In a Senate hearing on Thursday, Toulcy Gabbard, the choice of President Donald Trump to the Director of National Intelligence, will have to persuade Republican members of the Republican that it supports a monitoring program that he tried to cancel it once.
How Gabbard deal with this issue, instead of her previous sympathetic comments on Russia or its controversial meeting with the then Syrian dictator, Bashar al -Assad, can determine whether she is the best intelligence official in the country.
As a member of a democratic conference from Hawaii from 2013 to 2021, Gabdard The name The electronic monitoring program is a “transgression” issue by intelligence agencies and the violation of civil freedoms of the Americans. In 2020, Gabbard and a Republican legislator Suggested legislation To cancel Article 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Monitoring Law, the law that allows the program.
in interview With Joe Rogan in 2019, she praised Edward Snowden – the former government contractor who leaked a set of data on the 702 monitoring program – and said that he should be pardoned for spying charges because he informed the Americans about a threat to their rights.
But this month, with its confirmation of the Senate, which is looming on the horizon, Gabbard told the media that she now looked at the program as a “decisive” tool and that the amendments to the law approved last year have dealt with her concerns.
“If it is confirmed as DNI, I will support the fourth amendment rights of the Americans while preserving vital national security tools such as Article 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people.”
Gabbard spokesman declined to comment.
Republicans hold a narrow majority 9-8 in the Senate Intelligence Committee. With the Democrats of the Senate Intelligence Committee to oppose it, Gabbard will need the votes of every fans in the team to maintain its way to emphasize alive. If the committee fails to support it, the full Senate can vote on its confirmation, but that will require a majority of 60 votes-which is an unlikely political scenario.
Upon hearing, Gabbard is likely to face difficult questions about The data I made Side with Russia, her 2017 A meeting with Assad In Damascus and its qualifications to supervise 18 spy agencies. But her assistants in Congress The position on the country’s wide foreign monitoring program can be the most difficult challenge to confirm it.
Gabbard’s past position in Article 702 in agreement with many progressive Democrats in Congress as well as the Republicans of Thinking with Thinking, but at odds with the national security hawks who dominate the Senate Intelligence Committee. Cash Patel, the president’s choice of the FBI director, was an explicit discount for the monitoring program.
Senator Susan Collins, RR Men, who voted against Trump’s candidate for the Defense Secretary, Higseth, indicated that she still doubts that Gabbard is fully supports monitoring authorities in Section 702.
“Her answers have been overwhelmed with very written questions,” Collins told The Hill. “I know that there was a lot of reporting that she changed her position. This is not how I read her answers. I read it as,” I will take a look at the reforms and see whether they are in my minds. “
The Wall Street Journal described Gabbard’s interpretation to change her heart “barely convincing.”
The chairman of the committee, Senator Tom Cotton, said R-RK. And it is an explicit and supportive falcon for the monitoring program, it is satisfied with Gabbard’s answers to this issue.
“To Toulsi Gabbard has confirmed in our talks that it supports section 702 as its recent amendment and that it will follow the law and support its re -mandate as DNI,” Cotton said in an email.
Senator Todd Young, R-Ind can be. , Major vote on Gabbard’s political fate. He did not say much about how Gabbard or the observation case saw, saying he had questions he wants to ask in a Thursday session.
“I am waiting for the hearing to ask the questions that I have. I will not describe any of them as fears at this stage, but there are things I need to learn. There are answers that I intend to deduce,” Yong. ” He said Correspondents last week.
Unjustified monitoring
US intelligence and law enforcement officials have argued under the Republican and Democratic Administration that the monitoring program is vital to prevent terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and electronic attacks. Civil freedom groups and members of both parties who oppose the program call it a violation of the fourth amendment to protecting from arbitrary searches and infiltration.
Under Article 702, the United States government is allowed to eavesdrop on foreign contacts outside the country without an order to collect intelligence information. But when eavesdropping on foreigners, American agencies often collect Americans who are in contact with the targeted foreigners.
The opponents have long argued that the rule of “researchers” of the law, which allows the government to revive through the communications collected by the way to the Americans, violates the constitutional rights of Americans and that the FBI and other agencies should be required to obtain a memorandum to overcome the data collected On the Americans.
The monitoring program was first declared in 2008 and has been extended several times since then. Last April, with the end of the program’s legal authority, Congress agreed to renew it for another two years through amendments that were supposed to address the concerns raised by both national security falcons and civil freedom advocates. However, critics said that the end result did not do much to change the control authorities and even the organizations that the federal government could compel them to cooperate with monitoring efforts.
The new law recorded the rules that the FBI says it has adopted to ensure that the authorities have a reason to recover information about an American that has been dried in monitoring efforts. The FBI acknowledged that there are errors in the past with the presence of clients who break the bases of the office about the search for the foreign intelligence monitoring data warehouse looking for Americans. Inquiries It included a member of Congress And the people who partner On January 6, 2021, riots in Capitol and protests of racist justice 2020.
The role of DNI in monitoring
As DNI, Gabard will have a “very decisive” role in overseeing how the monitoring program is implementing, according to Jane Gistel, who served as the National Security Agency’s General Adviser from 2015 to 2020.
Under the law, the Director of National Intelligence and the Public Prosecutor shall be required to direct joint intelligence agencies on the rules and procedures for how to conduct electronic monitoring in exchange for foreign goals under the program of Article 702.
The rules or “certificates” determine the types of foreign targets to be tracked and the procedures that will be used to protect information from American citizens who have been in eavesdropping. DNI and the general lawyer present these rules to the Foreign Intelligence Monitoring Court for approval.
Last month, a federal judge in the provincial court Ruling The 702 program violated the rights of Americans and that law enforcement authorities need to obtain a judicial order before researching the monitoring data of the Americans. It is not clear how the case will be played in the courts, but it was noticeable The first time Legal experts say that the judge has ruled that the search for monitoring data requires an order.
