Chairman Biggs: Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 in response to revelations that the federal government had seriously abused warrantless surveillance, resulting in rampant privacy violations. Forty-five years later, the same remains true. Despite efforts to rein in these abuses, the federal government continues to use it's powers to illegally spy on American citizens.
Chairman Biggs: In May of this year, Special Council John Durham released his report on the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation. That report, not only backed up Inspector General Horowitz's findings, but also found that political and confirmation bias by FBI employees, led the FBI to lie to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and illegally spy on the Trump Campaign for an entire year.
Chairman Biggs: Section 702 information acquired without a warrant can later be used by the FBI in criminal prosecutions, unrelated to foreign intelligence or national security. The FBI has misused privileged spying powers to conduct rogue surveillance on innocent Americans, and we cannot allow that to continue…I think it is built on a dubious constitutional foundation…we must end warrantless surveillance of Americans, and hold accountable, any federal official who violated the civil liberties of Americans.
Turley: There is no question that the FBI, and other agencies, have continued to defy federal law, and abuse their powers under FISA.
Turley: If we reauthorize Section 702 without significant changes, then we have become a nation of chumps…we have documented evidence of massive violations of the privacy of US citizens.
It's Biden's attempt to get around the ruling. I'm sure it will be immediately challenged,
Goitein: In the digital age, American's communications are as likely to be routed and stored overseas as they are in the United States. Overseas surveillance can therefore have just as great an impact on American's privacy as domestic surveillance, yet for the most part, the government writes it's own rules for overseas collection. And those rules expressly permit bulk collection and backdoor searches.
Tiffany: On one of the most significant abuses of FISA, we [republicans/democrats] do not have agreement, and that was in regards to one, President Donald J. Trump. It was abused, and Mr. Durham highlighted what an abuse it was of FISA, and we have any people, including on this panel, that still will not recognize that. And that is dangerous for the American Republic. Because if you have a Praetorian Guard that thinks they can take down a president, are we all free?