During congressional testimony today, Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw, a man who is leaving congress at the end of this term having lost his primary race, took the opportunity to question FBI Director Kash Patel about FISA-702.
As most are aware the reauthorization of FISA-702 has a deadline if mid-April this year, and there is a great deal of background debate surrounding it. Apparently, Dan Crenshaw wants to ensure the renewal is successful.
Crenshaw begins his defense by asking a very specific question to FBI Director Kash Patel about President Trump’s Crossfire Hurricane targeted and whether FISA-702 was related to that investigation. Here it is important to remember that the NSA database was exploited in 2016 (Spygate) that ended with the Title-1 FISA warrant (Russiagate).
Both are correct in that FISA-702 was not the legal underpinning for the Carter Page FISA warrant, ultimately targeting Donald Trump. However, conveniently omitted in the questioning is the original surveillance of the 2016 GOP candidates from November 2015 through April 2016 that did involve exploitation of the database under the justification that FISA-702 creates. WATCH:
These are not “myths” Mr Crenshaw. You are both correct that there is no “authority granted under 702” to conduct surveillance. However, in 2016 conducting surveillance using 702 as a justification is what took place.
The collection of American citizen metadata does factually take place. At this point no-one denies it.
That data is then stored in a searchable database, a library of U.S. citizen data colloquially known as the “NSA database”.
Within the NSA database that metadata collection creates, there is a process to search it based on “identifiers.”
The collection of data, the database itself, as well as the search functioning therein, is part of the toolbox for FISA-702 surveillance.



