Privacy advocates warned during the 2024 debate that the bill would let the federal government access communications equipment used by almost any business in the US. At yesterday’s hearing, Wyden said the 2024 FISA renewal “expanded the type of companies and individuals who could be forced to assist the government in its spying,” and asked Hartman whether “this expansion resulted in any intelligence.”
Hartman answered that the “provision provided us an ability to collect foreign intelligence on personnel outside of the United States,” but declined to discuss more specifics in public. “I would prefer to talk to you about exact specifics in the closed session,” Hartman said to Wyden.
FISA expansion may not have produced much intel
The 2024 update to the law imposed requirements on any “service provider who has access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications,” with exceptions for public accommodation facilities, dwellings, community facilities, and food service establishments.
Wyden argued that the 2024 update let the government collect data from “anybody with access to a cable box, a Wi-Fi router, or a server,” and said that Hartman’s response indicated the change did not lead to any valuable intelligence. “This ought to be a warning to every senator that not every new spying power that is sold as urgent and critical actually is,” Wyden said.
Hartman subsequently clarified that “nothing in [Section] 702 gives us the authority to target an American with a cable router or a Wi-Fi device.”
We don’t know whether the topic was addressed further in a closed session, but Wyden’s office told Ars that he was not satisfied with Hartman’s answer. “Not only was the controversial 2024 FISA expansion written so broadly that it gave the government expansive new authority to compel Americans to assist with government surveillance, yesterday the NSA would not even claim that it produced a single piece of intelligence,” Wyden said in a statement provided to Ars. “Congress must repeal this expansion, which is ripe for abuse by the executive branch.”
Separately, the NSA in 2024 admitted buying records from data brokers detailing which websites and apps Americans use.