We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. Am Emily Trishinsky,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
and if you are interested in supporting our work, you can go over
to the Federalist dot com and sign up for the premium version of our website
as well. Today, joining us to talk about an especially important and timely
topic is James Tronowski. He is with Americans for Prosperity, where he covers
and works on tech issues, innovation issues. He's a senior contributor over at
Young Voices, and he is here to help us break down all of the
developments of which there actually are some in the battle over section seven oh two.
My gosh, that sounds so weedy and nerdy, but James, thank
you for coming on to help us work through this. Of course, thanks
for having me absolutely so section seven oh two. It is weedy, it
is nerdy, but oh my gosh, it's so incredibly important. It ends.
The authorization for seven oh two expires at the end of the year,
so some reform minded, privacy minded, freedom minded members of the Senate last
week unveiled a bill that would reform section seven oh two before the authorization elapse
elapses. The Biden administration and the security state more broadly really opposes any changes
to second section seven oh two. They like to do the kind of national
security emotional blackmail, saying we won't be safe if Section O two is changed
in any way whatsoever. Before we dive into all of that, James,
could you basically just refresh people's memory on what section seven oh two is,
the history of it, and what it allows the government to do. Absolutely
so. Section seven o two of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act FISA was done
back in two thousand and eight. This was basically a codification of some of
the surveillance powers that we saw going on underneath the Bush administration. This is
one of those things that we saw happening underneath the Patriot Act when we had
nine to eleven happened as somebody who was living in New York at the time
certainly can speak back to remembering how scary it was to be there. I
was actually only in elementary school, but we went into an emergency and it
was a very wild time to be around and you know, because of that
fear of having that there, we empowered you know, the National Security Apparatus
to go and have these kinds of surveillance powers so that they could better respond
to threats that were happening abroad. Section seven oh two specifically focuses on collecting
information and communications of non US persons. Now, the problem that often comes
up with this particular authority is that, with the way that the Internet works,
more broadly speaking, Americans, data is not necessarily in one location.
It's kind of, you know, hamized throughout the entire Internet, were broadly
speaking, across the entire globes. So when the intelligence community is trying to
collect information and communications of non US persons, it can also incidentally collect Americans
communications and this would certainly go, in our view, be a violation of
the Fourth Amendment, where you're having that right to privacy and having those protections
against government intrusion on you when you've done nothing wrong. So that's really what
it's at the core of this particular authority. We've seen it go and get
abused in the fifteen years that it's been around. Countless times. We've seen
other aspects of the FISA authorities get abused. Most notably, I think the
ones that conservatives are most familiar with are actually underneath title one of FSA,
when we saw the FBI go and abuse its authorities there to go and spy
on Carter page. That's the one that I think everybody's most familiar with.
But Section SO and O two is the one that, as you aptly noted,
is up for reauthorization here at the end of the year and is at
the focus of a lot of conversations right now. Very important topic, and
I'm glad that we're here to go and have a discussion about it. Yeah,
can you tell us about the section seven oh two database, because there's
a lot of evidence it's been completely misused, and there's a lot of evidence
that, you know, what they are collecting in the seven oh two database
is just vast and it's not even all as I understand it. You could
correct me on this, James. Some of this is data that can be
bought, is that? Or data that can be not necessarily bought, but
you can sort of tap into with permission of some of these big tech companies.
Is that correct? Yeah, that's certainly is part of the program.
More broadly speaking, is that they're able to go and buy these communications through
third party data brokers. That certainly is something that has been taught taught about
quite quite expansively. And depending on what numbers you're looking at again kind of
as you pointed to, for the abuses, they are vast in the degree.
Just a couple of years ago it was over two million, I believe
the Memory service right communications that we're intercepted for Americans by the FBI, and
even by their own revised numbers that they used for most recently it was still
about over two hundred thousand for the FBI, is what they were saying.
So you're talking about vast kinds of information and how it's been abused. Just
to go over some of the brief things that we've seen kind of come out
in public reporting from PISA, court reports and opinions you've got. You know,
they've abused this authority to go and spy on Black Lives Matter protesters.
They've used this authority to go and spy on protesters that were president at the
capital for January sixth. They've used this authority to spy on a sitting member
of Congress. So they clan that's defensive though I don't really think the Fourth
Amendment cares whether or not the search was defensive or not. They've gone and
used this to go and target donors to a political campaign, nineteen thousand of
them as a matter of fact. So we've seen rampant and repeated abuses.
And every single time that this happens and they get their hands caught in the
constitutional cookie jar, if you will, the intelligen community always comes down and
says, well, you know, this was this was a very particular set
of circumstances, and this this never happens otherwise, and we've taken internal reform
measures to make sure that something like this never happens again, until it happens
again, of course, and then we're back having the same conversation time and
time again. And I think that the problem that kind of persists here is
that when I'm looking at it, whether you're a conservative or liberal or progressive,
you know, I think that the bigger problem here is that these are
the very institutions that are meant to be protecting the Americans, you know,
national security, our public safety right and when you see that our intelligence community
more broadly speaking, is using and abusing this authority and then when they aren't
using and abusing this authority, that the people that did it aren't really being
held accountable. It undermines your trust in the very institutions that are meant to
be keeping you safe, and I think that that's actually very dangerous. I
don't think that you want to be in that position in the long run.
So that's why it's actually really great that we see, you know, the
Senators and members of the House of Representatives that came together last week to unveil
that reform package is so important because that's what they're trying to tackle here.
I think they rightly realize that these abuses they just can't continue as it's currently
going on. That we need to go and restore the public trust in these
institutions, right And that's why I think that at the end of the day,
this is very important and we can't just keep letting the status quo continue
on. The Senate right now is actually considering trying to do something as a
short term reauthorization to Section SEVENO two within its proposal for the continuing Resolution.
So that's that just goes to show just how strong the intelligence community has when
it comes to members of Congress trying to you know, safeguarded its authorities there.
So I think that that's something that we also have to keep in mind.
Yeah, absolutely, Can you tell us a little bit more about I
mean, so Ron Wyden, who is you know, has long been a
sort of champion of the personal privacy cause, and Mike Lee. It is
a pretty bar my partisan group of senators. Again, their plan was sort
of immediately criticized by people in the Biden administration for you know, all of
the various expected reasons that you just discussed, James, What are they proposing
basically in terms of reforming seven oh two. That's a good question, Emily,
because the reality is that I don't think that they've come to the table
with anything. I've talked with the director of the Office of Director of National
Intelligence, Avrel Haynes. I've you know, from all publicly available information when
we're talking with offices or we're reading what's being reported. They haven't really come
to the table with anything. And even when they criticized this bill from Senators
Widen and Lee and Representatives Warren Davidson and Zoelofkran, I can't help but notice
the guy also prefaced it with the fact that he hadn't read the bill,
which seems like a pretty important part to do before you start commenting on it.
So yeah, it's a little rich, but you know, to date,
I can't but note this is really important that at the end of the
day, there's only one bill right now on the Capitol Hill that goes and
reauthorizes Section seven H two advisa, and it is this bill. There is
nothing else out there right now. The administration and certainly the more intelligence community
community friendly members of Congress. You know, I certainly tried to push for
I would say weaker kinds of things, whether that's a straight clean reauthorization,
which being completely frank, there there aren't the votes for that, or just
a simple kind of reform package that would codify the the internal reforms that the
FBI has proposed on their own. Those are some of the things that we've
heard about. But again there's no formal proposal. I know that in the
Judiciary Committee right now. There's also another con proposal, but it's not out
there yet. But to the point that you raised, you know, the
thing that's unique about the Government's of rail AND's for Formact is that, as
you pointed, out Ron Wyden, who's a progressive senator from from from from
Oregon, and and you know Senator Mike Lee, who is a fantastic conservative
out of Utah. These are not like, you know, your typical bandwagon
of people that you'd see to pop up on legislation together seeing thing with Zoelofgrin
and Warren Davidson. But they all rightly recognize that there's an issue here and
that's why it's important. Right So what this bill is trying to do here
in many respects is number one critically, I think, which is something that
many members as well as the administration as well as the intelligence community has rightly
recognized that there's value to Section seven o two for national security purposes. They've
said the intelligence community has said that seventy percent of the President's daily briefing comes
from material as produced by Section seven O two, which at least on some
level makes me feel a little queasy. But you saying that a side for
a second, Yeah, you know, it certainly has some value for them.
Apparently they certainly feel that way. And I think that what this also
tries to do is put some guardrails in place there and put some more importantly,
accountability measures in there for when you have, you know, members of
these various intelligence agencies of using this authority inappropriately, being able to hold them
accountable, and not just focusing on seven oh two. What I like to
say is that I think that the United States has a surveillance problem. More
broadly speaking, it's not just Section seven oh two that empowers it. Notably,
in the executive you have Executive Order twelve triple three, which also goes
and outlines a lot of these surveillance authorities that the intelligence community uses and relies
on. So this goes in let's Congress routaine, it's oversight function, It
goes and introduces accountability measures, It puts in you know, those protections for
American civil liberties. It tries to make people be more aware of when this
stuff is happening in terms of if you were a target of something in the
FIA support, which I think is important because, as Mike Lee said at
the press conference, you wouldn't even know if you were targeted because it's all
classified, and that's really hard to defend yourself if you don't even know.
So again, I think that this bill is really important because it is a
good conversation starter and forces everybody to come to the table and realize that,
you know, isn't a pathway for clean reauthorization of Section seven h two.
And here are the kinds of things that we think can go and actually fix
that, and go and tackle the core issue that I highlighted, which is
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to kind of get your temperature on that, you know, what they've what
they have The Wide and Lee and Lofgren group has proposed the Biden administration again
without having seen the proposal was already out in the Hill. I think the
senior admin officialist quoted anonymously saying, you know, we don't have time to
go to court before we tap you know, these authorities before we tap the
database and every circumstance. These are such urgent situations as somebody who studies the
policy really closely, James, what do you make of how they approached this?
You know, did they really come out swinging? Did they come out
with something that could be acceptable sort of at first blush and isn't a negotiation
point? A lot of times that obviously happens in Congress. Your first bill
is a negotiation point. It's a starting point. Maybe it's further than it
needs to be in one direction, and you're willing to talk and get it
close to the center. How did they sort of approach the strategically or what
do you make of how they approached it strategically with the proposal that they've put
forth so far. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great proposal.
It hits many of the things that I think that we Americans for Prosperity
care about in terms of protecting American civil liberties, maintaining that national security you
know function that the authority certainly grants that there certainly is a value there.
But as we like to say, you know, it's not that your constitutional
rights and national security are mutually exclusive goals. You can actually have something here
that can go and actually be mutually reinforcing where you can have your civil liberties
being protected while achieving that national security mission that these agencies are responsible for carrying
out. And so, you know, maybe in some way, certainly from
the administration's posture, it's a very aggressive approach to dealing with Section seven zero
two. But that's fine. That sounds like a them problem more so than
mine, because their preference right now, at least as far as they've been
publicly talking about it, is they want a clean reauthorization, and as I've
been saying repeatedly, there's just not the votes for that. So they need
to come to the table and figure out what they can live with, how
they can go and work with some of these things here. And you know,
they like talking about the agency, see, like how they don't want
to have to go to court because you know, somebody could die and I
can't help, but note that there are like accessions for emergencies, and the
threshold here is where you would require a warrant normally that you would have to
get a warrant. If there are other lower thresholds that you would have to
hate in other kinds of circumstances, then you don't necessarily have to worry about
that. So I think it is pretty cognizant about trying to be flexible to
dynamic circums chances that we can't always foresee. So I think that that's where
it's a little bit silly that the Biden administration is coming out swinging so hard
against it, when, as I said before, they haven't read the bill,
so it makes it a little silly that they're pushing back on something that
they haven't read yet. I'd rather get into the nuance of where they might
disagree, so that, as you kind of mentioned, we can go and
take what we like and try to find some compromise there. But this bill,
at least from our perspective, has a lot of the ideal things that
we'd want to see in a reform package. And I guess one other thing
I'll note too that I think is very funny for this particular administration is back
when FISA was being deliberated on the Senate floor, then Senator Joe Biden was
very staunchly opposed to FISA because he thought it was unconstitutional and that it would
result in all kinds of abuses. So, you know, it's a little
rich when you have an environment where Senator Joe Biden is now contradicting you know,
President Biden. You know, once he got into office, I guess
all of a sudden, his feelings about this magically changed or something. It's
a little odd to me, but that I think is that's what I would
say is the big important part here is that is a big, bold proposal.
I think a lot of people realize that, but it does go and
set the tone for I think where a decent portion of Congress is kind of
thinking about this issue. I mean, make a mistake. You've got Representative
Jim Jordan that's on board with this kind of stuff too, you know,
Mike Lee. You've got all across the ideological spectrum, and that was even
represented in the kind of groups that were there at the press conference for the
introduction of that legislation. You had Americans for Prosperity there standing with Demand Progress
or the American Civil Liberties Union. You have Freedom Works that's also supportive of
this kind of a measure. So you've got a broad swath of ideological spectrum
of organizations and politicians that realize the problem here and know that this is your
best path forward to getting solutions. And that's what we're focused on again.
You don't want a situation coming up where like we've seen pop up recently,
where the Senate's thinking about trying to do that short term reauthorization. That's,
in my view, that's unacceptable insofar as that you've had all year to go
and talk about this subject. This is not like something that just magically popped
up on your doorstep here at the eleventh hour. This has been here all
year, and to go and try to do a short term reauthorization I think
is just disingenuous to many people that are you know, seriously concerned about this,
many members of Congress that are working on this, that want to have
that conversation. And that's why I think that this is important to try to
get this done before the end of the year. Now, are there process
are there executive powers that can override say Section seven h two elapses. I
think something like this happened under the Trump administration. But you can correct me
on this, James. Does the president have powers to step in if it
elapses? What could happen if Congress doesn't step in? Yeah, So right
now, if we were to hit the end of the year and there were
no reauthorization of Section seven h two, it's not like the sky falls and
that all of a sudden, they can't go and do their surveillance, you
know, activities as they otherwise would. So they get certifications from the Five
Court for one year durations. So right now, even if they were to
go on laps on section seven O two, the intelligence community could still go
and use those kinds of surveillance powers all the way through until April of next
year, in twenty twenty four, so they don't have to worry about something
that happens if we don't go to December thirty first, per se. But
obviously you don't want that to happen. I don't think that you want to
be operating with that lack of certainty for what happens post April of twenty twenty
four, if you're the intelligence community, and if you're a member of Congress,
I don't think that's a position that you want to be in. And
yes, you were right that it's not that the president necessarily overrides, but
there are broader surveillance authorities that are existing. Like I said before, Executive
Order twelve Triple three certainly governs a lot of that which this bill tries to
track tackle in terms of putting in guardrails and congressional oversight over that aspect of
surveillance. Like I said before, it's not just section seven O two like
that. That is one piece of a very large surveillance pie, if you
will, and that's certainly what the GSRA is trying to tackle, right,
it's not just trying to tackle FAISA, but it is trying to also integrate
in some solutions to tackle twelve triple three as well. And what I would
say is, and this is part of the crowd that is happy for like
let watching these things expire in the sunset. During the Trump administration, this
did happen with Section two fifteen. That authority also expired because they couldn't come
to any kind of agreement for that particular program. And you know what ended
up happening was that I think a lot of those things that they were doing
underneath that specific program just more or less got reshuffled into different existing authorities.
And the problem there is that again, if it's not if it's not in
Section Semino two, let's say, if we let that, if that were
to go and expire, the larger issue becomes that then it just again gets
reshuffled into existing authorities underneath let's say something like a twelve triple three where there
is no congressional oversight. It's a lot harder to go and have thoseuardrails in
place, and it's a lot more of a black box. So that would
be a very big missed opportunity if we go and let it lapse. I
think that you don't want to go and have this go into a situation where
it's somehow less transparent and has less oversight. So that's why I think,
you know, from my perspective, at least we want to see it reauthorize
with those major reforms, so that way we can have congressional oversight, we
can have accountability for people when they are abusing these authorities, and we can
go and try to put some guardrails on the executive not trying to stop it
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That's such an important point because I think it's worth remembering that we're actually
talking about something that came out of FISA, which in and of itself came
out of the Church Committee and the congressional exposure of dramatic abuses that occurred over
the course of decades on behalf of the CIA, the FBI, and this
was supposed to be a solution, and in fact, you know, we're
talking about abuses of the solution and the ways that the solution have been used
extra legally in some cases but other cases not extra legally to abuse people's rights,
constitutional rights. And so I guess, James, how optimistic are you
that Congress can really rain in the people who are abusing these powers, given
that there's just this massive spider web, as you say, this isn't just
about seven zero two. There's now this massive spider web of surveillance powers that
exist that you know, to untangle them, you sort of take a shot
across the bow and untangle some of these powers. But this is this is
a vast apparatus at this point. Yeah, you're absolutely right, And I
mean, given the state of Congress these days, I'm not exactly sure I
want to be a betting man on the viability of any particular proposal, but
I mean, I'm always hopeful that we can go and come to a solution
here because this is just too important. You know, our national security does
matter. I think that that's like something that's i think underappreciated from these groups
that are talking about this, is that we recognize the value that can come
out of Section seven or two. But again, we're not just going to
sit there and say that gives you a blank check to do whatever you want.
There needs to be reforms done here. So that's why we're very supportive
of something like the government surveillance or formact. I think that that is incredibly
important. And I think that you know, to your point, with the
discovery of rampant abuses, it's only going to be a situation where it continues
to get, you know, exact rated even more and more because what ends
up happening is that we're having more people become online in many ways, especially
with the gen Z who's digital natives as a generation entirely. So that means
that there's a lot of information that's getting produced online, and these programs that
were meant to be the solution, I think what ended up happening in many
ways is that it was just a very simple case of scope creep. Right.
It was like, oh, well, now there's all this information that's
out here, and if we just go and use it here to tackle this
specific issue, maybe we can go and you know, solve some more problems.
And then they realize, just like many people do, when you have
that vast amount of data at your disposal, it can be extraordinarily valuable and
powerful. So you see that scope creep happening, which I think in many
ways exacerbates the abuses. So it's pretty cyclical in that sense. Right.
So you know, I'm not going to get into the prediction game as to
what the proposals viability looks like, but I think that we're certainly hopeful and
I think that again, as you pointed out, these abuses are just too
egregious to overlook. And then an errow where we're going to continue to have
more people being online putting more data online in general, it makes it that
much more important that we have the government held accountable because when the government is
going and using this these authorities and they do go and do it in this
kind of a fashion, when the people are harmed by it. You know,
it's really hard to go and get any kind of remedy. As I
said before, you don't even know that you're being targeted by it because it's
classified, and it's really hard for you to get insight into the Pisa court
process until well after the fact. So we need to be doing something here.
The time is to fixed visa is now, It's not next year's Let's
not delay this any further. Let's go and have something done here is what
I usually say when we're talking to people about this. There's no point in
trying to punt the ball here. Americans have been waiting too long and have
been abused too much by these authorities, and we need to go and do
something to go and restore some trust in these very institutions that are meant to
protect us. It's amazing to look back on the days of Edward Snowden and
Juliana Soannge and sort of think of the partisan breakdown. And there have been
great conservatives afp Rand Paul who have always been looking at these privacy questions through
the proper lens. But what happens when these become sort of front and center
in the news cycle the political discourse is suddenly that national security emotional blackmail also
bubbles to the surface. And I say this empathetically, that's really really persuasive
because it's it's genuinely scary. They're very good at scaring people, and you
know, in moments like this, it feels like the world is teetering on
the brink of World War three. It's a scary time for people, and
so you know, there are reasons that we want to protect the homeland,
and that's a very persuasive message. But at the same time, now that
you know, can conservative eyes have been really opened to the abuses of the
security state post twenty sixteen, post twenty twenty and a lot of people have
kind of soured on them. Even so, I've still seen some Republicans defending
an untouched version of seven oh two reauthorization. So I just kind of wanted
to get your temperature, James, on where this all stands from that kind
of question of partisan breakdown. Is there enough of an appetite among Republicans and
people who are genuinely very concerned about national security and for some good reasons,
is there enough of an appetite to really get something done here? Especially considering
so many Democrats are now. Joe Biden, the example he gave was such
a good one, the arc of Joe Biden on this question, since so
many Democrats are so defensive of the surveillance apparatus now too. Yeah, I
think that's a great question. And what I would say is that when you're
looking at it, it's been a strange bedfellows situation in terms of the kinds
of ballmakers that are interested in, you know, obviously magnificant advisor reform,
but I think it's become spillover effects and we've had even other you know less
we'll say, you know, more mainstream. I guess I should say,
like members of the respective parties recognize that you've got to have some kind of
reforms here. I'll note that, you know, you had Chairman of the
Jujudiciary in the Senate, Dick Durbin, noting that he would not go and
just do a clean reauthorization AVISA. And that's very important because he heads up
that committee. That's a position of power, right And like I said,
on the House side, you got Representative Jim Jordan, who's also not a
fan of a clean reauthorization. He's been very clear about that. So I
think that there was actually a very unique moment in time here that we didn't
have two years ago when it was SEC. Section two fifteen that was up
for reauthorization, that we do have now because people have seen the abuses play
out in the open. Like I said, when people found out that the
FBI was abusing these authorities to go inspy on Black Lives Matter protesters and January
sixth protesters and a sitting member of Congress, it just you can't help but
raise your eyebrown and be like what, like what, how is that even
possible? Why is that allowed for an authority that's meant to target non US
persons to be used in this kind of a fashion. It just seems beyond
the pale. And this is why, like I said, you have so
many members certainly in the House for sure, but definitely in the Senate too.
You've got a decent number of co sponsors there of the GSRA that Ron
Whiteen and Mike Lee introduced. So I think that there's plenty of appetite for
reforms. It's just a matter as to how far we can go and take
it. And I think that that's you know, that's something that we have
to still see play out between now and the end of the year. But
one thing that I can say, at least for my part, is anyway
where myself and my role at Americans for Prosperity can can play a role in
terms of helping those conversations along. You know, we're certainly looking forward to
having those conversations with people because we think that this is too important to let,
you know, half measures kind of go through, or to just do
a clean reauthorization, or to let it expire. As you noted, we
do live in a pretty scary world out there. Sometimes there are plenty of
bad things going on. But as I said before, that doesn't mean that
you get a blank checked to whatever you deem necessary to pursue your mission.
We have to have some guiding principles that kind of show us the way of
how we're going to do right in this space. And so that's why I
think that there's definitely a decent level of appetite here in Congress to go and
get something done. And I'm personally very excited to see what we can get
accomplished here in these conversations. Over the next several weeks, watched out on
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you've het your podcasts. And finally, James, this is a big question,
but an important one, and you've touched on this already throughout this entire
conversation. But when conservatives here, you know, maybe from for instance,
I think I've seen Mike Gallagher supporting a cleaner reauthorization or opposing efforts to reform
seven oh two. And you've had these conservatives these conversations I imagine with many
conservatives over the years. What should they know? How can they kind of
steal themselves or prepare for some of those very predictable, usual arguments about why
national security is on the line with a seven oh two, a clean seven
oh two reauthorization when people here you know, we absolutely desperately need this to
keep the country safe. There will be people who die from terrorist attacks if
we do not reauthorize section seven oh two. It is of the utmost urgent
importance. What should people know or how should people think about that as those
arguments are increasingly likely to be made in the days ahead. Yeah, I
think, going back to what I said before, it's about keeping firm in
your belief that national security and your civil liberties are not mutually exclusive goals.
And again that while there are certainly national security threats out there, that doesn't
mean that you get to go and pursue any any pathway that you want to
go and get that done. And that you get to abuse the authorities that
are granted to you in statute and have no accountability for when you do that.
That's just not tenable anymore. And that you have a lot of people,
a lot of people. We operate in the Americans Prosperity We have over
thirty eight chapter states where we had chapters in and you know, we have
a fifty state presence, and I can tell you there are a lot of
people, a lot of conservatives certainly you could say American of America First Republicans
too, you know, the Donald Trump kind of wing of the party that
are very sensitive to this. You know, we have an entire select subcommittee
in the House that's focused on the weaponization of the federal government, and I
would urge those people to think back to that. There's a reason why you
set that up. You were you were work read about the concentration of power
that was existing inside the government and how it was being leveraged in a way
that could you know, negatively impact conservatives. And this is one of those
things that unfortunately, I think we've seen, as a result of scope creep
over the years fifteen years, really start to have a negative impact on everyday
Americans in ways that you might not have otherwise thought. So, I think
you can respect the national security implications that people are coming to the table with.
I think you know, you can have those reasonable conversations, but go
and stick firm to the things that you believe in. It's a principle's first
approach. You have to respect civil liberties. If you do not do that,
then what's our constitution but just words printed on a piece of paper.
And that's not I think a situation that many conservatives who are staunch defenders of
the constitution like Mike Lee, would want to be okay with. And I
would encourage other Republicans to think about that very hard and long before they go
and think about voting for a clean, real authorization of Section seven zero two.
That's just I think that would be a very unfortunate situation if that's where
you landed. So I would encourage them to go and talk to or organizations
like Americans for Prosperity, like Freedom Works and others to kind of gauge about
how we're looking at this issue. Because we're there, we're ready to stand
with you and work with you to get you to see why this is so
important and why we have to have these kinds of reforms in there so that
we can actually have a stronger, better America. I would argue that having
these kinds of reforms for FISA would actually improve our national security, and so
far is that you're not going to have much of a national security mission if
the people don't believe in the very institutions that are supposed to be carrying that
out. So that's why this is so so important. This is just really
helpful, James, and I think Gallagher actually himself, Mike Gallagher, has
a somewhat nuanced view on seven oh two. The point remains that there are
going to be a lot of people who are under a lot of pressure and
who are exerting a lot of pressure in the days ahead. Actually, if
they do have one last question, just because you follow this so closely,
one thing I've heard is that there might not be enough time in this insanely
crowded congressional schedule from now the end of the year to devote a lot of
attention to seven oh two. It might be something that just sort of gets
put on the back burner and dealt with very quickly at the end of the
day in order to just deal with it and get those surveillance powers and keep
them rolling in any serious reform may there just may not be time to do
it. What do you make of that? Do you think that's true?
I think it sounds like you're hopeful that there actually is an opening for substance
of reform here, and there's a real possibility. Is there also a possibility
from what you've seen in Congress that it just it gets punted because the schedule
is so crowded. Oh yeah, I think that that certainly is fair.
I mean, you can't help but look at the schedule, know that there's
a lot going on. Obviously in the House are trying to go and deal
with their appropriations bills. We have a shutdown that's looming here and then not
to discend future that they have to go and get pass first. Right,
So there's obviously a lot going on in the calendar and not a lot of
time. But again, I think that it would be very unfortunate if we
were to be in a situation where we did some kind of short form reauthorization.
You know, again, that's a missed opportunity. I think, again,
you've had all year to talk about this, you know, to that
end where we can be helpful that don't have those conversations to go and explain
where these things kind of go and play out. You know, we're certainly
happy to go and do that, but again, there is certainly time on
the calendar. I won't pretend that there's not other competing interests. There are,
for sure, but I mean national security is pretty up there as far
as I'm concerned when it comes to where your priorities might want to be.
So I do think that at the end of the day they will go and
try to tackle this before Congress is out at the end of the year.
There's I feel pretty pretty strongly about that. It's just a matters to what
what that looks like, and that's a little bit too soon to tell right
now, so a lot to see how things shake out over the coming weeks.
Well. James Tronowski is with Americans for Prosperities, also a senior contributor
over at Young Voices, and we are very grateful, James, to you
for taking the time to talk through this issue on Federalist Radio Hour today.
Thanks for having me. Well, you've been listening to another edition of the
Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jaschinsky, culture editor here at The Federalist.
We'll be back soon with more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and
anxious for the frying