//The Wire//2130Z April 10, 2024//

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//BLUF: MANILA PROTESTS HIGHLIGHT GROWING CONCERNS. FISA REAUTHORIZATION DRAWS IRE IN CONGRESS.//

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-International Events-

Far East: Chinese drone incursions on Taiwan’s Kinmen Island have increased over the past few weeks. Due to the extremely close proximity of this island to a major international logistics hub (only a couple of miles away), smaller quadcopter drones have been increasingly used to surveil Taiwan’s remote observation posts on the island.

Demonstrations broke out at the Chinese consulate in Manila last night as Filipino citizens voiced objections to the escalation of conflict within the South China Sea. Of note, protesters also criticized the growing relationship between the Philippines and the United States. AC: These sentiments are not new, having been growing during the past few years of the “Pacific Pivot” (the re-militarization of the Pacific theatre). However, these tensions will almost certainly grow in the Philippines as the temporary proxy nature of American involvement in their nation becomes more clear.

-HomeFront-

Washington D.C. – Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has once again become a hot issue in Congress as its renewal has placed much scrutiny on the program. So far, pushback among some members of Congress has delayed the reauthorization of Section 702, however the text of the proposed changes is still being considered by Congress.

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Analyst Comments: Despite its name, the regulations set forth in FISA mostly apply to American citizens, with opponents of the measure having revealed the extrajudicial surveillance this law authorizes. As a reminder, the FISA process has been used over 3.4 million times to spy on Americans. Congressional testimony has confirmed that this process was used illegally over 278,000 times to surveil Americans without obtaining a warrant. This lack of oversight has been debated for years, and the complexity of the federal surveillance state has resulted in very few people digging through the details of how intense this surveillance is. However recent proposed changes to expand the surveillance capabilities under this law have drawn even more attention to the program. For instance, in the latest proposed changes to Section 702, Congress gave itself special exemption from surveillance efforts, so that a warrant would only be required to surveil sitting members of Congress, whereas the surveillance of taxpayers would not require a warrant. Another contention of the reauthorization is the so-called “data broker loophole” which allows federal agencies to collect untold amounts of information by simply purchasing that data from private companies, and more importantly creating the infrastructure and data exchange mediums to outsource illegal surveillance to private companies…further blurring the lines between private industry, and federal surveillance.

Analyst: S2A1

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