Trump nominee to lead NSA commits to backing controversial spying law
Trump nominee to lead NSA commits to backing controversial spying law
Publish Date: 2026-01-29 14:35:00
Source Domain: www.nextgov.com
President Donald Trump’s pick to lead Cyber Command and NSA told lawmakers Thursday that he supports the use of a contentious foreign spying power, arguing his experience consuming intelligence gathered through the statute is “indispensable” and critical for national security.
The law, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, permits U.S. spy agencies to gather communications of foreigners located abroad without obtaining a court warrant. Critics argue that the collection method, which can inadvertently gather the communications of U.S. persons, effectively bypasses Fourth Amendment safeguards.
Though the law was reauthorized two years ago under then President Joe Biden, it is set to expire in April unless renewed again by Congress.
“What I’ve experienced in my career is that this provides the warfighter, the decision maker, [with] the ability to have critical insight into threats that enables decision making,” Lt. Gen. Josh Rudd told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He also said he knows the law has “saved lives here in the homeland.”
The statements are unsurprising from a nominee set to lead the nation’s premiere foreign eavesdropping and hacking agency. In his role, Rudd would also co-lead U.S. Cyber Command, the digital combatant command responsible for many of the Pentagon’s offensive cyber missions.
702 gives agencies like NSA legal permission to order U.S. internet and telecom providers to hand over communications data on foreign targets for use in national security investigations. But the authority also permits the incidental collection of communications data on U.S. persons linked to those foreign targets.
Some lawmakers and civil liberties groups argue that a warrant should be mandated for searches of collected 702 data that include U.S. persons’ communications. A warrant for such queries has been historically opposed by law enforcement and intelligence officials, who argue they can slow down timely…
