FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Trump mistakenly slammed a spying law his administration really wants

Donald Trump undermined his administration’s stance on a controversial spying program the White House wants reauthorized.

In one of his early-morning tweets Thursday, Donald Trump undermined his administration’s stance on a controversial spying program the White House wants reauthorized. And then hours later, he tried to backtrack.

Seemingly prompted by a segment on "Fox & Friends," Trump tweeted that the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — which gives intelligence agencies the authority to track the electronic communications of suspected foreign terrorists without a warrant — was used to help spy on the Trump campaign, implying that it shouldn’t be renewed.

Advertisement

A couple of hours later, perhaps realizing he had undermined his administration’s position, Trump followed up with a second tweet, attempting to row back his initial criticism of FISA:

The tweets came hours before the House was to choose between two competing amendments to FISA. The first — proposed by the House Intelligence Committee and supported by intelligence agencies — would add a six-year extension to Section 702 of the act. Without the extension, the provision will expire on Jan. 19.

The second amendment, known as the USA Rights Act, was proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and supported by civil liberties groups to put an end to the intelligence community’s ability to conduct warrantless searches of the NSA-collected contents of Americans’ communications.

Currently, U.S. citizens’ communicating with foreign nationals have their electronic communications swept up as part of the surveillance — even foreigners not suspected of terrorist activity.

For example, some Republicans believe that the Obama administration learned about Michael Flynn’s calls with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. through Section 702 of the act.

The White House has strongly backed the first amendment. Just hours before Trump’s tweet, the administration issued a statement urging the House to reject the USA Rights Act and “preserve the useful role FISA’s Section 702 authority plays in protecting American lives.”

“The administration strongly opposes the USA Rights amendment to the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act, which the House will consider tomorrow. This amendment would re-establish the walls between intelligence and law enforcement that our country knocked down following the attacks of 9/11 in order to increase information sharing and improve our national security,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders added.

Cover image: President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)