Gabbard was a privacy hawk. Her views changed as Trump’s pick for DNI

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Tulsi Gabbard announcing her joining Trump transition team. PHOTO: Screengrab from video on x @TulsiGabbard

Shortly after Edward Snowden revealed the astonishing scope of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance, U.S. intelligence agencies in 2013 scrambled to persuade lawmakers that the programs were lawful and essential to protecting America.

One freshman lawmaker was unmoved.

Tulsi Gabbard, then a newly minted Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, was so unpersuaded by intelligence officials’ explanations at a closed-door briefing for House members that she mounted the dais afterward to confront them in an animated discussion, according to one congressional aide who recalled the scene.

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“She wanted more answers,” recalled the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. “She pressed them for more information even though the briefing was over.”

Gabbard is now seeking confirmation as President Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, a position that would place her atop the government’s 18 spy agencies, including the one that coordinates the intelligence that goes into the president’s daily brief.

She has recently moderated her strong privacy views, expressing support for a cornerstone intelligence program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was one of the spy powers officials were defending in 2013 – and whose reauthorization Gabbard voted against five years later.

The program enables the NSA to collect digital communications of foreigners abroad from U.S. tech companies without an individualized probable cause warrant – and, even more controversially, it allows the FBI to query a subset of the email collection for Americans’ data without a warrant, in what critics call a “backdoor” search.

https://x.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1828165678844850456

FISA has come under scrutiny from a group of strange bedfellows: MAGA conservatives and civil libertarians on both sides of the aisle.

“Her entire career in Congress, we counted on her as a staunchly pro-reform, anti-surveillance vote,” said the aide, a Democrat. “We knew her position. A bill without a warrant requirement would not go far enough for her.”

Officials argue that Section 702 is fundamental to the U.S. government’s overall intelligence collection, pointing out that it accounts for almost 60 percent of the president’s daily brief.

This month, Gabbard said she now supports the program. Key members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose approval she needs for her nomination to advance, signaled their vote would be influenced by her stance on Section 702.

Gabbard will appear before the committee on Thursday.

Trump himself has expressed hostility toward FISA, often conflating different elements of the law. Last year, when it was up for renewal, he urged lawmakers to “KILL FISA” in a post on his Truth Social platform, asserting it was “illegally used” to spy on his campaign, although Section 702 was not used in that instance.

“Section 702, unlike other FISA authorities, is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-U. S. persons abroad,” Gabbard said in a statement. “This unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans. My prior concerns about FISA were based on insufficient protections for civil liberties, particularly regarding the FBI’s misuse of warrantless search powers on American citizens. Significant FISA reforms have been enacted since my time in Congress to address these issues. If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people.”

Though she says significant reforms have been made, one of the most critical changes that privacy advocates have been seeking – a warrant requirement – is not among them. Gabbard voted for such a measure in 2018 when Section 702 was up for renewal.

Reauthorizing Section 702 will be a top priority for the intelligence committee. Last year, only one member, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who has teamed up with Gabbard on privacy legislation, voted against extending the program for another two years.

Committee member Susan Collins of Maine, one of only three Republican senators who voted against Trump’s defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, suggested she was not yet persuaded by Tulsi’s new stance on Section 702. “Her answers to the written questions were very hedged,” Collins told The Hill. “I know there’s been a lot of reporting that she’s changed her position. That’s not how I read her answers. I read them as, I’ll take a look at the reforms and see if they meet my concerns.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said he was confident Gabbard would prioritize Americans’ security without compromising their civil liberties.

“She shares my concerns that Section 702 authority for warrantless FISA surveillance has been abused in the past, and I am confident that she will respect the right of Americans to be ‘secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects’ under the Fourth Amendment,” Lee told The Washington Post. “I plan on voting to confirm her.”

The politics of Section 702 and its underlying law, FISA, became highly charged during Trump’s first term, when he accused the Obama administration of abusing FISA to conduct surveillance on his presidential campaign. In 2016 and 2017, a different element of FISA – having nothing to do with Section 702 – was used to surveil a former campaign aide, Carter Page.

Gabbard isn’t the only Trump nominee who has criticized government surveillance techniques. Kash Patel, the president’s firebrand choice to lead the FBI, last year bashed the House – where he had once been a lawyer on the intelligence panel – for reauthorizing Section 702.

“It was a big fight this year to say we want FISA reform – and FISA did need reform,” he said in a podcast interview with Shawn Ryan on YouTube last year. “We demanded Congress fix it. And do you know what the majority in the House where the Republicans [controlled] did? They bent the knee.”

Congress has reauthorized Section 702 until April 2026. The FBI director has traditionally been a major voice in arguing for renewal and against a warrant requirement.

A spokesman for Lee said the senator “is very supportive of the reform agenda that Kash Patel is bringing to the FBI, which includes ending surveillance of law-abiding citizens, churches, and political groups, and they share a concern with how FISA authorities have operated in the past.”

Another factor that could stall her advance out of committee is her push for a pardon for Snowden, a former NSA contractor who was charged in 2013 with leaking material about classified surveillance programs.

“Brave whistleblowers exposing lies & illegal actions in our government must be protected,” Gabbard tweeted in 2020.

Committee members broadly show disdain for Snowden’s actions. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), now the Intelligence Committee chairman, in 2016 called Snowden an “egotistical serial liar and traitor.”

Intelligence community leaders have argued over the years that his disclosures harmed national security, leading in some cases to shuttering collection programs through which, they said, the United States obtained valuable information that helped keep U.S. troops out of harm’s way.

Gabbard has other privacy bona fides that may conflict with Trump’s priorities. In 2015, she was the House sponsor of the SPOT Act, to enhance the powers of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent executive branch watchdog that reviews federal counterterrorism programs for appropriate safeguards.

Last week, Trump, in his postinaugural blitz of executive actions, forced the removals of the three Democratic members of the five-member panel, depriving it of a quorum at a critical juncture. The administration has vowed to reshape the law enforcement and spy agencies, and root out past instances of their “weaponization.” Trump specifically directed the DNI to review intelligence community conduct over the past four years to identify such instances.

“Given Donald Trump’s attempt to fire the Democratic members of the board and weaponize intelligence agencies with extreme partisan Republicans and MAGA loyalists, a functioning, independent PCLOB has never been more important,” said Wyden, who sponsored the SPOT Act in the Senate.

While privacy advocates wonder about Gabbard’s alignment with Trump, security hawks are concerned her anti-surveillance roots might hold sway.

“The real test [of Gabbard’s support for Section 702] is going to be April of next year” when it is up for renewal, said Emily Harding, a former Senate Intelligence Committee aide and U.S. intelligence official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It takes a long time to work through the requirements and objections and to educate folks on the Hill. And if you don’t have a strong DNI in the lead on the push, you’re dead in the water.”