Tulsi Gabbard on fisa: what the evidence says · JRE #2143
SUBJECT: FISA
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
Section 702 of FISA gives our government the authority to surveil foreign actors, essentially, to try to identify terrorist threats. But part of that is they have the ability to capture all of the conversations. If you talk to somebody in another country that they're interested in, they can then go in
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Gabbard's description of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is accurate. The statute authorizes the government to target non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States in order to acquire foreign intelligence, including on threats such as terrorist plots, and it explicitly prohibits intentionally targeting Americans. Because targeted foreigners often communicate with people in the United States, Americans' communications are swept up through what the government calls incidental collection: the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board states that U.S. persons' communications may be incidentally collected when a lawfully targeted non-U.S. person communicates with or talks about a U.S. person. The government's own joint statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee likewise acknowledges the privacy interests of Americans whose information may be incidentally acquired when collecting foreigners' communications. Gabbard's summary is consistent with these primary sources, though the phrase capture all of the conversations somewhat overstates the targeted (rather than bulk) design of the program.