations with Americans, without authorization.
The Associated Press quoted US intelligence officials as saying that the clause allows for the investigation of so-called "China Russia espionage activities", "potential terrorist plots", and other threats, but also touches on communication information of US citizens and businesses. Regarding a series of intelligence operational errors by the FBI and whether to extend the validity period of the provision, both parties in the United States are engaged in heated debates in Congress.