FBI/INTELLIGENCE/JAMES COMEY: “The Russia investigation and President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey are sure to dominate the headlines out of Wednesday’s [6-7-17] Senate intelligence committee hearing, but that’s not the reason that four top administration national security officials are appearing before the panel.
The officials are testifying because the committee leaders have to shepherd a bill through Congress before the end of the year to reauthorize a key National Security Agency surveillance tool that has been slammed by privacy advocates as ripe for abuse.
Wednesday’s hearing is the committee’s first step to make the case for re-authorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is the law the NSA uses to track emails and phone calls of non-US citizens — while sometimes incidentally collecting communications of US citizens, too.
The administration officials — Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — will testify that Section 702 is an essential national security tool to stop terrorism, a view most of the intelligence committee agreed with.”
-Jeremy Herb, “The actual reason for Wednesday’s Russia hearing,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, June 7, 2017 01:08am