Spend a few minutes on cspans points of interest. Coming up, matt olson calls for the reauthorization of Foreign Surveillance policy which was set to expire at the end of this year. He talks about how the how the policy improved over the years. This event was hosted by the association of former Intelligence Officers. Ok. I was up here doing my tap dance. Ok. Its a pleasure to introduce stuart baker, the chairman and a former general counsel for the National Security agency. He will introduce our first speaker and topic. Lets do it. Thank you. Im really delighted to be able to introduce matt olson. As you know, hes advertised and we did until the event over the last weekend, he is tied up permanently for some weeks. We asked, who can talk about this topic . Her suggestion and the suggestion of the white house was that we asked adelson to do this. We are really grateful to you for doing this on short notice. Matt is perfect for this topic. He has deep experience in the Intelligence Community. General counsel the National Security agency, before he came back to the Justice Department where he now runs the National Security division, he was counsel at uber. He has long years of experience. Has been one of the principal advocates for renewing section 702. Why dont i start by asking you, what is the 702 program . This audience really knows intelligence. They may not know more than you are i know. They would like to hear, what is the 702 program . Sure. Thanks everybody. Im pleased to be here. Its great to be among a wellinformed and committed group of folks. I walked in the room, i was shocked to see a full crowd instead of the director of National Intelligence. Im a lawyer from the Justice Department so im shocked that you showed up. Maybe you didnt realize it until now and you are stuck here. [laughter] dni is totally occupied with the events of our time. We are lucky to have her in that role during perilous times like this. Im happy to fill in for her as best as we possibly can. Section 702 is a part of the foreign intelligence. That was 2008. Most importantly, it expires in 2. 5 months at the end of the year. At midnight, it will cease to exist. It is without question the most important authority that we have for foreign intelligence collection at this point. It has proven since its passage into thousand eight to be absolutely indispensable and irreplaceable as an authority for collecting foreign intelligence. Some of the people who are here may remember coming in days or weeks after 9 11. As a president ial program. Can you give us a feel for the ultimate origins . It really did grow out of that program and in some ways that followed 9 11. It was a recognition that what we had in pfizer was not off to the task of collecting foreign intelligence. At the time, focused on al qaeda and counterterrorism. You had a law passed in 1978 before the internet, passed before the advent of cyber fiberoptic cables in the Way Communications are carried. That was Technology Dependent in the way that it was written. Using the traditional fisa, getting probable cause warrants for targets designed for people in the United States who were using United States tools to target people out of the United States. That was necessary because it wasnt designed to keep up with the times. So in 2005, there was a recognition that it was not up to the task. It wasnt necessary because we were giving Fourth Amendment protections to a target in pakistan who was getting the same rights as a u. S. Person in the United States. So we went to congress then. I was part of that effort back then. Some of you were tracking this and working on this or were the beneficiaries of this. To change fisa and amend it with section 702 to allow it to have a mechanism to target nonus persons overseas. This is important. People who were using u. S. Service providers. The challenge was that we had a lot of targeted were using u. S. Infrastructure because ours is second to none in the world. We didnt have any way to compel them to assist the government. So change the law to have a programmatic approach where we go to the court once a year with the procedures that we are using to determine if someone is an appropriate target. The court looks at those procedures and determines whether or not they are consistent with the statues. The Court Authorizes the director of National Intelligence and the attorney general together to go to Service Providers with directives that require them to cooperate with the government. Thats 2008. Focus on counterterrorism. This law has proven to be indispensable, not just on counterterrorism but across a range of foreign intelligence targets and threats. The statistic is quite shocking. 60 of the articles have 702 correction in them. Nothing quite like it in terms of the value. You are talking about u. S. Service providers. If you want access to gmail for foreign intelligence purposes, this is what the government is likely to use. There are other ways to get around some of that but everybody is providing services. Every communication that goes is also subject to surveillance under this program. Theres a lot of stock there. Why is it controversial . Thinking about section 702, its always controversial. We are always trying to balance National Security with the question of Civil Liberties and privacy. That was true in 1978 its controversial because of National Security interests, protecting the country. How do we do that in a way that protects the Civil Liberties and privacy and truth to the constitution . Its particularly controversial right now because of the way that sections of 02 works. While we are targeting somebody overseas, there are occasions, and not infrequently, that that person is in communication with someone in the United States. Their communications would be collected because we are talking about communications with two people at least. We need to have rules in place that protect privacy and civil liberty interests of people in the United States. The controversy there is particularly how the fbi has access to some of this data, how they are able to use it. I think most of the focus and concern has been on not so much nsa and cia use of data as a foreign intelligence tool but the fbi. And the fbi gets access to about 3 of the take. The 3 that is tied to a predicated fbi investigation. They say, we are investigating this target. Please put him on 702 coverage. That collection goes into a data place. Exactly. Im glad you made that point. Its a critical one. It often gets lost in the debate. Nsa is a primary organization responsible for implementing section 702. They do all the targeting decision. I dont have to go back and explain what i mean by targeting decisions. We are an informed group. As you said, the fbi gets a small subset about that. About 3 of the overall collection. They are focused on that 3 . They are focused on targets that relate to their investigations. Those investigations can be counterterrorism, counterintelligence investigations. Increasingly cyber investigations. They get that subset and they are able to work with that, but only that part they are getting out about 3 . Its hard. If i content on my cyber libertarian, the government has collected all of these americans. They want the target but they are in there. And now the fbi says, we are actually interested. I want to see what he is saying. Its those queries that have particularly been of concern. I will say, the fbi has screwed up. That produce the biggest block of this renewal cycle. I will talk about the screw ups. Take a step back. The way it has worked since the beginning, imagine its a collection against somebody in syria. And isis member in syria. Theyve got foreign intelligence outside of the United States in syria. They may be talking to a lot of different people. They may also be talking to somebody in the United States. Nsa may see that that person is now talking i. E. Male with somebody in the United States. You can see that one end of the communication. In order to focus on the person in the United States, that could be a real concern if theres actual planning or recruiting of somebody in the United States. The fbi would have to get a traditional fisa. They have to focus on the person in the United States without getting probable cause. That happens all the time. I just want to say, we should talk about focusing on the u. S. A big chunk of what got the fbi in trouble is doing what i would call work probability high risk searches. Im going to treat this person as a confidential source, i will bring this person and friend meeting with the top official. I better check to make sure they are not in communication with the foreign person. I will run their name through the system. Thats not consistent with the rules that have been set up for the database. Exactly. Heres an important thing. Who is the targeting government going after. We have that collection based on the targeting position. What can they do without the percent . The already lawfully collected data that the government got through their targeting did not meet the standard. The standard is, is searching the data with the search term not targeting . Is it reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence . This is going back a few years. I appreciate the need to demonstrate that standard. They might have a meeting where theres a u. S. Government official. It is in a risk. Theres no reason to believe in that scenario. That would be compliance. My team at the National Security division, we do compliance checks all year long. Making sure this is being done right. We found a number of compliance problems along that line. A couple of years have taken real steps to address that. Youve gone through at least three stages to bring these procedures in line. I think the law is wrong and the fbi is right. Even if i have no reason to believe, i would like to check. Thats not what the law is. They have a lot of databases they can check. They can check public source information. Theres a lot that they can do. We are very careful in terms of raw files. Fisa. The contents of communication. We cordon that off. That requires special position in those circumstances. 98 of these searches produce no tips. We check to see if something terrible is going to happen. 99 of the time theres nothing to worry about. Almost all of the searches to turn turn out to be violations. Surveillance of americans by the fbi. Shocking numbers of searches that are done. Its those kinds of searches overall. To reflect back, i testified in the Senate Judiciary committee this past summer on section 702 and the reauthorization. I was there with the Deputy Director of the cia and nsa along with the fbi. Open hearings. I was sitting next to the Deputy Director of the nsa. A threehour hearing where the number of questions to the nsa Deputy Director was zero. [inaudible] zero questions for the nsa. Absolutely the target of very strong questioning and distressed. Distressed. I will be the first to say, these are screw ups. This is a real quick real problem. We cant have the fbi in a position where theres a lack of trust of the fbi. Thats why we looked to implement changes in the way the fbi does these searches of the data. A very simple one. This will sound obvious. The way the fbi was doing it two years ago and previously was that they would do the query of all their databases automatically by default, including raw section 702. If they want to test their open cases, it would automatically run that query against raw fisa. A simple flip of the switch to change that setting from, you have to opt in instead of automatically being searched, that has reduced the number of queries by 93 . Its early in the case. That would check all the databases and if they didnt meet the standard. We just change that one setting from having to opt in, right your reasons, record your reasons for searching it. Weve seen a dramatic reduction in the number of queries. Now the compliance rate is in excess of 98 . There are a lot of people on the hill and Civil Society who would like to help you with solving this problem. The solutions could be more aggressive. Why dont we just take the fbi out of this . Lets let the cia do the checks and not have the bureau accessing this data. Weve also had recommendations from the privacy and Civil Liberties oversight board, three of the five. The fbi ought to go to the fisa court before they search for an american with information in that database. One of them said there would be probable cause. Two others said, you should take the existing standard, it is likely to produce intelligence and let the judge set that determination. Your thoughts on these other recommendations . On the first one, i will talk about that first. The idea that section set out 702 should be available to the cai and nsa and not the fbi i think is deeply flawed. Actually really dangerous. Probably dangerous for everybody in this room. Nobody wants to be looking at u. S. Data from the cai cia or nsa if they can avoid it. The concerns about u. S. Data, anything that touches u. S. Person data. Beyond that, to me its basically forgetting one of the fundamental lessons of 9 11. You cannot have a wall between a Foreign Intelligence Agency and the one agency that has authority to act inside the United States. Really, one of the critical things weve learned and spent 20 years addressing after 9 11 is the need for the fbi and cia and nsa to work closely together when it comes to National Security. The transformation of the fbi focuses on making sure that that is met. A way that still protects Civil Liberties and privacy. You just cant have nsa and fbi, a system where one organization has rounds responsibility inside of the United States with the authority to arrest. The cia and nsa do not have the authority to arrest people in the United States. The fbi does to disrupt a threat. They are the organization with the mission to understand. Whether its a terrorist threat or an espionage threat. To take steps inside the United States to stop it. That could be knocking on the door of an American Company and saying, we are seeing efforts to compromise your network, this is what you have to do to stop that. That is the fbis job. We cannot stop them from doing their job. If we were to take them out of the ability to have access to this, i think it would be deeply flawed to remove the fbi. They have different recommendations. Want to cut the fbi out. They did the want them to get a warrant at least when they were at the point of knowing there was something in the database that they wanted to see. I just did a podcast, for those of you who listen to my podcast, it will be distributed later today or tomorrow. We interviewed two of the five members of the board, talking about the recommendations. If youd havent heard enough on 72, you can listen to that. That recommendation was sort of split. Two people said, apply the current statutory standards. One said, it has to be probable cause. How do you feel about those recommendations . Is that workable . I will talk about that in a moment. This proposal that the fbi or Intelligence Community should go to a court to get permission to look at information that they lawfully collected. Thats what we are talking about. Collection that is clearly lawful, that is sitting in the Intelligence Community holdings. Before they query it or look at it, they need to go and ask for additional permissions from a judge. Whether they show probable cause or some other standard. I think this is a really bad idea. For number of reasons. One, its not legally required. Every court that has looked at this question of, does the constitution require an additional approval by a judge before looking at lawfully collected information, every court has said no, no court has said you need to go and get additional approval to look at lawfully collected information. It is apology choice that we would be making. This policy choice was really hamstring, especially the fbi. In part it is because of the sheer numbers. There are thousands of these checks. They are done in the early stages of an investigation. Opening an investigation on a potential spy network. There are 25 phone numbers that were found in the possession of a known officer. Are they targets of this intelligence officer, are they victims, are they working. We dont know at that stage. We want to run those numbers. Learn more. To do that at the speed at which we need to do that, whether thats an espionage case or cyber case, those hours matter. For the fbi to put their pens down or stop working on their investigation to write an application, to go to court, i will show probable cause. It will take weeks, months, often hundreds of pages long. This is not a natural way to approach National Security. It would be unworkable from the sheer numbers and timer hired. Theres not going to be probable cause. You have the potential compromise of a network. We may want to look at technical identifiers like ip addresses, run them through the system, section 702. We would be able to show probable cause or stop while theres an ongoing compromise against a company. Not legally required. Theres no reason to think that the article has particular expertise in that area. The community is unified in its opposition to this idea. The other agencies know because theyve heard of it from the Civil Society books. This is a solution not just for the fbi but for all the agencies. If you are going to handle u. S. Persons data, later on judicial review of what you do before you get to do it. This could be a major change. Exactly. Focused on the fbi and section 702. The goal is to require every Intelligence Agency to run queries of lawfully collected information. They had a lot of good things to say about the program. Statistics about it out to be renewed. On balance, what is your view of the report . Did they do a decent job . Im glad you did a podcast with two of the members. There were or to me is a missed opportunity. You have a fivemember board. It is two separate reports. Theres a threeperson report and a twoperson report. They agree on one thing, that the program is extremely valuable. It produces uniquely valuable foreign intelligence. All five members agreed on that. Beyond that, they didnt agree on anything else. I think its a missed opportunity. Very influential. I think the two reports effectively cancel each other out in a way. I think it wont have much influence. Its an unfortunate missed opportunity. Ive had this issue going to a court for preapproval. The twoperson report said that the majority could be dismissed, examples of where those queries were. The government provided examples of intelligence operations that would not have been able to be carried out if that standard had been in place. For my part, i was in the room when we provided those examples. We gave classified and unclassified examples of where these queries will go, including one example where the fbi did queries of section of 702 and was able to disrupt an ongoing assassination plot in the United States. So to me, a missed opportunity. These were examples that we tort told to the board as a whole. The jury said, we should go get a warrant. Or get preapproval from the court. I think its a long suggestion. It would really hamstring us. I want to change gears. We cant have this meeting without recognizing the truly horrific videos that weve all seen coming out of the hamas attack in israel. And to wonder what that means for the United States. Pretty focused on domestic National Security. Not entirely but largely. Thats probably why you have that. What do you think this means for Homeland Security and National Security inside the United States . I appreciate you. We stand in solidarity with israel and israeli people at this time. We at the department of justice are working very closely with federal Agency Partners as well as partners around the world and the israelis to do everything we can to support them. Much of our focus is with the department of justice and the fbi. Assisting those who are missing. We are working night and day right now on those challenges. The one thing i would say in response is, bring it back to 702 for a moment. Reauthorizing section 702 is keeping me up at night. Theres no doubt in my mind that section 702 is part of helping us understand the picture. Whether thats potential threats emanating from overseas into the United States, what hamas is doing. We are always worried about iran as a threat. Theres no doubt in my mind that section 702 is part of that. I would say, i cant imagine what it would be like if congress didnt reauthorize section 702. Right now, so much of what we are able to provide the policymakers as Intelligence Community, the nature of whats happening in israel and gaza and across the region. Your office is central to the u. S. Projection of power. Its important as ukraine more and decoupling and increasingly pointed conflict with china over technology. Thats export controls and sanctions. But its exercising the leverage and Economic Dominance that provided. And its basically telling russia that they are not going to have a whole bunch of stuff and china that theres a lot of Cutting Edge Technology that they know they intend to turn to military purposes. We are going to deny that to them. The way we deny it is by telling the private sector not to sell it. And as you probably know, theres been a lot of stories that say its getting through anyway. Im not sure thats completely a surprise. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the people who are selling the product knowing that they will be prosecuted if they are caught violating those and thats your job. I guess i would ask you, how well do you think we are doing and enforcing those export controls . Do you think theres a point where we may have overdone it . Just to step back a bit, i think this is a really important set of questions. It is the responsibility of the Justice Department to enforce our sanctions, laws, and expert export control laws. They are becoming an important part of our National Security toolkit. Certainly not the only part. But its an important part. For example, after the russian invasion of ukraine, we set up our task force to go after russian assets and russian oligarchs who were supporting the kremlin. Did you sleep on any yachts . We did see some significant affect assets including yachts. The goal is to increase pressure on putin and the kremlin by going after his inner circle. On the export side, taking significant steps this year to focus on china and other countries that would seek to obtain access to our most sensitive and valuable technologies. Technologies like artificial intelligence, computing, semiconductor technologies. That really has the potential in the hands of our adversaries to change the balance of power. This is what we do. This triptych Disruptive Technology to bring together federal prosecutors, fbi agents around the country and 14 locations to focus on sensitive technologies that are being sought by our adversaries and that we want to prevent from falling into their hands. The carets we go to companies, tell them they need compliance programs, they need to manage the risks around the idea that these technologies could get into the wrong hands through intermediaries, they go through shipment points in other parts of the world. What weve seen with russia is an effort to set up these networks that seek to invade our export control laws. The enforcement side is where we find violations and prosecute cases. We prosecuted a number of cases. So we are increasing our efforts along the lines you described. Its not your job to evaluate this. It seems when you look at how russia is doing, people are willing to pay enough to where theres dinette deniability. Stuff that is needed by the russians is going to get there. Maybe it will be inflated by 30 or 40 . We should be realistic. We are not trying to koto totally cut off most of these sales. Its not a panacea. It is an important part of the overall effort. Russia now is the focus because of the battlefield in ukraine. We are seeing u. S. Made technology and up on the battlefield. Thats unacceptable. More longterm, maybe china. Artificial intelligence technology. It stems from Foreign Investment in u. S. Companies. Thats another aspect. It is designed to address pertinent information going to china. I do want to get some questions from the audience. You talked about china. When you came in, you got rid of what had been the China Initiative. That raised questions about, are we going to continue to have an effective and aggressive counterintelligence program, given what china is trying to do in the United States . Can you give us a sense of what you put in place for the China Initiative . What was then called the China Initiative. The goal is not to go backwards but to go forward into advance in our effort to understand the threats from china. As i sit at the time, we are going to relentlessly focus on that threat, which is beyond any threat we face in any other country in the long term. We are facing threats from a variety of nationstate actors. When i made that announcement, it was in the midst of russia invading ukraine. Today, we are very focused on the threat from iran. The reality is, we face threats from a number of different countries. Including north korea in that group. We needed to have an approach that was broader than just focus on china. Judge us by our record. We brought a number of cases in the context of export control cases that i mentioned, stopping prosecuting individuals, stop selling proprietary technology to china, going after recent indictment of to s use the u. S. Navy servicemembers who were providing classified intelligence. Also chinese transnational repression. Setting up quads police stations in the United States in order to repress dissidents in the United States. It comes from a number of factors and we are very focused on it. We are also focused on addressing that acrosstheboard the board. Its a compex environment. Thats why we made that decision. Based on our record, we have stayed focused on the china threat. Lets take over and get some audience questions. Ok. The first one is, how has the evolution of technology influenced the success from fisa . Has fisa been able to keep up with the speed and breadth of communication . I taught a Law School Class where that was the theme. How technology and the law and our policies keeps up with technology. Something we write about all the time. The reality is, our laws are always lagging behind technology system. Thats true. Fisa 702 is an example of congress coming together in a bipartisan fashion. Understanding that it was a necessary thing for fisa to keep up with technological changes. Not just the internet but overall, Service Providers will provide services to their users in a way that they can interact with the government, overseen by fisa. 702 is an elegant solution to that technological problem were a lot of it hadnt been amended to stay up with the times. Across the board, we are looking at ways that are strikeforce on Disruptive Technologies is another example of where we are focused on changing technologies using existing laws like our export control laws to prevent those technologies from going to the wrong folks. This next question is an interesting one. Im not sure how much you will be able to get into it. Its very relevant given whats going on this week. Has 702 helped in finding hamas funding in the United States . I cant get into the details on exactly what we are doing and how for reasons that this audience is position to understand. It is the case that i will say as a general matter, 702 is exactly the law we need in order to understand threats that emanate overseas that come into our country, whether that is hamas fundraising, recruiting, other terrorist groups recruiting. Acquiring that data quickly and in an urgent fashion, given the state of affairs today with the hamas attack. Its a important part of our national secured he. One final question. I think the reference is to the office of the dni. Are you using Liberty Crossing to share information . That speaks to me. I was in counterterrorism for three years and my offers office was at Liberty Crossing. Liberty crossing is a physical place but also an idea. One of the great reforms post 9 11. The fbi is located there. And ctc as an entity. It brings together fbi, cia, dhs all in one place to focus on the counterterrorism make it mission. Its a clearinghouse for all sorts of intelligence. Whether thats counterterrorism, counterintelligence information. In fact, its the place where section 702 is present and available to a wide variety of Intelligence Officers so that they can make effective use of it. Its happening in real time and its happening fast. Its getting out to the people who need to use it. Whether that is state and local officials, whether its foreign partners. This has been terrific. We really appreciate it. Im a little worried. You had practically every good job in the Intelligence Community. There might not be any left for the rest of us. What do you think your future holds . Are you going to go back to the private sector . What are your plans . No plans. Im at the department of justice now. This is where i started my career, in the Civil Rights Division 30 years ago working on civil rights cases. I didnt have any plan to be a National Security lawyer pre9 11. 9 11 change their trajectory of my career. I couldnt be happier to be where i am right now at the Justice Department. You have to run for the next office. People in this room will be glad to consider your campaign if that happens. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [inaudible] [applause] cspans washington journal, a live forum to discuss the issues of government, politics, and public policy. Coming up saturday morning, we talk about the latest on the House Speaker battle with Washington ExaminerCongress Reporter reese gorman. Dean asada discusses the false claims about the israel hamas war that are proliferating across social media platforms. We will feature jenna sir Jennifer Brady who will talk about her podcasts and the House Speaker battle. 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He comments on a potential Ground Invasion in retaliation