I’d love for that mysterious “GOP source” to identify his or her name and cite statutory authority for the proposition that the FISA extension in the NDAA couldn’t be used to extend 702 collection until well into 2025.
Relevant statutory text within FISA, which became law through an amendment enacted by Congress in 2018, supports precisely the opposite conclusion.
A 702 certification by the FISA court (“FISC”) allows 702 collection to continue even after the expiration of 702, as long as the FISC issued the certification while 702 was still in effect.
Thus, the FISC could issue another year-long certification on April 11, 2024, and thereby allow 702 collection to continue under that certification until April 2025.
So not only does this language show we’re looking at a 16-month extension (rather than an extension of only four months), it also demonstrates that the 702 extension in the NDAA is completely unnecessary.
Why, then, would the intelligence community and its acolytes in Congress be so obsessed with passing this extension in the NDAA if it’s not necessary?
One must consider the possibility that it’s because they can get 16 months out of this — delaying this important, contentious, and necessary debate until well after the 2024 election — while convincing most members of Congress that they’re extending 702 for only four months.
