Disturbing Details About FISA Reauthorization

The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 4:

6:05pm- Elizabeth Goitein—Co-Director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice—writes “Buried in the House intelligence committee’s Section 702 ‘reform’ bill, which is schedule for a floor vote as soon as tomorrow, is the biggest expansion of surveillance inside the United States since the Patriot Act. Through a seemingly innocuous change to the definition of ‘electronic service communications provider,’ the bill vastly expands the universe of U.S. businesses that can be conscripted to aid the government in conducting surveillance. Under current law, the government can compel companies that have direct access to communications, such as phone, email, and text messaging service providers, to assist in Section 702 surveillance by turning over the communications of Section 702 targets. Under Section 504 of the House intelligence committee’s bill, any entity that has access to *equipment* on which communications may be transmitted or stored, such as an ordinary router, is fair game. What does that mean in practice? It’s simple…Hotels, libraries, coffee shops, and other places that offer wifi to their customers could be forced to serve as surrogate spies. They could be required to configure their systems to ensure that they can provide the government access to entire streams of communications.” You can read her full statement on X: https://twitter.com/LizaGoitein/status/1734249938333167889

6:15pm- While appearing on MSNBC, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) said that if it hadn’t been for a Russian disinformation campaign during the 2016 election cycle, Hillary Clinton would have defeated Donald Trump.

6:40pm- The Washington Post reports: “The FBI has opened a criminal investigation focusing on the massive container ship that brought down the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month—a probe that will look at least in part at whether the crew left the port knowing the vessel had serious system problems.” You can read the full report from Katie Mettler, Devlin Barrett, Danny Nguyen, and Peter Hermann here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/15/balitmore-key-bridge-criminal-investigation/