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Tags: surveillance | carterpage | election | meddling

WSJ: WH Weighs Overhaul of US Govt Spying Power

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(AP)

By    |   Sunday, 23 February 2020 11:38 AM EST

An overhaul of the U.S. government spying power is going to be in the works amid President Donald Trump's anger over his 2016 campaign surveillance, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Because Congress rarely considered changes in intelligence law, the timing is buoyed by the expiration of existing authorizations, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was used to investigate the Trump campaign and Carter Page, sources told the Journal.

There is some infighting on the reforms of the FISA law, though, particularly from Attorney General William Barr, who seeks to maintain it, and some Republicans who want to end it, the Journal reported.

The National Security Council has wanted to expand the powers of surveillance under the Trump administration, which has vowed to shrink the influence of the NSC, particularly with regard to White House leaks and undermining the administration's foreign policy.

The White House Domestic Policy Council is working on the reforms, including making the halt of collecting U.S. call data permanent, and among the proposals being weighed is notifying subjects of surveillance, which would align with disclosure laws on wiretaps, per the Journal.

"We were abused by the FISA process; there's no question about it," Trump said earlier this month, the Journal reported. "We were seriously abused by FISA."

Still, the attorney general is reluctant to curtail the FISA program.

"We are committed to preserving FISA and we think all Americans should be committed to preserving FISA," Barr said in December, per the Journal. "It is essential to protect the security of the United States."

Eric Mack

Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.

© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


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An overhaul of the U.S. government spying power is going to be in the works amid President Donald Trump's anger over his 2016 campaign surveillance, The Wall Street Journal reported..
surveillance, carterpage, election, meddling
257
2020-38-23
Sunday, 23 February 2020 11:38 AM
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