Alert! FBI Director Raises Concerns About Threats of Attacks Within the United States
DEBARYLIFE – April 11 – On Thursday, Congress was alerted by FBI Director Christopher Wray to the possibility of attacks on American territory as a result of international developments.
“The main worry we have had is that lone people or small groups may take a perverted inspiration from what’s happening in the Middle East and carry out attacks here at home,” Wray stated to the House Appropriations Committee.”
“But now increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia Concert Hall a couple weeks ago.”
To enable the government to obtain communications from non-Americans abroad utilizing platforms headquartered in the United States without obtaining a warrant, Wray urged Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Following Trump’s call on the GOP to “Kill FISA” in a social media post on Wednesday, the effort was thwarted by the former president’s supporters.
Reauthorizing the program without a warrant requirement that would force the intelligence community to get a warrant before accessing American data is met with opposition from conservative House Republicans.
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Similar changes have been demanded by the ACLU and other civil rights organizations, who claim that Section 702 permits the government to “surveil, in bulk, and without a warrant, the phone conversations, text messages, emails, and other electronic communications of Americans and foreigners.”
There was no mention of the warrant modification in the bill that Congress passed on Wednesday. In his testimony on Thursday, Wray addressed the $500 million reduction in the FBI’s budget.
The federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have seen their budgets slashed by House Republicans. Wray requested funding for the agency through 2025 from Congress.