intelligence reporting on terrorist threats, leadership plans, intentions, counter proliferation, counter intelligence, and many other issues that affect us. it is subject to multiple layers of oversight and from the judicial, legislative branches. the surveillance court must approve minimization procedures for each relevant i.c. agency before the agency can review collected information. at the end of the day, fisa collection provides our government with the foreign intelligence that our nation needs to protect americans at home and abroad and in many cases our allies. i understand there is an ongoing debate pitting privacy against national security and there are arguments within the debate that have merit. as we all too painfully know,
the intelligence community s valuable fisa collection was thrust into the spotlight because of edward snowden. as a result the united states and its committees oversaw fisa collection authorities which already were subject to historical robust oversight. but i also think it s fair to say that some entities overreacted following snowden s disclosures and now congress must justify what courts repeatedly have upheld as a constitutional and lawful authorities. i also think that it s fair to say that nothing regarding this lawful status has changed since director clapper and attorney general holder wrote to congress in february of 2012 to urge us to pass a straight reauthorization of fisa and since the obama administration
in the world. third, they may not be used to target anyone located inside the united states regardless of their national. fourth, they may not be used to target a foreign person when the intent is to acquire the communications of a u.s. person with whom a foreign person is communicating. this is generally referred to as the prohibition against reverse targeting. the third item i would like to stress is we are committed to ensuring that the intelligence community s use of 702 is consistent with the law and the protection of the privacy and civil liberties of americans and to that end in the nearly 10 years since congress enacted the faa there have been no instances of intentional violations of section 702. i would like to repeat that. in the nearly 10 years since
british colleagues through this as well as colleagues in other european nations and my sympathies go out to the victims and families of those that have received these heinous attacks and to the incredible resilience that these communities affected by this violence have shown. having just returned from europe less than three weeks ago i m reminded of why section 702 is so important of not only protecting american lives but the lives of our friends and allies around the world. the successes are highly classified, the purpose of the authority is to give the united states intelligence community the upper hand in trying to avert these types of attacks before they transpire. which is why permanent reauthorization of the fisa
amendments act without further amendment is the intelligence community s top legislative priority. based on the long history of oversight and transparency of this authority, i would urge the congress to enact this legislation at the earliest possible date to give our intelligence professionals the consistency they need to maintain our capability. let me begin today by giving an example of the impact of section 702 of fisa. it s been cited before but i think it is worth mentioning again. an nsa fisa collection against an i-mail address used by an al qaeda cure orr in pakistan revealed communications with an unknown individual located within the united states. the u.s.-based person was urgently seeking advice on how to make explosives. nsa passed this information on to the f.b.i., which in turn