“This is UNCONSTITUTIONAL": ”Brandon Gill Questions Liza Goitein About FISA

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]From Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.

[00:00:03]Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to be here and for your expertise. I entirely associate myself with the great line of questioning for my friend, Mr. Budd, and North Carolina, but want to want to begin and just kind of break this down really quickly and on a basic level. Ms. Gottine, what what is the Section 702 database?

[00:00:25]It's not a single database database per se. Section 702 enables the government to collect the communications of certain foreign targets, which is pretty much any foreigner if the government has a foreign intelligence purpose, and to collect any information on them, including all of their communications, and that includes communications with Americans. All of that gets fed into various different data systems that different agencies have.

[00:00:50]>> And and how vast are these data systems?

[00:00:53]In other words, what types of information is being collected and and about whom? Right. So, [clears throat] we have very little public information about that, but in 2011, which I think is the last time this this particular statistic was reported, there were 250 million communications internet communications obtained. And so, and that was when there were far fewer targets. If you extrapolate with the number of targets we have today, it's about a billion communications internet communications collected every year, and because they reside in these systems for at least 5 years, several billion communications right now in storage collected under 702. And what are these communications? Are these calls, texts, emails, location data? It can be anything, and it doesn't have to be communications. It can be any kind of foreign intelligence information or information that is qualifies as foreign intelligence.

[00:01:45]Actually, it doesn't have to be foreign intelligence. The government just has to have a foreign intelligence purpose. So, it can be any kind of information imaginable, and but definitely it includes electronic surveillance, which is communications.

[00:02:00]Got it. And and who could be tied up in this database in in terms of American citizens, members of Congress, everyday American citizens? Who all could be caught up in this?

[00:02:10]>> Right. So there are almost 300,000 foreign targets.

[00:02:14]And they do not, as I said before, they don't have to be suspected of any wrongdoing.

[00:02:20]And so anybody who has the misfortune of being in communication with someone who has been designated as one of these targets, their communications will be swept up.

[00:02:30]>> So we billions of data points from American citizens who have never been convicted of a crime.

[00:02:36]>> Not all of the billions involve Americans. We don't know what proportion involves Americans because they won't give us that >> But a large number. Presumably because of the prevalence of international communications.

[00:02:45]>> And and where does all of this information sit?

[00:02:48]Different databases in different agencies. Mhm. And that's all all within the federal government that various actors have access to. Yes. Who who has access to this information?

[00:02:59]Uh agents who are working on cases. I mean, I think it's it's a lot. I mean, we heard earlier it's basically 10,000 FBI agents.

[00:03:11]It's in the in the FBI, I mean, leaving aside the NSA and the CIA, it's agents in field offices all around the country.

[00:03:19]Um And and they don't need a warrant to access any of it.

[00:03:22]>> No.

[00:03:23]Okay. And what what types of protocols or procedures are in place to help protect privacy of American citizens data that's sounds like all over the within multiple agencies of the federal government.

[00:03:35]>> Right. So there have been reforms that were put in place through last year's reauthorization of Section 702 that required things like attorney approval of US person queries. It required people to keep a written justification of their queries agents.

[00:03:53]It required an an audit every 6 months by the National Security Division of queries. It required supervisory approval for certain sensitive queries. So, it's there are sort of layers on layers of these sort of internal review or oversight mechanisms.

[00:04:13]Many of these were in place well before FISA codified them. And even after these internal mechanisms had been adopted, we were still seeing abuses. We were seeing searches for the communications of a US Senator, a state senator, a state court judge who had contacted the FBI to report civil rights violations by a police chief.

[00:04:36]That was after many of these reforms had been adopted. So, have they helped? Probably.

[00:04:43]Again, we don't have complete data from from this past year, but they're not enough. So, there's millions of potentially more bits of communication information of American citizens sitting in various government databases that FBI agents have access to without obtaining a warrant.

[00:05:01]That seems like a pretty egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment, does it not?

[00:05:05]To me, that is a violation right there, even if every single query complies with the internal standards and procedures that have been adopted. It's not probable cause in a warrant, and therefore it's a it's a Fourth Amendment problem. Agreed. Thank you.

[00:05:21]Gentleman yields back. The exchange highlights a growing fear among conservatives that the federal government's surveillance powers have expanded far beyond anything the American public was ever promised.

[00:05:32]Republicans increasingly argue that programs originally justified as tools to monitor foreign threats are now sweeping up massive amounts of information involving ordinary Americans who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

[00:05:46]To many on the right, the most alarming part is not just the scale of the data collection, but the fact that federal agencies can access sensitive communications without first obtaining a warrant. What makes this issue especially dangerous in the eyes of conservatives is the sheer lack of transparency surrounding Section 702.

[00:06:05]Americans are told to trust the system, yet even lawmakers struggle to get clear answers about how much data is collected, who has access to it, and how often abuses actually occur. Republicans see that as a direct threat to constitutional protections, particularly the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. Many conservatives also believe Washington has developed a culture where intelligence agencies are given enormous power with very little accountability.

[00:06:35]Internal audits, oversight boards, and bureaucratic safeguards may sound reassuring on paper, but repeated examples of improper searches involving politicians, judges, activists, and everyday citizens have badly damaged public trust. From the Republican perspective, every new abuse reinforces the argument that government agencies cannot simply police themselves. The broader concern goes beyond surveillance itself. Conservatives increasingly warn that once government institutions gain access to vast databases of personal communications, the potential for political misuse becomes unavoidable. Even if current officials claim good intentions, Republicans argue that no administration, Democrat or Republican, should possess unchecked authority to monitor citizens without probable cause and judicial oversight. This debate also reflects a larger constitutional battle unfolding in Washington. Republicans have spent years warning that federal agencies continue to accumulate extraordinary powers while Congress and the courts fail to impose meaningful limits. To many conservatives, Section 702 has become symbolic of a federal bureaucracy that operates with too much secrecy, too little accountability, and too much confidence that constitutional rights can be bypassed in the name of national security. The frustration from the right is rooted in a simple principle that resonates with many Americans regardless of party.

[00:08:03]If the government wants access to a citizen's private communications, it should have to obtain a warrant.

[00:08:10]Conservatives believe that standard should never be optional, no matter how advanced technology becomes or how broad intelligence programs grow.