Eric Schmitt To Tulsi Gabbard: How Have You Taken On FISA Abuse To Protect Civil Liberties?

3 days ago

At today's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) grilled top Trump Administration intel officials about FISA and protecting civil liberties.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you all for being here, and Director Gabbard, prior to your role here, we had a

00:10big storm in Western North Carolina, and you were among those first from outside our state

00:14to show up.

00:15So thank you for your work there, thank you for your ongoing work there, and that of your

00:19family as well.

00:20It was good to see them out in Western North Carolina last week, so thank you.

00:26Mr. Hawke, so what do we need to do in regards to Volt and Typhoon, there's a lot of pre-positioning

00:35that went on there.

00:36So where are we with that, and what do we need to do in regards to our power companies,

00:43whether it's generation or distribution, Duke Energy in my home state, or even the Rural

00:48Electric co-ops.

00:49What do we need, what have we learned, and what can I tell them?

00:53Senator, 99% of the critical infrastructure in the United States is controlled by private

00:59companies.

01:00So that really drives us to talk about how do we partner with industry and with the commercial

01:06sector, in this case, the power sector.

01:08Volt-Typhoon began when industry came to the intelligence community and said, we're seeing

01:13anomalous activity, can you help us gain context?

01:16And we were able to bring context to that, to be able to understand what the threat was,

01:21and then to ultimately be able to identify who was behind that threat.

01:25Since that time, we've continued to work very closely with industry to be able to determine

01:30what are the right ways for us to be able to pursue these threats within networks, to

01:35enable the interagency, to enable our partners and industry to be able to pursue them.

01:41That's the approach we have to take.

01:42It is a collaboration between the government and industry to be able to eradicate these

01:47threats, and we have continued to pursue them together since our first identification

01:53and notification that we did related to this particular threat.

01:59What have you done on the offensive side here in regards to, I think there were three, Salt-Typhoon,

02:04Volt-Typhoon, and even Flax-Typhoon?

02:05Maybe there were others, but those are the three that are known.

02:09Senator, I've been given really clear guidance in terms of what the Secretary of Defense

02:13expects in terms of our aggressive approach to be able to restore deterrence, and I look

02:18forward to talking with you about that in the closed hearing.

02:21Look forward to that.

02:23Directors Gabbard and Ratcliffe and Patel, thank you all again for being here.

02:28So as you're all keenly aware, Section 702 of FISA is an extremely useful authority to

02:33help keep our nation safe.

02:34I also know that we need to rebuild American people's trust and confidence that such authorities

02:41are not being misused by the intelligence community to unlawfully target Americans.

02:47So since taking over your respective agencies, can you tell me and tell the American people

02:53how effective the recent changes have been in protecting privacy and civil liberties

02:58of each and every Americans?

03:00And then, if you will, comment on how useful the authority is in generating intelligence

03:06that actually protects the homeland.

03:08We'll start with you, Director Gabbard.

03:11Senator, Section 702, which authorizes foreign collection of non-U.S. persons outside of

03:19the United States, continues to be one of our most effective collection tools to ensure

03:25our national security.

03:28There are a number of reforms that the Senate passed, that Congress passed last year that

03:34have proven to strengthen the protections of Americans' Fourth Amendment rights.

03:40In the short time that I've been in this seat, I've seen a few examples of that directly,

03:44most recently through the FISA court calling in an amici to come in and weigh in on a dispute

03:52regarding provisions that would further protect Americans' Fourth Amendment rights.

03:58I'll be visiting our friends at the NSA next week and doing a quote-unquote ride-along

04:06to observe directly how those reforms that Congress passed are being implemented to protect

04:11Americans' civil liberties and look forward to reporting back after I've had that opportunity.

04:17Director Patel.

04:18Thank you, Senator.

04:22With my background in FISA and 702, I just want to clearly delineate between FISA Title

04:26III and 702 collection, we need to both ardently defend its use but also ardently support reforms

04:35that allow the American public to entrust that those charged with those capabilities

04:40are not violating the Fourth Amendment or any other violation.

04:44Speaking of Title I, Title III, when it comes to U.S. persons, I have already included an

04:48amendment in terms of FBI language to make sure that when a U.S. person is targeted,

04:54that the FBI specifically is responsible for calling through all exculpatory information

05:00that is reasonably known and satisfying that burden and stating it in the application.

05:05When it comes to 702, Senator, some of the biggest enterprise efforts we have had to

05:13thwart national security risk would not have occurred if 702 collection had gone dark.

05:19And the FBI continues to use that information to protect the homeland.

05:23We've had multiple takedowns in the last six months based on 702 and interagency collection

05:28processes, but we just need to ensure the American public, and I'm working with my team,

05:32that even in the 702 sphere, American citizens' information is protected.

05:37Thank you all.

05:38I look forward to the discussion in the closing.

Eric Schmitt To Tulsi Gabbard: How Have You Taken On FISA Abuse To Protect Civil Liberties?

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