Jameel Jaffer analyzes the Senate's nomination of Mark Wayne Mullen and FBI Director Kash Patel's testimony regarding Iran, where Jaffer details how Section 702 of FISA enables intelligence collection expiring April 20, 2026. He distinguishes this from Senator Ron Wyden's concerns about warrantless location data purchases, arguing the latter violates the Fourth Amendment. Addressing caller Dee's "47th president" comment, Jaffer cites Iran's 600 kilograms of enriched uranium and proxy threats, while responding to Stephen's economic fears by outlining potential military deployments to Karg Island or Bandar Abbas amidst upcoming elections. Ultimately, the discussion highlights the tension between expanding global security mandates and domestic constitutional protections. [Automatically generated summary]
A look now at some of our prime time coverage tonight on the C-SPAN networks.
At 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, watch the Senate Homeland Security Committee meet to debate and vote to advance a nomination of Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen to be Homeland Security Secretary.
At the same time, on C-SPAN 2, hear from FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe and their testimony before the House Intelligence Committee about global security threats amid the war with Iran.
And on C-SPAN 3, also at 8, the Supreme Court bar meeting to honor the late Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who died in 2023.
You can also watch these events on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-SPAN.org.
Joining us at our table this morning is Jameel Jaffer.
He is at George Mason University's Law School, the National Security Institute founder, here to talk about the conflict with Iran, but also this FISA debate that's happening up on Capitol Hill.
Why does it need to, what is it, and why does it need to be reauthorized?
What we're talking about is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
This gives the United States government the authority to collect against foreigners, non-Americans, located outside the United States.
So nobody in the United States, no Americans.
And what it allows us to do is to collect that intelligence here in the United States from American telecommunications providers, because as it turns out, a lot of those communications that take place overseas pass through U.S. telecommunications providers.
So that's essentially what the authority is.
It doesn't involve any Americans, doesn't authorize the collection against Americans, targeting Americans, and nor does it allow the collection of any Americans, whether they're in the U.S. or overseas.
Only foreigners outside the U.S.
So only foreigners, and why does it need to be reauthorized?
It is the single most productive collection that the U.S. government has of intelligence.
It contributes to about 60% of the president's daily brief, that critical intelligence product the president gets every morning.
60% of that comes from NSA collection under Section 702.
What is your previous role with Section 702 and FISA?
Well, I was working in the Justice Department's National Security Division when we actually came up with the idea of Section 702, helped write the legislation that created it, and then have been involved in the reauthorization of it first at the House Intelligence Committee, and then since I've been working on the outside at the Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
How does this tie to the conflict in Iran?
Well, obviously, given its productive capability for the president's daily brief and the amount of intelligence we collect from it for our national security purposes, it's central to our ability to prosecute this war and effectively counter threats to the homeland, identify terrorist threats, identify foreign intelligence threats, and collect on all these individuals who mean the U.S. harm.
And when is Congress expected to take up this debate and sign off on this reauthorization?
Because we heard the top Democrat, Jim Himes, he supports it, but not all Democrats do, and some Republicans have reservations as well.
Well, that's exactly right.
Well, when Congress repassed the law, reauthorized the law in 2024, they only put a two-year clock on it.
That means on April 20th, 2026, if Congress does nothing, if the House and Senate don't act and the president doesn't sign the legislation, that authority will expire and we will go dark on our ability to collect on all those terrorist and foreign intelligence targets overseas.
We're talking about 300,000 targets that are critical to American national security.
If this goes dark, 60% of the president's daily brief goes away overnight.
Yesterday at this hearing with Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI Director Kash Patel, and the CIA Director, they were testifying on global threats as we've been talking about here on the Washington Journal all morning.
I want to show Democratic Senator Ron Wyden asking the FBI Director Kash Patel if the agency is buying information that tracks people's location history and gets you to respond on the other side.
Director Patel, a question for you.
In 2023, your predecessor testified that, and I quote, to my knowledge, we do not currently purchase commercial database information that includes location data derived from internet advertising.
Is that the case still?
And if so, can you commit this morning to not buying Americans' location data?
Thank you.
The FBI uses all tools, Senator.
Thank you for the question to do our mission.
We do purchase commercially available information that's consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us to be utilized with our private and partner sectors.
So you're saying that the agency will buy Americans' location data.
I believe that that's what you've said in kind of intelligence lingo.
And I just want to say, as we start this debate, doing that without a warrant is an outrageous end run around the Fourth Amendment.
It's particularly dangerous given the use of artificial intelligence to comb through massive amounts of private information.
This is exhibit A for why Congress needs to pass our bipartisan, bicameral bill, the Government Surveillance Reform Act.
Jamil Jaffer, he said, Americans.
Americans' information.
So this isn't about Section 702, right?
This is something different.
Something different, right?
The question is, can or should the FBI purchase or other agencies purchase commercially available data, data that you and I could buy, data that all the big tech companies buy, data that Amazon or Macy's buys about where you shop, where you might be, right?
All the data that we leave on the internet, right?
A lot of that data is collected by commercial data brokers and is sold at public and anyone can purchase it.
The question is, should the government be allowed to purchase that data and use it for its own purposes?
This is a debate.
Senator Wyden has been talking about this for years.
He's had legislation to take away the government's ability or at least require a warrant to go buy that.
But I guess the big question for the American people is, do we think something that you or I could buy or that a company could buy, the government should have to go get a warrant for it?
It's a fair debate.
It has nothing to do with Section 702.
An important debate.
And actually, interestingly, a debate that Anthropic raised in its fight with the Department of War over whether the Department of War could use its AI capabilities for this purpose.
Now, it's not, there's no evidence to suggest Department of War is doing that or might do it.
Anthropic has raised this claim, but it's a totally different debate.
And the question is, does Congress want to pass a law?
Iran Nuclear Threat and Marines00:07:26
They could.
Pass a law saying you have to get a warrant.
Senator Wyden's bill has not gotten enough support to get out of committee, much less to the floor, much less to a vote and a signature by the president, but he's arguing for it, and it's a fair debate.
All right, Jamil Jaffer here with us to take your questions and your comments about this debate over reauthorizing Section 02 of FISA as well as the conflict with Iran.
We're about 10 minutes out from the top of the hour where we will get a Pentagon briefing by the Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs Chair, Dan Kaine.
We will bring you live coverage here on C-SPAN of that briefing, as well as in its entirety over on C-SPAN 2.
Until then, Dee, Reno, Nevada, Democratic Caller, you're up first.
Hi, good morning, love C-SPAN.
I listened to the briefing yesterday.
Out of the three directors, Radcliffe seems like he knows what he's doing.
The other two, I don't know, Gabbard never wants to answer.
But I find it interesting.
They always keep saying war with, you know, Iran for 47 years wants to annihilate us.
It's interesting that this war broke out with this Trump 47th president.
I think that's going to make a mark for him.
I just, I don't know.
I find that interesting.
All right, Dee, I'm going to pick up on your point of Iran being a threat, because this was brought up in the hearing yesterday, and the CIA director reinforcing that point, that Iran has been a threat to the United States and others in the Middle East for decades.
Well, look, a lot of people are asking the question, what was imminent about this threat?
Why was it?
Why did the president need to act now?
And there's a lot of people who've said, well, you know, nothing has changed about Iran fundamentally in the last six months, last year.
Why is it an imminent threat?
And here's the real truth about it.
Iran has been an imminent threat for a long time.
For years, Iran, recent years, Iran has killed hundreds of Americans directly through proxies.
They've targeted U.S. facilities in the Middle East for attacks, ballistic missiles, and the like.
And Iran has plotted against killing American officials here in the United States for the better part of a decade.
Named individuals in the United States, including former members of the Trump administration and members of the Biden administration.
So Iran, now the fact is, we haven't done anything substantively about it, right?
President Obama, President Biden, President Trump, although President Trump did kill Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Goods Force, we haven't done anything about it.
But just because somebody, if a bully keeps punching your kid on the playground day in, day out, day in, day out, the next day, that bully is still an imminent threat to your child, right?
It doesn't mean anything your child hasn't fought back.
If on one day your child does fight back and wins, guess what?
That bully's not going to bother him anymore, and neither are the rest of the bullies.
And so that's an important part of this conversation.
Imminence doesn't mean something has to have changed.
It means, is there a threat to us right now that's real?
And I would say with Iran, there is a very real threat from Iran.
Why?
Because they've been killing Americans for years.
They continue to want to plot to kill Americans in the United States and abroad.
They're funding terrorist proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestine, Islamic Jihad.
And they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon, right?
The reality is Iran today has over 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, about 440 kilograms of that, 60% enriched, which is 90% of the way to building a nuclear weapon.
Why then does the DNI director and others say their nuclear capabilities have been obliterated?
What I think we've done is we have done a good job of taking out some of their centrifuge capability, the ability to make more highly enriched uranium.
Now, the real truth is, not only do they have this supply of highly enriched uranium, they could use to build a weapon.
Beyond that, my guess is, and there's no intelligent reporting yet to demonstrate this, but my guess is if they've buried that deep enough, they know how capable our bombs are.
If they bury that HEU deep enough to keep that safe, I would bet you thymes of dollars that they have centrifuges down there as well that could be used to enrich more uranium.
We don't have proof of that, but unless the Iranians are crazy, they know what our capabilities are.
They've buried more centrifuges deep down, and they've always had covert programs.
We've always found out about them later.
All right, well, let's go to Stephen in Connecticut, Independent.
Stephen, question or comment?
I'm just going to narrow it down to Karg Island.
And that was a great, you did a great job there, Professor.
I really, I'm going to take the opposite side.
Ukraine, if we land Marines on Karg Island, we're going to have an example of what FTV drones can do to an unprepared force.
Ukraine took out 1,700 people, supposedly, just yesterday, 80% with FPV drones.
Expanding this war in Iran is going to be an economic disaster.
I can see gas prices.
And they think about the November elections.
All right, Stephen, I'm going to jump in because what he's referring to is the latest on this conflict, and that is Israel striking the PAR gas field, Iran retaliating against Qatar, gas prices soaring overnight.
Look, it's an important point.
I think Stephen is right to raise this question of what happens if we deploy these Marines from the 30th Marine Expeditionary Unit that are coming over from Okinawa.
We'll be in theater in about a week.
And there's some discussions.
We don't know what the administration is going to do with that, with that, with that Marine Expeditionary Unit.
There are suggestions that it might go to Karg Island to take that really important oil export terminal that they have there, that Iranians have there, to prevent them from exporting oil.
The challenge, of course, is, to Stephen's point, is that those Marines are then exposed and they're vulnerable, right?
And they may be attacked by these FPV, these first-person drones that might actually attack them.
Now, of course, there's significant oil infrastructure there as well.
Iran doesn't want to blow that up, right?
So if our Marines are co-located with that, they might not do that.
Now, again, we don't know.
Those Marines might be there to simply guard U.S. facilities.
They might be there to go after.
Yeah, let me read a little bit from the Wall Street Journal's reporting on what they're expected to be doing.
The U.S. could use the unit to seize one or more of the islands off the southern coast of Iran to use as leverage or as a base to counter Iranian attacks on shipping, former and current U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal.
It goes on to say U.S. forces are attempting to reopen the strait by targeting Tehran's ability to threaten the choke point, its launch sites, production capability, and warehouses of missiles, drones, and sea mines.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military dropped multiple 5,000-pound munitions on Iranian sites along the coastline that are used to house anti-ship cruise missiles, according to the U.S. Central Command.
No, that's exactly right, Greta.
On Carg Island are two really important things.
There's an oil depot where Iran exports most of its oil through.
And then there are military facilities where they stored a lot of those mines that are used to mine the Gulf, mine the Straits of Hormuz.
So the Marines might go there, take that facility.
They might take Bandur Abbas on the mainland of Iran that guards that choke point to the Straits of Hormuz.
They might simply remain embarked on the Miu, on the Amphibus Ready Group, and conduct literal operations in the waters around the Straits of Hormuz to allow shipping to get through and to go after Iranian small gunboats.
We're not sure what the Marines are there to do.
Let's be clear, though.
If we do put them on Bandur Abbas or Carg Island, that's boots on the ground, right?
No question.
Now, the president might say, look, we put boots on the ground in Venezuela as well, short-term targeted incursion.
But if you stay there for a while, that gets more challenging politically for the president because we're coming up to a set of elections.