A controversial US wiretap program days from expiration cleared a major hurdle on its way to being reauthorized.
After months of delays, false starts, and interventions by lawmakers working to preserve and expand the US intelligence community’s spy powers, the House of Representatives voted on Friday to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years.
Legislation extending the program—controversial for being abused by the government—passed in the House in a 273–147 vote. The Senate has yet to pass its own bill.
Section 702 permits the US government to wiretap communications between Americans and foreigners overseas. Hundreds of millions of calls, texts, and emails are intercepted by government spies each with the “compelled assistance” of US communications providers.
The government may strictly target foreigners believed to possess “foreign intelligence information,” but it also eavesdrops on the conversations of an untold number of Americans each year. (The government claims it is impossible to determine how many Americans get swept up by the program.) The government argues that Americans are not themselves being targeted and thus the wiretaps are legal. Nevertheless, their calls, texts, and emails may be stored by the government for years, and can later be accessed by law enforcement without a judge’s permission.
The House bill also dramatically expands the statutory definition for communication service providers, something FISA experts, including Marc Zwillinger—one of the few people to advise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)—have publicly warned against.
“Anti-reformers not only are refusing common-sense reforms to FISA, they’re pushing for a major expansion of warrantless spying on Americans,” US senator Ron Wyden tells WIRED. “Their amendment would force your cable guy to be a government spy and assist in monitoring Americans’ communications without a warrant.”
The FBI’s track record of abusing the program kicked off a rare détente last fall between progressive Democrats and pro-Trump Republicans—both bothered equally by the FBI’s targeting of activists, journalists, and a sitting member of Congress. But in a major victory for the Biden administration, House members voted down an amendment earlier in the day that would’ve imposed new warrant requirements on federal agencies accessing Americans’ 702 data.
“Many members who tanked this vote have long histories of voting for this specific privacy protection,” says Sean Vitka, policy director at the civil-liberties-focused nonprofit Demand Progress, “including former speaker Pelosi, Representative Lieu, and Representative Neguse.”
The warrant amendment was passed earlier this year by the House Judiciary Committee, whose long-held jurisdiction over FISA has been challenged by friends of the intelligence community. Analysis by the Brennan Center this week found that 80 percent of the base text of the FISA reauthorization bill had been authored by intelligence committee members.
“Three million Americans’ data was searched in this database of information,” says Representative Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee. “The FBI wasn’t even following its own rules when they conducted those searches. That’s why we need a warrant.”
Representative Mike Turner, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, campaigned alongside top spy agency officials for months to defeat the warrant amendment, arguing they’d cost the bureau precious time and impede national security investigations. The communications are legally collected and already in the government’s possession, Turner argued; no further approval should be required to inspect them.
In the drawn-out contract battle between TikTok and Universal Music Group, a high-profile exemption has been made for Taylor Swift. A few of her songs became available again as TikTok sounds on Thursday, just a week before the release of Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. It remains unclear what kind of arrangement was made for her official music to come back or how long it will remain on the social media platform.
Madeline Macrae, a Swift fan and TikTok creator, heard the news Thursday morning and immediately started searching TikTok and Google to confirm it wasn’t some hoax. “I’m really excited to have that catalog back, and I don’t have to rely on sped-up versions or edited versions,” she says. “I can just use her actual music.” Songs like “Cruel Summer,” “Cardigan,” and “Style (Taylor’s Version)” can now be used by content creators on the platform, as first reported by Variety.
In addition to being excited about using Swift songs in new videos, Macrae is grateful for the pop megastar’s music to be potentially unmuted for her past videos on TikTok. “I was going back and forth on deleting them or keeping them, because they look kind of silly muted,” she says. When UMG’s music was initially pulled from TikTok’s library in January, many creators were stunned to see their archive of past videos with certain songs go silent overnight.
Does this mean that The Tortured Poets Department album will be available to use for videos on TikTok? It’s uncertain, but Macrae is hopeful: “I think this move also just shows the power of Taylor Swift.” Billie Eilish, another major UMG artist, will soon be promoting her upcoming album, May’s Hit Me Hard and Soft, but Eilish fans will have to wait to see if her music also returns to TikTok before it drops.
Most UMG artists have been absent from TikTok for nearly 10 weeks, greatly shifting the user experience on the social media platform and opening the door for non-UMG artists, like Beyoncé, to go viral with TikTok’s algorithm.
It remains a mystery when the long-standing contract dispute between TikTok and UMG will come to a resolution. As one of the biggest record companies in the world, UMG removing songs from TikTok has impacted the careers of many established artists as well as rising stars. Multiple artists expressed frustration about the move, often citing disrupted marketing plans or decreased audience reach. A spokesperson for UMG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
No matter what eventually happens between the two companies, Swifties on TikTok are feeling grateful for her music’s return as they prepare for listening parties to celebrate the new album. “I already know my Friday night plans,” says Macrae. “Staying in with friends, drinking some wine, and just listening to this album.” Sounds like an evening of truly social media.
Nolan tasked Fallout showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet with threading that particular needle. The pair chose to center the series around three protagonists, played by Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and Aaron Clifton Moten, all of whom enter the story at a turning point in their lives. As a cowboy movie star turned ghoul, Goggins’ character is cold and lawless, a set of emotions you have to imagine stems from the loss he’s felt in the 219 years since the first bombs fell. Moten is Maximus, a former orphan who joins up with the paramilitary tech protectors in the Brotherhood of Steel and stumbles his way into a chance at greatness. Purnell is Lucy MacLean, a naive Vault Dweller who sets off into the Wasteland in pursuit of her kidnapped father (Kyle MacLachlan).
“All of the dilemmas the Brotherhood of Steel has faced over the years, the sort of quagmire of it all and the different angles they’ve taken, that’s all interesting,” Wagner says. “In most of the Fallout games, you start as a Vault Dweller, so that made total sense since, with the series, you start in a very small space and get to explore a crazy new world just like they are.”
The showrunners also made sure to include The Ghoul, an unplayable character in the games. “That just felt like something we all wanted to see, because they’re sort of the untouchables of the Fallout world,” Wagner says.
As a property,Fallout has always played with a sort of gallows humor, a satirical take on how awful and complicated life could be after total nuclear annihilation. That’s certainly true with the series, which balances heart-wrenching kid-delivered dialog about encroaching mushroom clouds with “aw, shucks” sex jokes and an almost comical amount of carnage. Wagner says setting the series’ tone was a bit of a tightrope act, since they knew it had to be a little bonkers sometimes and, at other times, deadly serious.
“We did edits of episodes where there were long stretches without comedy because that was what we felt like the story needed, and it was just like, ‘Gosh, that’s a lot of apocalypse,’” he jokes. “We wanted to make the apocalypse a place we all wanted to go to.”
For some viewers, though, it might feel like 2024 is already apocalypse-adjacent, making some of the show’s references and scenarios seem all too prescient. That’s all coincidental, Nolan says, since the show entered development in 2019, pre-Covid, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and prior to renewed hostilities in the Middle East. Still, he adds, making the series “always felt like an opportunity to poke a finger into a bit of an open wound for humanity, which is the fact that we still haven’t figured out if we’re going to make it or if we’re going to blow ourselves to smithereens.”
Humanity, Wagner says, is almost always in its “end is nigh” era. The apocalypse is a relative concept. For some people, the apocalypse happened when women got jobs or started wearing pants. “The world is constantly in a state of ending, and we’re constantly talking about it,” he says. “We’re all just narcissists who think we’re going to be there when the final curtain goes down.”
Presuming the world doesn’t end any time soon, though, Nolan says that the Fallout team does have a plan in place for where they want the show to go, if they’re lucky enough to get a second season.
“In television, though,” Nolan says, “you have to be careful not to leave too much down the road,” something he knows all too well as the creator of HBO’s beloved-then-canceled Westworld. “We just want to concentrate on making one great season of television. If it works well and there’s an opportunity to go again, I very much hope we get that chance.”
In the wake of 9/11, US president George W. Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on Americans without court-approved warrants as part of the hunt for evidence of terrorist activity. A federal judge ruled the collection unconstitutional in 2006, as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. (An appeals court later overturned the ruling without challenging the case’s merits.)
Rather than end the surveillance, Congress codified the program as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), granting itself some authority to enforce procedures ostensibly designed to limit the program’s impact on Americans’ civil liberties.
Section 702 explicitly prohibits the government from targeting Americans. The surveillance must instead focus on foreigners who are physically located overseas. Nevertheless, Americans’ communications are routinely swept up by the program.
While denying that it intentionally sets out to eavesdrop on its own citizens, once it has already done so, the US government’s position is that it now has a right to access these “legally collected” communications without a judge’s approval. In 2021 alone, the FBI conducted searches of communications intercepted under 702 more than 3.4 million times.
Last year, after acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of these searches were unlawful, the FBI said it had taken steps to curtail the number of queries carried out by its employees, reporting in 2022 as few as 204,000 searches.
It is impossible to count the number of Americans whose calls, emails, and texts are subject to surveillance under 702, the government claims, arguing that any attempt to reach an accurate figure would only further imperil the privacy of the Americans it surveils.
Congress is currently divided into two factions: Those that believe the FBI should be required to get a warrant before reading or listening to the communications of Americans collected under 702. And those who say warrants are too burdensome a requirement to impose on investigations of national security threats.
No, it’s not Amazon Prime Day or Black Friday, but Target is back with yet another Circle Week deals event running through Saturday, April 13. Amazon had a spring sale two weeks ago, so it seems natural that Target would follow suit. The good news? Some of our favorite tablets, headphones, and kitchen items are discounted.
There’s a caveat: You need to be a Target Circle member. However, it’s free to join and nets you some solid savings throughout the year. Unlike prior Circle Week deals events that required you to clip the deals to your account first, these should automatically apply as long as you’re signed in to your Target account.
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Tablet and Laptop Deals
Apple iPad Mini (2021, 6th Gen)
Photograph: Apple
We suspect a new line of iPads is coming out sometime in May, including a new Mini. If you want the newest, it’s worth waiting, but this model still works fine. The 2021 Mini (8/10, WIRED Recommends) got a makeover more akin to the iPad Pro with slim bezels. The 8.3-inch screen is great for portability and can still help you get work done thanks to the A15 Bionic processor inside, which is plenty fast and can handle most intensive apps and games.
The 9th-gen iPad is cheaper at $250, but the 2022 base iPad received a facelift and USB-C support for charging, making it worthwhile, especially at this price. The rear camera has been upgraded to 12 megapixels instead of 8, and the front camera is in the center in landscape mode, so you don’t have to readjust your position to take video calls. It also finally comes in fun colors instead of silver or Apple’s usually sad attempt at pink. (It still only supports the first-gen Apple Pencil.)
Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023)
Photograph: Best Buy
This is our favorite tablet under $200, and this deal brings it down to under $100. It’s not our first choice—Amazon devices heavily push Prime services and apps, not every Android app is available, and you need a workaround to get the Google Play Store. But if you need a cheap tablet for playing games and watching movies, this will do the job. If you’re OK with a smaller screen that’s not as sharp, the 2022 Fire HD 8 is discounted to $65 ($35 off).
Amazon has two versions of its kid tablets in multiple sizes, the regular and the Pro. This regular one is best for young kids around 3 to 7 years old. It’s the same as the standard version, but it has added kid benefits like a rugged case, a two-year replacement guarantee, and a year of Amazon Kids+ for kid-friendly media. The Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is best for older kids, from 6 to 12 years old. That one is out of stock from Target but available on Amazon for $150 ($40 off). The 8 Pro is also discounted to $100 ($50 off).
The older version of the Pro 9 is our pick for a laptop/tablet hybrid; this version has a faster processor. It runs Windows, so you can rely on it for more heavy work on its 13-inch screen. It has a built-in kickstand, but if you want a keyboard, you’ll need to purchase it separately.
This is an older version of the Aspire 3 that we currently recommend as a great cheap laptop. The screen is a bit lackluster, but 12 gigabytes of RAM is plenty at this price. However, if you’re not strictly in Target shopping mode right now, the 12th-gen version is discounted to $359 from Walmart.
Headphone Deals
Beats Fit Pro Bluetooth Earbuds
Photograph: Beats
The Beats Fit Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are some of the best-sounding buds we’ve tried for the price. They’re comfortable and stay put in nearly any workout scenario, with six hours of battery life if you have active noise canceling turned on. They also come in fun colors like neon yellow and coral.
The AirPods Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) do occasionally reach their $249 list price, but they’re frequently discounted to between $190 and $200, which makes this more in line with the regular price than a deal. Still, if you’ve been wanting new headphones, these are solid and feel much better in your ears than the regular AirPods. This model has the USB-C charging port on the case, so you don’t need that Lightning cable anymore.
We typically see these earbuds at about $200, rather than the $250 MSRP. We loved the Powerbeats Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) when we reviewed them in 2019, because they sound great with nine hours of battery life and fit securely in your ears. They’re starting to get a bit old now and lack active noise cancellation, but they’re still good earbuds if you want the extra security.
Kitchen and Home Deals
KitchenAid 5.5-Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer
Photograph: Target
There are several sizes and types of KitchenAid mixers, but as of right now, this is the only one discounted. It has 11 speed settings and the 5.5-quart bowl is still a good size for cookies and dough unless you’re baking for particularly large crowds. KitchenAids are investments, but they should last you forever.
This isn’t an uncommon sale, but it’s a Keurig we generally recommend if you only need one cup. It’s narrow, so it fits well on cramped countertops or even on a desk. It usually comes in more fun colors, though most are out of stock from Target right now—you can still find them on Amazon.
Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra Upright Vacuum
Photograph: Dyson
Dyson gets a lot of praise for its stick vacs—and we like a bunch of them—but this upright vacuum (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is great for cutting through pet hair. WIRED writer Jaina Grey said it was the only thing to stand up to her rabbit’s unruly hair. Neither the canister nor the roller head ever suffered a clog or tangle. And while not being tethered to an outlet is convenient, it’s also nice to not have to think about charging your vacuum mid-clean.
We’re big fans of Target’s in-house home brand, and these percale sheets are my personal favorite. They don’t go on sale often, so it’s a good time to grab a set if you’ve been in need. Percale is a type of cotton weave that generally results in cool, crisp sheets. I found that to be accurate here; they’re crisp without being stiff, and I don’t heat up or itch all night while sleeping in between them. We also really like its linen sheet set, but only a few sizes are available right now. A bunch of other bedding is discounted by 30 percent too.
If you already need to go shopping for things like laundry detergent, toilet paper, and other general cleaning and kitchen supplies, you can get $15 back to spend later.
