Yet it’s fair for Ms. Gabbard to ask questions about matters that the intelligence community has long asked Americans to accept without reservation, says Michael DiMino, a former military analyst for the CIA. He suggests Section 702 has been, “frankly, misused.”
Office of the DNI transparency reports show that roughly 99% of applications for electronic surveillance are approved, he adds. “There are not very good guardrails when misuse occurs, and there are genuine needs for reform.”
Beyond this, any suggestion that America’s closest allies will stop passing intelligence to the U.S. if Ms. Gabbard takes over as DNI is “absurd,” argues Mr. DiMino, now a fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank.
That’s because the secrets allies share – and the secrets they are privy to in return – are vital to their own national security. “The only people that they would be hurting by doing that,” he adds, “would be themselves.”
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