Biden asks for wiretap law re-up

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration urged Congress on Tuesday to renew a controversial warrantless surveillance law, emphasizing that security officials use it for a broad range of foreign policy and national security goals such as detecting espionage by countries including China and Iran or stopping hackers.

The administration’s effort is likely to face particularly steep headwinds because many Republicans have adopted former President Donald Trump’s distrust of security agencies and surveillance, bolstering privacy advocates who have long been skeptical of the law, known as Section 702.

To head off the resistance, the Biden administration has sought to cast the law, which would otherwise expire at the end of the year, as a tool that is used not only for counterterrorism but has also aided the government in identifying economic risks and preventing foreign actors from creating weapons of mass destruction.

Enacted in 2008, Section 702 legalized a form of a warrantless wiretapping program code-named Stellarwind, which President George W. Bush secretly started after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It continues to be a counterterrorism tool; the letter also stressed, as National Security Agency Director Paul M. Nakasone said in January, that the surveillance program played a role in the drone strike in August that killed al-qaida leader Ayman al-zawahri.

But despite its recent shift in emphasis on uses beyond counterterrorism, the government has relied on Section 702 for the full array of foreign intelligence purposes from the start.

It allows the government to collect — on domestic soil and without a warrant — communications of targeted foreigners abroad, including when those people are interacting with Americans. The National Security Agency can order email services such as Google to turn over copies of all messages in the accounts of any foreign user and network operators such as AT&T to furnish copies of any phone calls, texts and internet communications to or from a foreign target.