Patel Shutters FBI Unit On Federal Surveillance Abuse

The New York Times reports:

Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, has closed an internal watchdog office established in 2020 to uncover and reduce the risk of misuses of national security surveillance, according to officials familiar with the matter.

The elimination of the unit, the Office of Internal Auditing, comes as Congress debates whether to reauthorize a high-profile warrantless wiretapping law, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. That law, which was a chief focus of the office, nearly collapsed last year before lawmakers extended it until April 2026.

The move is significant because it could give skeptics of the program new ammunition to argue that Congress should sharply curtail the law or even let it expire given that a guardrail has been discarded.

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