CONFUSION

Trump Questions NSA Snooping Powers, Then Walks It Back

While the White House is urging Congress to reauthorize FISA Act.

President Trump attacked the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers in a Thursday morning tweetstorm that came just hours before the House was set to vote on the reauthorization of a package of mass-surveillance activities known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). His intervention is in direct contradiction to his administration’s stated aim of reauthorizing the program. On Wednesday night, a White House statement urged Congress to preserve FISA powers. Yet Trump apparently took to his phone just a few hours later, writing, “‘House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.’ This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?” Later, to the confusion of everyone who read the first tweet, Trump added: “With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!”