The majority and minority leaders of both chambers (or their representatives) may attend FISA court proceedings. Political appointees are now barred from participating in the query approval process. Every query conducted under Section 702 must be audited within 180 days with the results provided annually to the House and Senate intelligence and judiciary committees. FBI investigators must obtain prior approval for conducting a query from a FBI investigation supervisor (or employee of equivalent or greater rank) or attorney who is authorized to access unminimized contents.
Section 702 queries target the communications of foreign threats. Those warrantless queries identify suspicious activity by those on U.S. soil and Americans abroad that indicate they are collaborating with foreign adversaries. When that occurs, a formal intelligence or criminal investigation is opened, and warrants must be obtained before further surveillance on that ‘U.S. person’ is conducted.
Some progressives and libertarians continue to demand prior judicial approval of all 702 queries. Yet requiring a warrant before all queries are conducted would become a national security disaster; the US person agents communicating with foreign adversaries would go unmonitored while the FBI generated thousands of pages of FISA warrant requests.
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