emptywheel

Thank you @RepAndreCarson for standing up for Americans' rights, calling for additional protections, and criticizing the bill for failing to prohibit "abouts" collection and for not including a strict warrant requirement for U.S. person searches.

Gowdy telling Himes he must acknowledge that there were Rs who criticized Trump's wiretapping claims, and notes that HPSCI spent the better part of the last 9mo looking at non-702 related issues, but notes unmasking can be a problem in 702 too.

The problem w this argument is that unmasking is like a 0.0001% privacy problem whereas 702 incidental collection and warrantless searches of Americans' communications is like a 1000% privacy problem.

Speier says concerns about large-scale incidental collection of Americans' comms and use of those coms in non-nat sec investigations & prosecutions, cites privacy groups' letter that says bill is a step-back on privacy. Bill shared w her office less than 24hrs ago. That's NUTS.

Thank you @RepSpeier for defending Americans' privacy, calling for stronger protections to address privacy community's concerns, and for stating your opposition to this troubling bill.

It is utter nonsense when Republicans on HPSCI say they are concerned about oversight of unmasking since they don't give a whit about warrantless searches of Americans' communications that occur w such regularity that the FBI says it literally cannot count.

.@RepSwalwell just said he would support the bill without the unmasking provision. This is very very bad. He voted to report out an actual reform bill in HJud and just said he'd also happily vote to EXPAND surveillance, not just under 702, but under ALL of FISA.

Can you explain to me how HPSCI expands surveillance? The stuff I saw in the letter is already done (and the informant stuff has been public for years).