Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/gradually–and-then-suddenly–the-decline-and-fall-of-odni
Publisher: Lawfare
Date Published: July 7, 2026
Relevant To: FISA Section 702; data broker/commercially available information loophole; domestic surveillance authority
Verification Status: Verified
Notes: Confirmed via full-text fetch. Authors: Michael Feinberg (former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge) and Julia Curlee (former CIA analyst, NSC director). Analysis piece on the ODNI’s institutional decline under DNI Tulsi Gabbard (resigned amid a Washington Post investigation into her alleged reliance on outside talking points) and her successor, acting DNI Bill Pulte (former FHFA director with no intelligence background, under GAO investigation for allegedly using FHFA mortgage-record access to issue politically targeted fraud referrals against Democratic officials). Most relevant to BPA’s surveillance work: the piece lays out four specific mechanisms by which a politicized DNI could turn intelligence authorities on Americans: (1) domestic surveillance via the National Intelligence Priorities Framework being pointed inward at domestic political groups; (2) recasting domestic groups as “foreign-directed” to unlock Section 702 — notably, Congress actually let Section 702 lapse rather than extend it under Pulte, an important and citable data point; (3) commercially available information (data broker) purchases — the ODNI’s own framework reportedly sets no real limit on what location/browsing/social-media data agencies may buy, sidestepping the warrant requirement entirely, and Congress has repeatedly declined to close this loophole; (4) potential election interference given Gabbard’s involvement in the January 2026 FBI raid on Fulton County’s election office. Also notes the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board lost its independence after 2025 firings of Democratic members. Directly useful for BPA’s FISA 702 and data-broker/risk-intelligence-platform tracking — the commercially-available-information loophole point in particular parallels BPA’s existing data-broker research.