#senate intelligence committee

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

As the national security workforce ages, dementia impacting U.S. officials poses a threat to national security, according to a first-of-its-kind study by a Pentagon-funded think tank. The report, released this spring, came as several prominent U.S. officials trusted with some of the nation’s most highly classified intelligence experienced public lapses, stoking calls for resignations and debate about Washington’s aging leadership.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had a second freezing episode last month, enjoys the most privileged access to classified information of anyone in Congress as a member of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leadership. Ninety-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose decline has seen her confused about how to vote and experiencing memory lapses — forgetting conversations and not recalling a monthslong absence — was for years a member of the Gang of Eight and remains a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which she has served since 2001.

The study, published by the RAND Corporation’s National Security Research Division in April, identifies individuals with both current and former access to classified material who develop dementia as threats to national security, citing the possibility that they may unwittingly disclose government secrets.

“Individuals who hold or held a security clearance and handled classified material could become a security threat if they develop dementia and unwittingly share government secrets,” the study says.

As the study notes, there does not appear to be any other publicly available research into dementia, an umbrella term for the loss of cognitive functioning, despite the fact that Americans are living longer than ever before and that the researchers were able to identify several cases in which senior intelligence officials died of Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder and the most common cause of dementia.

“As people live longer and retire later, challenges associated with cognitive impairment in the workplace will need to be addressed,” the report says. “Our limited research suggests this concern is an emerging security blind spot.”

Most holders of security clearances, a ballooning class of officials and other bureaucrats with access to secret government information, are subject to rigorous and invasive vetting procedures. Applying for a clearance can mean hourslong polygraph tests; character interviews with old teachers, friends, and neighbors; and ongoing automated monitoring of their bank accounts and other personal information. As one senior Pentagon official who oversees such a program told me of people who enter the intelligence bureaucracy, “You basically give up your Fourth Amendment rights.”

Yet, as the authors of the RAND report note, there does not appear to be any vetting for age-related cognitive decline. In fact, the director of national intelligence’s directive on continuous evaluation contains no mention of age or cognitive decline.

While the study doesn’t mention any U.S. officials by name, its timing comes amid a simmering debate about gerontocracy: rule by the elderly. Following McConnell’s first freezing episode, in July, Google searches for the term “gerontocracy” spiked.

“The President called to check on me,” McConnell said when asked about the first episode. “I told him I got sandbagged,” he quipped, referring to President Joe Biden’s trip-and-fall incident during a June graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, which sparked conservative criticisms about the 80-year-old’s own functioning.

While likely an attempt by McConnell at deflecting from his lapse, Biden’s age has emerged as a clear concern to voters, including Democrats. 69% of Democrats say Biden is “too old to effectively serve” another term, an Associated Press-NORC poll found last month. The findings were echoed by a CNN poll released last week that found that 67% of Democrats said the party should nominate someone else, with 49% directly mentioning Biden’s age as their biggest concern.

As Commander In Chief, the President is the nation’s ultimate classification authority, with the extraordinary power to classify and declassify information broadly. No other American has as privileged access to classified information as the president.

The U.S.’s current leadership is not only the oldest in history, but also the number of older people in Congress has grown dramatically in recent years. In 1981, only 4% of Congress was over the age of 70. By 2022, that number had spiked to 23%.

In 2017, Vox reported that a pharmacist had filled Alzheimer’s prescriptions for multiple members of Congress. With little incentive for an elected official to disclose such an illness, it is difficult to know just how pervasive the problem is. Feinstein’s retinue of staffers have for years sought to conceal her decline, having established a system to prevent her from walking the halls of Congress alone and risk having an unsupervised interaction with a reporter.

Despite the public controversy, there’s little indication that any officials will resign — or choose not to seek reelection.

After years of speculation about her retirement, 83-year-old Speaker Emerita Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., stunned observers when she announced on Friday that she would run for reelection, seeking her 19th term.

[cannabisbusinessexecutive]

Senate committee moves to let intel agencies hire people who have used marijuana

Senate committee moves to let intel agencies hire people who have used marijuana

The Senate Intelligence Committee has advanced legislation that would allow US intelligence agencies to hire applicants who have used marijuana in the past, according to committee aides. Language included in the committee’s annual authorization bill for the intelligence community — which passed unanimously on Wednesday — would prohibit intelligence agencies from discriminating against job…

[tomework]

I’ve been looking for this one for a while. I misplaced it and couldn’t find it to save my life until I started tidying up an untouched corner of the house.

“The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency��s Detention and Interrogation Program” by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

I picked this one up along with “the Mueller Report” from the Spy Museum in Washington DC a couple years back.

Rather horrific read, again like the Mueller Report a significant portion of it is redacted. Names, places, time frames, things of that nature. Still, the things that WERE published changed the course of history.

A very specific read for a very specific reader. If you’re into that kind of literature this is a fascinating read.

[auroraluciferi]

4/19/2023 Senate hearing on UFO’s and UAP’s

This is the second congressional hearing in 50 years on this subject that follows testimony from intelligence and military officials in May of 2022, the transcript of which can be found here

[macybay947]

not that i expected anything different, but the senate intelligence committee's report on torture is truly horrific

[boymeetswerewolf]

Sterek Week '23 // Day 3, Worlds Collide / @sterekweek-2023

Rebel vs Empire / Star Wars AU Stiles Stilinski, a former Republic officer turned rebel, is secretly acting as a double agent for the Empire after the Imperial Security Bureau took his father hostage and forced him to turn on his rebel cell. His ISB handler is an agent who has close connections to Derek Hale, an Imperial senator who sits on the Intelligence Oversight Committee. Derek, who has become disillusioned with the Empire and is doing all he can to protect his planet from being crushed under the authoritarian heel of Imperial oppression, intercepts Stiles' message from his handler first, then decides what to send to the ISB that is the least damaging and won't blow either of their covers. In turn, he uses his position as a senator to feed bits of classified Imperial information via the handler to Stiles who passes it on to his rebel cell. When the ISB handler mysteriously disappears and the pair arrange to meet for the first time, things begin spiralling out of control very quickly. Their twisted symbiotic relationship is a dangerous dance during a time when Emperor Palpatine's hands are closing tighter and tighter around the throats of those who remain loyal to the idea of the old Republic. Gradually, as their worlds begin to collide, Stiles and Derek start to recognise that there's no one else left for them to trust but each other.

[morganbritton132]

The CIA babysitter post is perfection and I am absolutely tickled at the idea of Senator Erica getting to sit on the Intelligence Committee. Her just staring down the director of the CIA like “you know what I know you wanna try again?” while somewhere in the distance Steve whoops like it’s an NBA championship game.

Also most classified items come under review to be declassified after 25 years with some exceptions so you know Murray is out there meddling. I just love it.

I am dying at the image of Steve watching an Intelligence Committee hearing on C-SPAN just because Erica is a part of it. Like, this guy does not follow politics. Most of the news he gets is second-hand from Robin and Nancy. He didn’t even start voting until 2008.

He has no idea what the hell this hearing is even about or what side he should be on. Honestly, he finds the ways that politicians talk without saying anything confusing and boring, but he’s watching to support his girl.

Eddie is chattering away to his livestream audience on his way upstairs to see if Steve is ready to leave for their lunch date. He pauses at the top of the stairs when he hears loud clapping coming from the living room and an enthusiastic, “That’s what I’m talking about!”

He fully expects to see some kind of sports game on the tv when he walks into the room, not…a democratic representative from New York.

And Steve is hyped.

He is sitting on the edge of the coffee table, as close to the tv as he comfortably can be and his knee is bouncing up and down like it does when he’s excited. And Eddie is…confused? He’s baffled? Wondering what the hell happened to his husband.

“…Stevie?” Eddie asks and gets promptly shushed. Steve doesn’t even look over at him, just waves his hand in Eddie’s direction. “Babe, are you suddenly interested in…energy security?”

“What?” Steve asks, giving him a confused look before returning back to the screen. “Oh, shhh. This is the best part.”

“There’s a best part of a government hearing?”

“Shhh, look,” Steve says, smiling when the camera cuts away from the director of the department of energy over to Indiana Senator, Erica Sinclair. “Look at how professional she looks! And she’s like. She’s doing amazing.”

“What’s her stance?”

“I don’t know, energy department bad?” Steve shrugs like it’s not important. “She called the director guy out on inadequate internal controls, said it hasn’t gotten any better since the ‘80s. She didn’t say it but she was definitely talking about Hawkins Lab and the ‘chemical leak’ in ‘83 and like, that guy knew it too.”

Steve turned back to the tv, “How cool is that?”

Eddie pauses, takes in everything Steve just said and then ends his live-stream abruptly, “Baby…was that not a real chemical leak?”

[vague-humanoid]

@chrisdornerfanclub

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security failed to believe intelligence that painted a clear warning that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was being planned, a new Senate committee report released Tuesday reveals.

“Planned in Plain Sight,” a report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, highlights red flags missed in the days and hours before the 2021 insurrection.

It says the FBI and DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners with sufficient urgency and alarm to enable those partners to prepare for the violence that ultimately occurred on January 6th,” the Washington Post reported.

The warnings came from sources including nongovernmental organizations tracking online extremism, from members of the public and from the FBI’s own field offices.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Remember her?

Here's an Update:

An abandoned charity for schoolchildren in the Dominican Republic. A mothballed housing development in small-town Quebec. A litany of companies that seem to exist in name only. An elaborate infiltration of Mar-a-Lago. A long list of lawsuits, counter-lawsuits, restraining orders, and criminal charges.

And now, a mysterious shooting linked to one of the most infamous figures in Montreal’s organized crime world.

At the middle of it all is Valeriy Tarasenko, who first gained notoriety over his links to Inna Yashchyshyn, the fake heiress who waltzed into Donald Trump’s Florida estate last year and posed in a photo with the former U.S. President in Mar-a-Lago. After news of the security breach made headlines around the world, Tarasenko turned against Yashchyshyn, his former business partner and alleged ex-lover, accusing her of being a “con artist” and spy who worked for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yashchyshyn, in turn, accused Tarasenko of being the abusive, manipulative mastermind behind the bizarre plot.

Now, Tarasenko seems to have fallen into a bewildering scandal of his own. Last Friday, the Russian-born entrepreneur was shot in the parking lot of a luxury resort in the sleepy Quebec town of Estérel, an hour north of Montreal. He survived, but suffered significant injuries. Tarasenko’s lawyer says his client knows the man who was initially charged with the shooting, a notorious figure in Montreal’s underworld.

Two sources who spoke to The Daily Beast say Tarasenko’s business activities have long been a recipe for disaster. According to multiple judgements in the Quebec court system, Tarasenko and his ex-wife, Anna Kovalenko, who remained his business partner after their apparent split, took money from a variety of sources—money that never seemed to go to the business and charitable purposes for which they were intended.

Just what was Valeriy Tarasenko up to?

Tarasenko arrived in Montreal with his only daughter in early 2007. Kovalenko, his ex-wife at the time, had arrived a year earlier and enrolled at Concordia University to study political science. Their resettlement was financed entirely by Kovalenko’s stepparents, Olga and Yury Manakhov.

A retired Soviet Navy captain, Yury Manakhov had gone on to found a Moscow-based fishing company and, according to court filings, “made a fortune.” That wealth helped him enter the bureaucratic fast lane when he began the process of immigrating to Canada around 2007.

In the years that followed, Manakhov sent his stepdaughter more than $1 million. That bought her a condo in Montreal, another in Florida, a house in the Dominican Republic, a luxury car, and an array of other expenses and gifts.

Around that time, Kovalenko remarried Tarasenko while her relationship with her stepfather soured. In court filings, Manakhov declared the newly rejoined couple “lazy.”

While Manakhov largely cut off his stepdaughter and son-in-law, the support didn’t end entirely. In 2010, he purchased six empty lots in Estérel, for around $25,000, and transferred them to Kovalenko.

From their arrival in Canada, Kovalenko and Tarasenko began registering corporations, although they never seemed to carry on much business. In 2007, they founded Bastion-M, a holding company registered to their condo in downtown Montreal. In 2010, they registered another corporation: the United Hearts of Mercy.

While the United Hearts of Mercy advertised itself as a “a registered charitable organization,” it was never registered as a charity in Canada, and 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status wasn’t granted in the United States until 2015.

The organization claimed to have done charitable work in Haiti, Ukraine, and the entire continent of Africa—at one point claiming that it was collecting funds to help rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, after a devastating fire in 2019—but there is little publicly available evidence of such expansive work. A Facebook page for the charity shows volunteers, wearing United Hearts of Mercy T-shirts, posing with schoolchildren in the Dominican Republic (where Kovalenko owned a home) and handing out takeout containers to street-involved people in Miami.

In 2011, Manakhov drew up a loan agreement with his stepdaughter, formally requesting she repay $370,000. She ignored it. The litigation would be tied up in court for years, with Manakhov moving to seize his stepdaughters’ various properties and Kovalenko going to court to prevent those moves. Manakhov told the court that his stepdaughter committed acts of “theft, signature forgery, bank fraud, automobile fire and threats.” The court would ultimately side with Manakhov, ordering the seizure and sale of two of Kovalenko’s condos and the plot of land in Estérel.

According to court filings, it was around this time that Kovalenko divorced Tarasenko once more—though sources who spoke to The Daily Beast said the pair continued to “work” together through those years.

One of the earliest directors of the United Hearts of Mercy, a fellow Russian émigré who resigned from the organization after approximately a year on the board, filed suit against Kovalenko in 2015. The former director alleged that he lent Kovalenko nearly $350,000, in cash, that was never repaid.

That money, Kovalenko said, would be used to build a housing development on the property she had been gifted by her stepfather, in Estérel. That development, as of last year, had still not broken ground.

According to the IRS, the charity took in no more than $50,000 per year between 2015 and 2020.

For all their years in Canada, it wasn’t clear what business Tarasenko and Kovalenko were actually involved in.

The sources familiar with the couple said that despite their troubled business dealings, the pair always seemed to have money. Court records show Kovalenko took out $75,000 in loans from one friend, an amount she was not asked to repay.

There was, however, one business ambition that seemed to get off the ground: an elaborate plan to kickstart a music career for their daughter, Sofiya, under the stage name “Sofiya Rothschild.” To promote her, the couple registered the company Rothschild Media Label in Florida in 2018.

And who did they name as director of the company? None other than Inna Yashchyshyn, the fake heiress who snuck into Mar-a-Lago.

Yashchyshyn’s role in the Rothschild Media Label was meant to help Sofiya become a pop star by infiltrating high society and creating buzz for Sofiya’s music career. Incredibly, the plan worked: Before long, Yashchyshyn was pictured on the golf course with Donald Trump as “Anna Rothschild.”

While Yashchyshyn’s hobnobbing may have originally been a success, her presence later raised alarms in Trump’s entourage. The infiltration of Mar-a-Lago was so seamless that Senator Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Post-Gazette he would raise the alarming lack of security during his briefings with the intelligence community.

As Yashchyshyn’s infiltration made headlines, and drew scrutiny of investigators in two countries on their business relationship with Tarasenko, the pair had a public falling out.

Images of seemingly forged passports, with Yashchyshyn’s pseudonym, were published. The OCCRP reported that the FBI was looking at evidence suggesting the United Hearts of Mercy—to which Yashcyshyn had been appointed a director—was a front for money laundering. Tarasenko accused Yashchyshyn of being a spy, without providing any evidence. The fake heiress, in turn, claimed she was the victim of a jealousy-driven “smearing” campaign by Tarasenko, alleging he was a stalker and abuser who had “forced” her into his business schemes.

When she was contacted by the New York Post, Yashchyshyn bristled at the idea that she was working for Russia. Yashchyshyn was born in Ukraine. Her brother, the Post reported, was called up to defend their country after Russia’s unprovoked invasion earlier this year.

“What boils my blood most is people even thinking I’m Russian or a Russian agent,” she told the Post. “Russian people don’t exist to me since they invaded my country and killed my family and took homes.”

In the fallout, payment processor Stripe kicked the United Hearts of Mercy off their platform for routing donations through stolen Hong Kong credit cards, per the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She appears in many of the charity’s photos.

The FBI has conducted multiple interviews regarding Yashchyshyn and the United Hearts of Mercy, while the Sûreté du Québec—the provincial police force—confirmed to the OCCRP and Post-Gazette that they are investigating the charity.

In the meantime, Sofiya’s music career hasn’t exactly taken off. While she has racked up tens of thousands of Instagram followers—posing in front of luxury cars, boarding private jets, and with Chris Brown, while never showing her face—only one of her singles has surpassed 100,000 listens on Spotify. In one poorly edited interview, Sofiya boasts, “I have my own record label, Rothschild Media Label.” The only other artist on the Rothschild label is Kualify, a hip-hop artist from Montreal.

The exact nature of Yashchyshyn’s relationship with the family is unclear. According to reporting from the OCCRP and the Post-Gazette, Yashchyshyn was originally hired by Tarasenko as a nanny, before becoming a business associate. In a messy legal dispute that played out in a Miami court, Yashchyshyn would claim that she and Tarasenko were lovers. Tarasenko denies it.

Last year, Yashchyshyn filed to obtain a restraining order against Tarasenko, alleging he had threatened her and held her hostage. Tarasenko filed to obtain his own restraining order in return, alleging that Yashchyshyn had abused his daughter.

Florida-based lawyer Steven Veinger told The Daily Beast that both Tarasenko and Kovalenko hired him last spring to litigate the case—they wanted to tell the court that Yashchyshyn was a fraudster, a scam artist, and possibly tied to organized crime. The case was ultimately settled last year.

While Yashchyshyn and Sofiya were based in Miami, one source told The Daily Beast that Kovalenko was still in Montreal, “in contact with some young guy,” who had been part of a “gang.”

On Oct. 6, a man in a black T-shirt emblazoned with a large white skull and the number 81 rang Yury Manakhov’s doorbell.

A video of the exchange, recorded by the Manakhovs’ home security system and obtained by La Press, captures the exchange.

“My name is Richard,” the man tells Manakhov, who was celebrating his 76th birthday that afternoon. “I’d just like to speak to you for a minute—by the way, happy birthday. I want to talk to you about Anna.” Met with confusion, he adds: “Anna, your stepdaughter.”

“Who are you?” Manakhov asks.

“Honestly, I’m a very good friend of hers,” he adds. The whole exchange lasts less than two minutes, with the mystery man insisting that “I’m trying to make all the charges drop.”

While it’s not quite clear what he’s referring to, La Presse revealed that the man in the skull T-shirt was, in fact, Richard Goodridge—an infamous affiliate of multiple Montreal street gangs, including the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club. The 81 on his T-shirt corresponds to the gang’s initials: H and A.

Just a day after he arrived on Manakhov’s doorstep, Tarasenko was shot. Police arrested Goodridge the following day—only to release him shortly thereafter. “The analysis of his version [of events] did not allow us to make accusations for the moment,” a spokesperson for the provincial police told The Daily Beast.

Tarasenko knew Goodridge, according to Veinger, his lawyer, and was likely at the Estérel resort to meet him that night. “He indicated he recognized the individual,” Veinger says. “He feels like he was set up.”

When Tarasenko arrived at the resort, a black car pulled up with three men inside—one opened fire and struck Tarasenko multiple times. “This was planned, this wasn’t a random thing,” Veigner says.

According to news station TVA, Tarasenko had been threatened in the past. A note scrawled in red across his SUV warned: “CLOSE MOUTH OR I KILL SOFIYA + ANA [sic].”

The Sûreté du Québec told The Daily Beast that while Goodridge has been released from custody, they have referred the record of his interrogation to prosecutors and are continuing to investigate the shooting.

Tarasenko, meanwhile, is in the process of fleeing Quebec—but not, his lawyer stresses, because he is trying to evade justice.

“He doesn’t feel safe there,” Veigner says.

But, the lawyer adds, if the cops call: “He’s willing to cooperate.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

During a senate briefing last week, a federal counterterrorism official cited the October 7 Hamas attack while urging Congress to reauthorize a sprawling and controversial surveillance program repeatedly used to spy on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. “As evidenced by the events of the past month, the terrorist threat landscape is highly dynamic and our country must preserve [counterterrorism] fundamentals to ensure constant vigilance,” said Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Christine Abizaid to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, after making repeat references to Hamas’s attack on Israel. She pointed to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which enables the U.S. government to gather vast amounts of intelligence — including about U.S. citizens — under the broad category of foreign intelligence information, without first seeking a warrant. Section 702 “provides key indications and warning on terrorist plans and intentions, supports international terrorist disruptions, enables critical intelligence support to, for instance, border security, and gives us strategic insight into foreign terrorists and their networks overseas,” Abizaid said. “I respectfully urge Congress to reauthorize this vital authority.” The controversial program is set to expire at the end of the year, and lawmakers sympathetic to the intelligence community are scrambling to protect it, as some members of Congress like Sen. Ron Wyden push for reforms that restrain the government’s surveillance abilities. According to Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, plans are underway to prepare a stopgap measure to preserve Section 702 of FISA as a long-term reauthorization containing reforms is hammered out. 

[wwarborday]

It’s not the best letter ever, but 25 senators signed off on a ceasefire letter to Biden on 2/14

It’s not the best, but it is so much more than we have been getting. Calling is WORKING. Protesting is WORKING. DO NOT GIVE UP HOPE!

[lokiinmediasideblog]

FISA 702 HAS PASSED THE HOUSED. WE MUST STOP IT!

Fax your legislators! TELL THEM YOU WON'T VOTE FOR THEM IF THEY VOTE YES ON FISA (Fy-zah) 702!

You can also fax your legislators for FREE at:

From Edward Snowden's Twitter:

If you were mad about your House rep voting to let the government spy on you without a warrant ("FISA 702" - fy-za seven-oh-two), we may have one last shot. CALL YOUR REP @ (202) 224-3121 and say "𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟳𝟬𝟮, 𝗜 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂."

From the article link:

House lawmakers voted on Friday to reauthorize section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or Fisa, including a key measure that allows for warrantless surveillance of Americans. The controversial law allows for far-reaching monitoring of foreign communications, but has also led to the collection of US citizens’ messages and phone calls.

Lawmakers voted 273–147 to approve the law, which the Biden administration has for years backed as an important counterterrorism tool. An amendment that would have required authorities seek a warrant failed, in a tied 212-212 vote across party lines.

Donald Trump opposed the reauthorization of the bill, posting to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday: “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!”

The law, which gives the government expansive powers to view emails, calls and texts, has long been divisive and resulted in allegations from civil liberties groups that it violates privacy rights. House Republicans were split in the lead-up to vote over whether to reauthorize section 702, the most contentious aspect of the bill, with Mike Johnson, the House speaker, struggling to unify them around a revised version of the pre-existing law.

Republicans shot down a procedural vote on Wednesday that would have allowed Johnson to put the bill to a floor vote, in a further blow to the speaker’s ability to find compromise within his party. Following the defeat, the bill was changed from a five-year extension to a two-year extension of section 702 – an effort to appease far-right Republicans who believe Trump will be president by the time it expires.

Section 702 allows for government agencies such as the National Security Administration to collect data and monitor the communications of foreign citizens outside of US territory without the need for a warrant, with authorities touting it as a key tool in targeting cybercrime, international drug trafficking and terrorist plots. Since the collection of foreign data can also gather communications between people abroad and those in the US, however, the result of section 702 is that federal law enforcement can also monitor American citizens’ communications.

Section 702 has faced opposition before, but it became especially fraught in the past year after court documents revealed that the FBI had improperly used it almost 300,000 times – targeting racial justice protesters, January 6 suspects and others. That overreach emboldened resistance to the law, especially among far-right Republicans who view intelligence services like the FBI as their opponent.

Trump’s all-caps post further weakened Johnson’s position. Trump’s online remarks appeared to refer to an FBI investigation into a former campaign adviser of his, which was unrelated to section 702. Other far-right Republicans such as Matt Gaetz similarly vowed to derail the legislation, putting its passage in peril.

Meanwhile, the Ohio congressman Mike Turner, Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told lawmakers on Friday that failing to reauthorize the bill would be a gift to China’s government spying programs, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah.

“We will be blind as they try to recruit people for terrorist attacks in the United States,” Turner said on Friday on the House floor.

The California Democratic representative and former speaker Nancy Pelosi also gave a statement in support of passing section 702 with its warrantless surveillance abilities intact, urging lawmakers to vote against an amendment that would weaken its reach.

“I don’t have the time right now, but if members want to know I’ll tell you how we could have been saved from 9/11 if we didn’t have to have the additional warrants,” Pelosi said.

Debate over Section 702 pitted Republicans who alleged that the law was a tool for spying on American citizens against others in the GOP who sided with intelligence officials and deemed it a necessary measure to stop foreign terrorist groups. One proposed amendment called for requiring authorities to secure a warrant before using section 702 to view US citizens’ communications, an idea that intelligence officials oppose as limiting their ability to act quickly. Another sticking point in the debate was whether law enforcement should be prohibited from buying information on American citizens from data broker firms, which amass and sell personal data on tens of millions of people, including phone numbers and email addresses.

Section 702 dates back to the George W Bush administration, which secretly ran warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. In 2008, Congress passed section 702 as part of the Fisa Amendments Act and put foreign surveillance under more formal government oversight. Lawmakers have renewed the law twice since, including in 2018 when they rejected an amendment that would have required authorities to get warrants for US citizens’ data.

Last year Merrick Garland, the attorney general, and Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, sent a letter to congressional leaders telling them to reauthorize section 702. They claimed that intelligence gained from it resulted in numerous plots against the US being foiled, and that it was partly responsible for facilitating the drone strike that killed the al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 2022.

[auroraluciferi]

things are not looking great for the USA right now

source

[mariacallous]

China's government can use TikTok to spy on American users and push propaganda at alarming levels, senators who received a classified briefing on the social media app told Axios.

Why it matters: The senators were hesitant to give details about Wednesday's briefing, but said Americans would be frightened by TikTok's ability to access and track their personal data.

One senator said national security officials described how China can harvest user data and weaponize it through propaganda and misinformation.

Another lawmaker said they were told TikTok is able to spy on the microphone on users' devices, track keystrokes and determine what the users are doing on other apps.

The big picture: Senate leaders are weighing what to do with a bill that would force China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the U.S. The House passed the bill overwhelmingly last week after its members received a similar security briefing.

It's unclear whether the briefing from the FBI, Justice Department and the Director of National Intelligence office was a needle-mover for senators who may be skeptical of the bill.

What they're saying: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Axios the briefing's "level of detail and specificity was extremely impactful."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said the briefing was helpful in "bringing some members up to date with the threats that China poses through TikTok."

"Their ability to track, their ability to spy is shocking," Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said.

Reality check: Such warnings from federal officials so far haven't been enough for senators to fast-track the bill.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that it would take longer than the eight days it took for the bill to clear the House because that's "just the way the Senate works."

The legislation has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee.

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), a member of the committee, said the TikTok legislation is "something we should move faster on, not slower."