Bipartisan Effort to Reform FISA, End Abuses Could be Iced by GOP Outrage of Durham Report Findings

Congressional Democrats have joined in bipartisan effort to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amid abuses but GOP outrage over the findings in the Durham Report, including recent calls to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland over such matters, has likely hurt such efforts.

Congressional reauthorization of FISA is due in December, with particular focus on Section 702 of the law, which permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance on foreign people outside the U.S., with the assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information.

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Commentary: Congress and President Must Oversee the FISA Court and All FISA Warrants After Durham Report Revelations

Special Counsel John Durham has finished his voluminous report outlining the Justice Department, State Department, intelligence agencies and FBI’s “confirmation bias” that led to a years-long investigation of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, transition and then administration falsely alleging that Trump and his campaign were Russian agents who had helped Moscow hack the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and put their emails onto Wikileaks despite the fact that the FBI could not “corroborate a single substantive allegation in the [Christopher] Steele dossier reporting,” which was sourced to the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC.

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