Two Democratic senators with long experience overseeing US intelligence say the Trump administration is unlawfully keeping a secret court's findings from Congress. They allege the material is being held back until lawmakers agree to renew a program that allows federal agents to read Americans' communications without a warrant.
The dispute centers on a ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued seven months ago. In it, the court objected to search filters that let intelligence analysts pull Americans' messages out of intercepted data without the approvals, written justifications or records that the law requires. Despite those objections, the court approved another year of surveillance. The ruling has never been released publicly.
Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Adam Schiff of California say the administration's own deadline for making the ruling public came and went in September. The administration's public documentation states that rulings of this kind are reviewed for public release "within 180 days of issuance." That window closed on September 13.
The program at issue is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It lapsed in June after Congress failed to renew it, although collection has continued under the court's approval from March. Intelligence officials are now pressing lawmakers to reauthorize the program by the end of the year.
Wyden is the longest-serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Schiff is the former chair of its House counterpart. They say the administration owes Congress an explanation for the delay, along with the names of the officials responsible, by November 6.
In a demand letter to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and Attorney General Todd Blanche, obtained exclusively by WIRED, the senators wrote: "If this administration won't follow this simple statutory directive, it is unclear why Congress or the American people should trust this administration to follow any of the other legal limits to Section 702."
Pressure is also coming from outside Congress. On Monday, Demand Progress and 22 other civil liberties and government accountability groups urged congressional leaders to refuse to reauthorize Section 702 "while the administration actively withholds legally mandated information about how the surveillance program operates."
The signatories span a wide range of the political spectrum, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the conservative-backed Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability.
