FBI Chief Wray: All tools needed to protect national security

Lawyers play a critical role in helping the American public understand what’s at stake when it comes to national security threats, said FBI Director Christopher Wray at an April 9 luncheon sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security.

“We need lawyers … to explain what’s law and what’s policy, what a warrant is and what it isn’t, and to help illuminate the consequences of purposefully choosing to limit the American intelligence community from accessing key and timely information about our foreign adversaries,” he said, referring to the current debate in Congress on reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Set to expire April 19, Section 702 governs how federal agencies may collect and use data collected from overseas targets, including conversations with or about Americans.

“America’s adversaries aren’t pulling any punches — they’re coming at us with everything they’ve got. So, this is not the time for us to hang up our gloves or take away the tools that help us punch back,” Wray said, adding that China’s state-sponsored hacking program is bigger than that of all other major nations combined. “If each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, China’s hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1.”