Congress urged to renew intelligence authorities

CyberScoop reports that Congress has been called upon by National Security Agency Director and U.S. Cyber Command Gen. Paul Nakasone to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act poised to expire by year-end. Such an authority has enabled the U.S. to better combat various cybersecurity threats, including ransomware attacks and other malicious operations against critical infrastructure organizations, said Nakasone at a virtual meeting of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. While both NSA General Counsel April Doss and FBI Senior Operations Advisor for FISA Section 702 Reauthorization Mike Harrington also touted the importance of the law in thwarting cyber threats, more information regarding the usage of the law in the U.S. government's cyber operations is being sought by privacy advocates. "We need actually more information about how cyber is being used in the first place to adequately narrow down what type of protections may need to be placed. Its sort of a black box right now for the public in terms of the scope of cyber, the privacy and civil liberties implications of cyber," said Electronic Privacy Information Center senior counsel Jeramie Scott.