Tulsi Gabbard shifts stance on key surveillance tool she previously opposed

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, announced on Friday her support for a government surveillance authority she was previously critical of as a member of Congress. She had voted against the reauthorization of a key surveillance bill in 2020, her last year in Congress.

In December, Gabbard met with Republican Sen. James Lankford. Last week, Lankford said on the Wall Street Journal's podcast "All Things With Kim Strassel" that Gabbard "has voted against what's called 702 authority every time that she was in Congress and voted against it. Well, now she's going to be the spokesman for 702 authority. It's a legitimate question just to say, OK, how are you going to handle this? What does that mean?"

Lankford continued, "If she comes out and says, 'No, I want to oppose all 702 authority' -- that literally shuts down all of our national defense gathering. Now, I don't think that that's what she's going to say at all, and I've had an opportunity to be able to sit down with her, but she's going to get a fair hearing to be able to put those things out there and to say, 'This is what I believe about these issues.' And I think it's the right thing to do."

Gabbard's criticism of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the U.S. government to collect electronic communications of non-Americans located outside the country without a warrant, having been a sticking point as she tries to gain support from senators, both Republicans and Democrats, to be confirmed as director of national intelligence, Punchbowl News reported Friday.

In 2020, Gabbard voted against the reauthorization of FISA, arguing that the Patriot Act and the FISA "needed to undergo very real reforms." She argued that Americans shouldn't be forced to choose between security and liberty, saying that the Patriot Act and FISA have "been allowing for the abuses of our civil liberties and overreach by our own intelligence and law enforcement agencies through doing things like warrantless sweeping collection of our data, violating our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights."

Gabbard contended that Congress could have reformed both the Patriot Act and FISA, adding that she had hoped lawmakers could one day create "real reforms necessary to ensure both our national security and our constitutional rights are protected."

In 2020, Gabbard also called for protections for Americans against "illegal warrantless surveillance" and "real protection against surveillance orders targeted at activities protected under the First Amendment, like communications with journalists, protests or religious activity."

She emphasized the need to "limit the use of business records collection, and they don't include the necessary requirement that surveillance directed towards a U.S. person be subject to a probable cause warrant standard. We cannot give up the very real constitutional freedoms that define America."

However, nearly five years later, Gabbard told ABC News in a statement, "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 Americans," Gabbard said.

"Section 702, unlike other FISA authorities, is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons abroad," she continued. "This unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans."

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told ABC News that "Tulsi Gabbard has assured me in our conversations that she supports Section 702 as recently amended and that she will follow the law and support its reauthorization as DNI."

In recent weeks, Gabbard has held nearly three dozen meetings with mostly Republican senators to discuss her confirmation. She is set to resume meetings on Capitol Hill next week. On Friday, Gabbard met with current director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said after his meeting with Gabbard on Tuesday, "I went in with a lot of questions. I've still got a lot of questions. This is an extraordinarily serious job that requires maintaining the independence of the intelligence community. It also means maintaining the cooperation of our allies. We get a lot of our intelligence from our allies on a sharing basis, and if that information is not kept secure, it raises huge concern."

"We've got a lot of questions out for her, and this is the beginning of a process," Warner added. When asked if he planned to meet with Gabbard again, he said, "Let's see what her responses are."