President Donald Trump on Friday said he signed into law a bill renewing the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillance program, sealing a defeat for digital privacy advocates.
‘Just signed 702 Bill to reauthorize foreign intelligence collection,’ Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to legislation passed by the U.S. Congress that extends Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The law renews for six years and with minimal changes the National Security Agency (NSA) program, which gathers information from foreigners overseas but incidentally collects an unknown amount of communications belonging to Americans.
President Donald Trump on Friday signed into law a bill renewing the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillance program
The measure easily passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week despite mixed signals posted on Twitter by Trump and narrowly avoided a filibuster in the Senate earlier this week that split party lines. The measure had drawn opposition from a coalition of privacy-minded Democrats and libertarian Republicans.
In his tweet on Friday, Trump attempted to clarify why he signed the bill despite repeating an unsubstantiated claim that his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, ordered intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign.
‘This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election,’ Trump wrote. ‘I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first!’
Last September, the U.S. Justice Department said in a court filing that it had no evidence to support Trump’s claim about improper surveillance during the campaign.
Trump appeared to trash the law shortly before a House vote, only to send out a contradictory tweet two hours later
Without Trump’s signature, Section 702 had been set to expire on Friday, though intelligence officials had said the surveillance program could continue to operate until April.
Under the law, the NSA is allowed to eavesdrop on vast amounts of digital communications from foreigners living outside the United States via U.S. companies like Facebook Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google.
But the program also incidentally scoops up Americans’ communications, including when they communicate with a foreign target living overseas, and can search those messages without a warrant.
The White House, U.S. intelligence agencies and congressional Republican leaders have said the program is indispensable to national security, vital to protecting U.S. allies and needs little or no revision.
Trump claimed another intelligence law was ‘wrongly abused’ to target his campaign
President Donald Trump walks through the Colonnade of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018
Privacy advocates say it allows the NSA and other intelligence agencies to grab data belonging to Americans in a way that represents an affront to the U.S. Constitution.
Trump tweeted just before the House vote on the bill last week: ‘House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.’ This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others.’
The tweet appeared to undermine the bill, which GOP leaders and the Trump White House supported.
Two hours later, Trump tweeted: ‘With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!’
Trump’s tweets about the bill raised questions about whether he understood what was being voted on.
White House chief of staff John Kelly told Fox News on Thursday that he spoke with Trump between the two tweets.
Trump also spoke to House Speaker Paul Ryan before his turnaround.
GOP leaders were able to amass the votes needed to get the priority measure through the House.