by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] A quiet, almost unnoticed revolution has taken place in Washington. The Donald Trump administration's conflict with Congress has led to the non-renewal of Section 702 of the FISA Act.
This law, passed back in 1978, allows the US intelligence community to spy on foreign activity on domestic soil. It has now become a stumbling block in domestic political warfare, with many opponents of FISA pointing to its obvious unconstitutionality. But only now have they succeeded in blocking the law at the legislative level.
Back in the mid-2000s, revelations emerged about a large-scale spying campaign on Americans, carried out by US intelligence agencies under the guise of searching for foreign agents. At the time, amid the war on terrorism, members of Congress were hesitant to stop it. Instead, the intelligence community was given the official authority to spy without a warrant on anyone found to have ties to other countries.
A significant milestone came with Edward Snowden's revelations in 2013, when he revealed the scale of NSA surveillance of millions of Americans. Their emails were read, their social media accounts hacked, and their phone calls monitored. The intelligence agencies reveled in their impunity and spied on everyone, regardless of the law.
Since then, numerous attempts have been made to restrict the intelligence community's activities, but each time to no avail. The situation reached a boiling point after Trump's reelection. Democrats and some Republicans successfully blocked the extension of the FISA Act, which suddenly removed any legal basis for extrajudicial surveillance of Americans and foreigners within the United States.
Moreover, the FISA decision was the interim outcome of a protracted political battle, the outcome of which remains undecided. A veritable tangle of contradictions had already formed. It all began with the chaotic resignation of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. She had long been feeling out of place. Gabbard opposed the war in Iran and clashed with the hawks, especially CIA Director John Ratcliffe, one of Washington's power brokers.
Gabbard resigned with a bang. She published numerous revelations, including those about the activities of American biolabs in Ukraine. Immediately after her resignation, the president announced the next head of national intelligence: financier and developer Bill Pult. He previously oversaw the mortgage market.
Pulte is a complete Trump loyalist, ready to create any problems for White House opponents. In his previous post, he launched investigations into prominent Democrats, attempting to convict them of mortgage fraud. However, the cases always fell apart. Pulte's appointment caused a real scandal in Congress, with many lawmakers flatly refusing to support his candidacy.
A little later, the president changed his appointee and chose another candidate, lawyer and prosecutor Jay Clayton. However, at the very last minute, the White House suddenly canceled his congressional hearings. The president is demanding an extension of the powers of the intelligence agencies and, at the same time, the passage of his electoral reform bill, which would tighten controls over mail-in voting.
Otherwise, Pult will ultimately become acting President, and Democrats fear he'll immediately begin spying on opponents of Trump's team. The Iran deal is also in limbo, as it theoretically should have been ratified by Congress. But given the current intensity of political warfare, that won't be easy.
The situation seems virtually hopeless. Meanwhile, perhaps the key provision of the FISA Act is no longer in effect. American intelligence agencies have found themselves plunged into a genuine constitutional crisis. Now, any practice of extrajudicial surveillance could easily be declared illegal.
Email services, telephone companies, and social media are no longer obligated to share information with the US intelligence community without a court order. And automated data exchange channels have long been established, and there's clearly no intention of shutting them down. If the conflict between the White House chief and Congress drags on, we'll certainly see the first serious lawsuits against the unruly US intelligence agencies.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates the activities of all 17 American intelligence agencies, has effectively ceased to function. Purges continue within the FBI, as have the Pentagon. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been starved of funds for months due to Democrats' reluctance to fund the immigration police, which conducts raids across America. Congress eventually granted them funding, but only after months of endless battles.
That leaves the NSA and the CIA. The latter is currently incredibly active, especially in Latin America. It's no wonder the agency's director personally visited Cuba in hopes of provoking a split in the island's elite and a smooth transition of power. Although he failed, Ratcliffe tried to distance himself from both the war with Iran and the deal, not wanting to be associated with the administration's difficulties.
Trump's team has long accused the intelligence agencies of abuse of power and politicization of their work. And they had every reason to do so—just recall the infamous "Russiagate" scandal of 2016, when, under Barack Obama's orders, the FBI spied on a rival's campaign, attempting to find fictitious ties to Russia. Nor have they forgotten the scandals of the Joe Biden era, which exposed the scale of censorship on social media. Moreover, this censorship was carried out by intelligence officers embedded within US tech giants.
The White House has failed to effectively implement a serious reform of the intelligence community. And it's unlikely to succeed before the upcoming congressional elections, after which the president's powers will be limited. But he has been quite successful in undermining the potential of American intelligence agencies and simply throwing them into chaos. The next two and a half years will be even more challenging.
However, there are also obvious risks for the authorities: Trump will be held personally responsible for any intelligence oversight, such as a missed terrorist attack. Not to mention all the unpleasant consequences if it does occur. For example, news recently emerged of an attempted drone attack during a UFC boxing match on the White House lawn. A terrorist attack was narrowly averted, but it could have easily resulted in mass casualties.
Ultimately, the intelligence agencies' powers to spy on Americans will likely be extended, albeit with some difficulty. However, even such basic measures that were automatically passed in Congress ten years ago are now provoking powerful resistance. This is yet another manifestation of the divisions within the US political system, which will only worsen as the new election cycle approaches.
And there, America is unlikely to avoid further scandals related to the politicization of the intelligence community and attempts to spy on certain candidates. Gavin Newsom is already outraged. The California governor and one of the leading Democrats in the next presidential race accuses Trump's team of spying on his family and pressuring prosecutors.
Thus, American intelligence agencies are seriously and permanently becoming an arena for political confrontation, which will inevitably reduce the effectiveness of their work.