FBI director warns senators he sees ‘blinking lights everywhere’ on threats against the US

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 195 points – FBI director warns senators he sees ‘blinking lights everywhere’ on threats against the US | CNN Politics
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FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday he has never seen a time during his decades-long career when so many threats against the US were all as elevated as they are now, warning senators he sees “blinking lights everywhere.”

During a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, ranking Republican member of the committee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, asked Wray if he saw “blinking red lights” — referring to warning signs the US missed before the attack of 9/11.

“I see blinking lights everywhere I turn,” Wray said.

Wray also said that the bureau is working “around the clock” to “identify and disrupt” potential attacks by individuals inspired by the Hamas attacks on October 7.

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Did you even read the preceding paragraph?

The FBI director is pushing senators on reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire at the end of this year. The law enables the US government to obtain intelligence by targeting non-Americans overseas who are using US-based communications services.

https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographic.pdf

I am A-OK with this. And if anyone wants to argue that they will break the law and abuse this, what's the difference? If they intend to break the law, they will do so with or without this provision.

You're hand waving how it's actually implemented.

Like if you want to tap a wire you can do that. It's not hard.

If you want to selectively listen to communications happening on that wire you still start by tapping the wire. Then you listen to everything and filer out what you need.

I'm unfamiliar with how this is currently done, obviously. But if the difference here is the FBI not using their taps, or the taps being completely removed when this expires that is a meaningful difference. And should be discussed.

Man if you want you're fuckin mind blown (not necessarily in a great way), Google the SENTIENT program.

Yeah, I did. Which is why I said this ... "justify monitoring America."

I swear I'm not being obtuse on purpose, but the idea is to spy on non-Americans outside the US. What are you saying they're doing instead?

Like that time John Brennan the, director of the CIA literally said "We're all aware of executive order 12333. That order prohibits the CIA from engaging in domestic spying and searches of US citizens within our borders." and then Edward Snowden dropped a huge truth bomb and revealed that they were indeed drag netting information on anybody and everybody including innocent US citizens?

Yeah... There's no way they would do something like that again, right?

However, Americans’ data may get picked up as part of incidental collection. That means that if an American is communicating with a foreign target, those communications could be collected. In addition, if federal authorities are already investigating a US person, they may cross-check that person’s information against the 702 database.

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