for free or visit our website cspan.org /c-span now. your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including cox. >> ecurity institute at george mason university law school. explain what >> our conversation now our guest is, who founded the national security institute at george mason university law school. what is section 702 and why

congress is talking about it. >> we can conduct foreign intelligence surveillance overseas we have to target foreigners, we will target them by conducting surveillance on their email and their phones and the like. the way that is affected by working with telecommuting providers in the united states to get access. section 702 allows the government to target those foreigners located overseas to collect in the united states against them. it does not authorize surveillance against any american spirit it prohibits surveillance of americans. you have to go get a court order to survey all a american. that is how we get the bulk of our foreign intelligence surveillance today. the reason congress was talking about it today, it was first enacted in 2007, 2008. every five years or so congress has to reauthorize it. that is why congress is

talking about it. come december 31st of this year, if congress does not take action that authority will go away and the bulk of the u.s. capability to collect on foreign targets will disappear. >> has that ever happened in the times that it has been reauthorized? has there been a gap in their ability to do this? what is the intelligence community saying? >> there was a brief. between 2007 at 2008 when it expired in 2008 before this law was enacted for about six months . during that time. there were orders that existed that were out there and we continue to be able to collect them. the problem was a lot of those that we worked with reduced their surveillance, reduced their cooperation with the government. right at the time you might have a heightened threat or situation that ability was going down dramatically and ultimately congress reacted.

there was a challenge where we were not getting new additional surveillance on terrorist and spy suspects. >> what is the likelihood that this gets reauthorized? >> there is a lot of controversy because section 702 is confused with other parts of the foreign intelligence surveillance act that allows the government to conduct surveillance against americans with a court order. the problem is there have been challenges in that space in particular. a lot of people are saying should we reauthorize section 702. it is a different authority and different situation and it's getting conflated with one another. there have been some inadvertent mistakes that go beyond what is authorized within the databases. corrective action has been taken. congress wants to conduct reforms and there is a debate on how far to go right now it is stalled in congress. the problem is there is less than a month left before this expires and they have to take action or we will be in a challenging situation when it

comes to the ability to protect the nation. >> when you say sometimes the searches go too far, you americans get caught up in the searches? >> if you are collecting on a foreigner outside of the united states, they may call an american or email an american and in those cases you will get that surveillance. if you're concerned they are talking about a spy or terrorist you have to get a court order to surveilled the american. there is american information in the databases. sometimes you will search for it based on a foreign intelligence need and you will identify. if you conduct to broadly you will have databases that can be searched, they do not know they are searching the database you can get information you're not supposed to get. we need better rules in place and stronger punishment in place when it is an intentional error. congress wants to put those reforms in place, it makes good sense to make sure we do it

right and protect americans civil liberties. you do not want to let it expire or place restrictions that would hamper the ability of the government to conduct the kind of surveillance that protects americans and protects us at home. >> what would hamper? was going too far? >> one of the biggest changes we made in the post-september 11th era was to permit the government to share information between the criminal side of the government, the fbi and the like and the intelligence community. we tore down the wall between criminal intelligence surveillance. there are folks in congress who think to better protect american civil liberties we should enact requirements. if you want to search for american information you have to get a warrant from the court a separate court order. of course information has been collected and you would have to get a court order to search a file cabinet that has, that will hamper the government and slow it down and make it harder

and that will affect their civil liberties. it is a new wall or barrier that can make it harder for us to protect the nation, particularly at a time when we are facing two wars in the middle east, a war in the europe, threats from china and attacks on soldiers in iraq and syria and then the attack in the red sea by iranian backed rebels. >> our guest is jamil jaffer he is the founder of national security at george mason university law school. if you want to join the conversation, the phone lines are open. 202-708-4000, republicans 202- 748-8000 one. independence 202708 8002. in the world of intelligence collecting, how much of our information comes from a section 702 type program versus the kind of information that we

get from human intelligence sources, from spies overseas. explain where this fits in the world of our intelligence? >> this is probably one of the most important intelligence collections that we have because it collects information against a lot of terrorist targets and spy target spirit about 100,000 or 200,000 year. is not really that many people would think about 7.5 billion people worldwide 350 million americans, it is a small number but those are the high-value targets. >> those few hundred thousand we get access to all of the phone records. how far does this go? >> it can and often is the content of communications. these are foreigners outside the united states. of course you have to translate all of that and have the process it. you have to create intelligence reporting. this capability is so important. it will be 60% of the daily brief.

high-priority stuff, the most important stuff that reads every day, 7% of the articles come from section 702 program. the huge chunk of information that the president of united states gets every day the highest party could be gone. >> what are the successions? what will they say that stops this attack? had they been trying to advocate for the program? >> one of the challenges as they will not declassify as much as you and i would like. they will talk at a level of help us disrupt attack at a foreign country, or help us disrupt a major drug smuggling operation involving fentanyl. all of this 702 has done but they will not give you the details it was a bomb plot on the city on this date, in part because you do not want to let people onto the fact that drug surveillance were on them or

their friends. you can see that across the board, not just terrorist attacks potentially in the u.s. and abroad, it is that no coming across the border from china to the united states. it is a broad scope of intelligence collection that protects americans not just from spies and terrorists, drug smugglers, chinese hackers, russian hackers and the like. >> what do telecommunication company say about this? do they like section 702 x how much of a hassle is it for them to turn over this information when the government asks 200,000 times a year. >> at this point i think the telecommute occasion companies and internet providers are used for getting requests for information. this has been going on for 15 plus years. they are in the mode of operationalizing it, they can handle the queries. the real question is, are we getting enough and will we be

able to get the stuff that we had and can we use it? if the authority goes away you will not get it. if the authority is in place in the government puts up barriers to make it harder to share information, this is what happened leading up to 911, there were two terrorists who flew the planes into the pentagon, they lived in san diego in their true names, we could have found them and the cia took xers of them a year earlier at a meeting of operatives. because there was concern can wish information? that information was not shared and we did not find them, they started to look for them at the last minute and they ultimately flew planes into the pentagon. i'm not saying that we can ask stop all attacks but you think about what we have taken down between criminal efforts and intelligence efforts, it is this reason. rebuilding now would be a mistake.

>> i do not think this gives away the playbook, if one is a terrorist in 2023, shouldn't they assume if they connect to a u.s. network with their cell phone that the u.s. government will have access? >> absolutely. the beauty of section 702 capability is often times it is not just munication where you use a u.s. cell phone number or email address, you can gather information about phone calls overseas by going through u.s. providers because of how the telecommunication system works. that is what is amazing about section 702 and the authority, it allows us to collect information that is not obvious. if you are a terrorist or a spy, you should assume they are surveilling you. they can only collect a few hundred thousand so they may not be but you should operate that way. people have to work and communicate and share information. if we can get it and protect americans here in the united states and abroad we are safer. >> your opinion is this should

be reauthorized as is without restrictions. >> in an ideal world, that is the case. there have been challenges with respect to how the fbi is utilizing information. some reform is necessary. you need better reporting, oversight by congress, it is helpful to have higher levels of approval in the fbi. the one thing you should not do in terms of reforms would be to put this barrier, create a new requirement for information that the government has lawfully collected. that is taking a file drawer and locking it up and then have to go to a judge to go into that drawer to get it. this is a barrier that we created pre-9/11 and we do not want that. >> let's chat with a few callers. jamil jaffer with us until the top of the hour. he is from george mason university security. this is sean and colorado up

first, republican pre-. >> good morning. jamil , crisis is, the constitution is at risk with this renewal. americans were spied on, tucker carlson were spied on, right wing people were spied on from the fbi and the doj and they are now prosecuting a political opponent great you have to be kidding me, this bill needs to be killed. this administration is out of control and it shows how they can abuse the warrants. they need to get a warrant to go after any american. thank you. i hope our country survive this administration. >> sean raises an important point. there are concerns amongst liberals and conservatives about government surveillance. john sean raised the point about political surveillance it is a real challenge. the thing about section 702 is

it does not authorize surveillance on any american. even if they were surveilled, if he was, they would have to go to a federal court and get a court order. i think what sean is talk about is the carter, page incident. he worked for the trump campaign, the government was surveilling him under title i, that is not section 702. they went to federal court and got the court order from the judge. the problem with that court order is the lawyer working on the court order told an untruth . he modified a fact that he knew that he was working for the u.s. government is that he was not. that lawyer was prosecuted, not as tough as i would have, but he was stripped of his license, i would have put them in jail. he did plead to a deal. that is the kind of violation a problem that the law is designed to catch. it was caught. the guy did not go to prison but he was prosecuted. it was about this authority,

this authority does not permit the surveillance of any american's. it is also important to remember that this was first obtained in the republican administration, the bush administration i served and that. it was reauthorized under president obama and reauthorized under president trump post carter page because president trump and his team understood section 702 was not about this issue and now the biden administration is seeking surveillance. this is about foreign spies and terrorists overseas not about american political opponents. >> it is a good time to tell people what you did before founding the national security institute at george mason. >> i served at the bush ministration at the justice department and the office of legal policy as well as the national security vision which is in charge of prosecuting terrorists and spies and obtaining this kind of surveillance and i worked at the white house counsel office with president bush and then

took time off and went back to the government at the house intelligence committee, worked for republican congressman from michigan mike rogers and republican chairman and ranking member of the election committee . >> what is the commission of the national security institute? >> we are there to mixer america's protected well. we are a bipartisan group of experts from across the political aisle, we talked about and debate the issues of national security both technology, national security and all the issues facing our country, the wars that are going on today, and we advocate for a america leading by example in action. we believe america safer when america acts and supports its allies and opposes adversaries. we are that as a think tank, we are also an academic center. we train students, we educate a group of students at the law school. we also have undergrad students who get a instructor he degree of the law and we have graduate

degrees of the law and masters degree for cyber intelligence and national security. >> what is the most important thing that the united states can do today to act and be that security in the world that you are talking about? >> we do not want to be the world's policeman, at the same time the reality is we are facing threats in various parts of the globe where our allies are being attacked our partners at ukraine of being attacked by vladimir putin and we have seen the attack on israel by hamas, we see china threatening our allies taiwan, japan, south korea and now fighting with the philippines over fishing rights and ramming ships. just over the week and we saw a commercial shipping attack by iran he backed rebels in the red sea. u.s. destroyer with and provided aid and was threatened as a result. and 63 attacks against american soldiers in iraq and syria by iran he backed rebels in the last month alone. it is not just we have to

defend our allies and friends, we are under attack and there is a direct threat to americans here at home and abroad. it is critical that we respond to those attacks, we support our allies and we push back against adversaries were coming at us. the less we do that they will come harder at us. >> the naval attack over the weekend, remind folks who they are and the significance of this attack. >> they are a group in yemen and they have been fighting with the government of yemen for quite a while. they have gained significant ground and they have control over significant parts of yemen. the saudi government has backed them as has the united states they are attacking commercial shipping in the red sea saying that they are trying to defend hamas based on what's happening in gaza. this is a terrorist group. hamas has been on the terrorist

group since 1997. >> what does this do for hamas? >> they are trying to demonstrate that they are supporting them they are carrying goods for israel. the truth of the matter is the ships that are attacked have relations with 14 countries. they are dust like they might be carrying israeli goods but they are often times with american captains. that is far the challenge for these are international waters. this is why the u.s. is there protecting the ships and responding to stress calls and the potentially coming under attack themselves. >> is the ship to ship or short range missiles? >> the houthis often use drones. we know one drone or missile was shot down by the u.s. destroyer. there have been prior missiles and drones launched. we believe targeting israel.

they have been shot down by warships in the region. >> >> thank you for taking my call. i have been a opponent for repealing this out of concerns for domestic surveillance and some the things that the speaker has talked about, that was up until 15 minutes ago when john let that pedophile go on and now i am concerned that people are slipping through the cracks and we need to -- john, thank you for changing my mind on this important national security position >> announcer: domestic surveillance. the process for surveilling cement domestically >> if you want to get any surveillance against an american weather in the united states or abroad you have to go to a

court if it's for intelligence you go to the intelligence court. the process is almost identical. you have to go and meet with the judge and present with probable cause to show something in the case of warrants you have to show a crime has been committed. in case of surveillance it is probable cause to believe that they are a foreign intelligence officer or agent of a foreign power. no matter what, when you go after an american, you focus on american you have to go to court. that is existing law. section 702 made that law for americans overseas. it used to be in the day if you want surveillance of an american overseas you have to get the attorney general authorization. is 702 goes away that protection overseas goes back to the attorney general. if you want to protect americans you want 702. if you're looking for reforms, there are some being considered , that's not off the table. you do not want to create a

requirement for searching once we have it. >> to james in matthews north carolina. line for democrats. >> i noticed you were smiling at the guy on the right when he made a few statements about this law. i am on the left and i see a problem. you guys go right through the middle which is called think tanks. you have these think tanks and you sit around and make up equations. 702 law does not protect american people. right now, i don't care who you are you have to have a warrant and some kind of document to enter anyone's home or to listen to anyone. you guys give us a false sense of security. i am a minority, i could be sitting in my house and cops can bang down the door. i know this is a local matter, but they can bust in your door

with or without a warrant. nothing happens to them. they might get a couple of weeks of paid vacation. you guys are the problem. >> let me give jamil jaffer a chance to respond. >> he raises a good point. a lot of americans are skeptical of government surveillance. we should be suspicious of government activity. we come from that tradition. we were born as a nation of deeply suspicious of british soldiers coming in and ordering troops around our houses and doing things that we believe are unlawful. that is why we have the constitution we have and why we have the 10 amendments to protect our rights and that's why we have the fourth amendment. section 702 does not authorize surveillance of any americans. you are required, the only thing that it is for is people living outside the united states have no rights, these are not american citizens. these are not americans.

even then we provide all of these protections, you have reporting back to congress, you have oversight by a court. there are a lot of protections in place even for foreign individuals located overseas. for americans, regardless of where you are, section 702 and the law and the statutes we have in place require you to go to a federal judge and get that court order or warrant. that is the law today. i understand the skepticism and the desire to protect privacy and liberties, that is what these laws are designed to do, this is a loss not about americans but foreigners overseas. >> what do you think about the patriot act? >> it had a lot of that were important. a lot of the provisions were important to help protect the nation. i will say this, for the last 20 plus years we have been protecting this nation from a

mass casualty terror attack in part because of the laws we made the change in the operation and this collaboration between intelligence officials and criminal officials to better protect the nation and going on the offenses against al qaeda and other terrorists and keeping them on the run that has kept us safe for 20 plus years. >> did it go too far? >> i think elements have heard we watched congress reauthorize some of these provisions and they have made revisions and added oversight and that was valuable. in the context of the reauthorization there are reforms that are valuable. we should keep those in place and move forward. >> we have 15 minutes left today. jamil jaffer is our guest. this is kea out of las vegas, republican. >> good morning. how are you? >> good. >> i recall a few months ago they were having congressional hearings where they were talking about 702 abuses because

the law was being circumvented and the courts are being circumvented and they were using their power to spy on americans. i think it is too much of a government overreach so i think they should repeal it. also, if biden was stronger as the president we would not have rets of terrorism. if we shut our border, that should be the first line of defense for anything. with the border wide open terrorists are walking right through. just yesterday, or friday, the court in texas said to take the louisa downes. that should be the first line of defense. >> i think she is right, we need to better protect the border and defend the border against those crossing illegally. it is not well defended enough. congress is working on that. i do not disagree about that. i also agree that if we had a

strong role in the world and our adversaries were afraid of us, that would prevent people from conducting attacks against the united states and threatening our people whether in the middle east or around the globe. i think she's right on both of those fronts. all that being said, if we know who's crossing the border or know what the threats are and prevent fentanyl from crossing the southern border, we will do it by surveillance of foreign intelligence targets with the chinese creating those fentanyl precursors and for those coming against americans all around the world. it is critical that we have this capability. it is part of a larger thing that involves being stronger and being more aggressive and having this kind of intelligence information. kea makes a point about abuses. there were abuses that were intentional, often times there were three, four or five, a handful of times, people went and looked at the database for

love interest they try to find a boyfriend or girlfriend or significant other that they were prosecuted, those abuses have been addressed. the other types of situations where there was over collection or searches that went broadly, 99 to 100% were people making unintentional mistakes and those who reported to congress and measures were put in place to stop those. there are things that we can consider. we are not talking about the kind of widescale abuse that people think might be taking place saying 44 second, we have a question from, what surveillance is used at the border with mixico >> we have all kinds of surveillance. we have cameras watching as people come across, clearly we are not doing a good job of stopping people coming in. we are also doing other available surveillance using

section 702 and we are look at what they are doing, what routes they are taking, what are the drug mules doing how are they operating, what is the chinese government doing to get fentanyl to the united states. president biden spoke with president xi and they agreed to stop the flow of fentanyl. i am not sure why it takes to leaders of countries to stop a drug that is killing hundreds of thousands of americans a year. it is unconscionable that we allow it to go across the border and section 702 helped to stop that drug trade. >> this is stacy, an independent. >> thank you for having me on. i have a couple of comments. first of all, america has funded every one of our enemies before they were our foes they were our friends. i don't care if it was osama bin laden, saddam hussein, the taliban, you name it we have supported and funded

them, correct? as far as the border crisis is concerned, if we want to solve that, you prosecute every corporation that hires illegals and you will stop it tomorrow but if they went to jail for hiring illegals. as far as the surveillance maybe we should start surveilling our government officials because they make $174,000 a year and they walk out of office multimillionaires, most of them have dual citizenship's and other countries and their loyalties are not to the united states of america, they are to the countries that they have do so to to. they should not be allowed to vote on any legislation that has to do with any country that they have dual citizenship. >> is there a member of congress that you think is doing a good job? >> with what is going on in israel and to see the genocide that is going on, it is a genocide, what netanyahu is doing to the palestinians,

hitler did that to the juice. i see no difference. for them to cosign and pretend, pretend to be the moral compass of the world and to let this tragedy happen. then talk about we will save the world, you cannot even save your own people. >> stacy, i got your point. let me let jamil jaffer jump in. >> i think it is worth remembering that the terror attacks happened on october 7th. hamas listed was listed as a terror organization in 1997. we lost 3000 people in 2001, the israelis lost 1500 people, 1400 people on a population of 9 million. that is a dozen 9/11's . that is a single attack. it was the single largest loss of jewish life since the holocaust.

while we watch this warping prosecuted against hamas, this is not a war against the palestinian people it is against a terror group. there are civilian casualties in this terrible. you think of a city of 2 million people and you think about what the incentives are. for every palestinian civilian, woman, child that is killed, it makes it harder for israel to prosecute this war. it is harder for them to go after hamas if they kill palestinian women and children. on the other hand if a palestinian civilian dies hamas benefits they get additional sympathy and the world response , as it should. the incentive is for israeli and not to kill civilians and for hamas to put more in harm's way and that's what you see. you have seen israel tell palestinians go south, move out of the way and hamas tells the palestinians stay here. oftentimes forcing them to stay . because it is working that way this is tragic.

palestinian people say hamas needs to be destroyed and taken apart and find a way to prosecute this war that follows humanitarian law, as israel's trying to do. it is hard to avoid civilians but the war has to be prosecuted and hamas is hiding in those tunnels and hospitals and in schools. >> do you think the idf has done enough to allow the international world to see what they are trying to do in gaza to avoid what you are talking about? concerns from callers about communications being shut down in gaza, not being able to see the results. >> i think the idf can do more. often times the u.s. military has war reports travel with them and we have not seen enough of what they are doing to protect civilians. i think if they provide insight to that, i think you would see an operation that is cognizant of civilian deaths. the incentives for israel is not to kill civilians it is to

avoid it at all cost. it makes it harder for them in the international community and support if civilians die. but hamas benefits from civilians a dying. if you were sitting inside an israeli command center and watching the decisions being made on what strikes to take and how to take them and what ground incursion to take, i think you are doing everything you can because you know the civilian casualties, you know it only benefits the adversary and in this scenario where the eyes of the world are focused on gaza, the israelis are painfully aware of this. could idf have let journalists in? that might be a smart move >> less than five minutes left we are with jamil jaffer this is mark from cloverdale, indiana , independent. >> i appreciate the stand that they are taking on the war

against hamas. i do want to make one comment. the authorization act was used to spy on president trump and also to attack his administration and caused so much trouble in our government for the first four years. i am wondering if this thing is still in effect and whether it can be used to check out biden and all of his shenanigans and to check all of his connections with china and all of the friendships his son has made with all of these people who are giving him -- of course he is getting a lot filtered, all that he has received. >> we are running short on time. jamil jaffer .

>> this law cannot be used to surveilling americans anywhere. if there was surveillance on trump, that was conducted by court authorities. not this law. not section 702 only permit surveillance of foreigners located outside the united states. it should not be a concern because it is not what this law is about. to the question of what we should do to better protect american privacy and civil liberties, that's why we have federal judges between surveillance of americans and the government. that is why people are nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate and ultimately have life appointments, they will protect us. if a lawyer lies to the court, that lawyer needs to be prosecuted and he was. should they have gone farther and put him in jail? absolutely. i do not think we have done enough there. it is not about

section 702. from the call from mark, president trump and his administration sought the reauthorization and retain the authorization because they understood that this law is not about americans or the trump campaign or political operatives or political enemies, it is about foreigners overseas threatening americans around the globe both at home and at brought. >> bill, this is the last call, we have a minute or two left. >> i would like to thank the speaker who has been talking. the only problem i see is that he does not mention the fact that the lawyer who was prosecuted was basically let off free. the reason why that was is because the law does not protect us. anyone who knows anything about government surveillance knows the united states uses other governments to avoid any responsibility for surveilling americans. can you speak on that?

>> section 702 inhibits the reverse targeting of americans anywhere. you cannot use his authority to surveilling americans. also we do not use that to surveilling americans. that is unlawful. there are people who raise these concerns and it is legitimate, it is not something the u.s. government does. we want to survey american we go to a federal judge, or the district court. the court judges are regular district court judges they just serve temporary judgments. >> thank you for expanding these national security issues. he is with the national security institute at george mason university law school. you can follow him on twitter at tran18underscore tran17underscore. >> today ncaa all-american swimmer riley gaines and others testify on the biden

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