Lawfare Daily: Matt Olsen Talks Iran, the Justice Department, and FISA 702

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4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Former Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matt Olsen joins Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the terrorist threat from Iran, the shocking lack of preparedness for Iranian malign activity at both the FBI and the National Security Division, and the pending lapse of the FISA 702 program.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Electronic Communications Privacy Act turns 40 this year, and it's showing its age.
0:06.0	On Friday, March 6th, Lawfare and Georgetown Law are bringing together leading scholars,
0:11.1	practitioners, and former government officials for installing updates to ECPA, a half-day event
0:16.6	on what's broken with the statute and how to fix it. The event is free and open to the public, in person and online.
0:23.2	Visit lawfaremedia.org slash ECPA event.
0:26.4	That's lawfaremedia.org slash ECPA event for details and to register.
0:35.2	Not only have they focused on other things, not terrorism to the same degree as they focus on immigration or election interference, but more to the point, they've lost, forced out, fired the most capable, the most experienced FBI agents, FBI officials, and DOJ prosecutors that were working on the Iran threat.
0:58.0	It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Benjamin Wittes, editor-in-chief of Lawfare, with Matt Olson,
1:05.1	former Assistant Attorney General for National Security and a partner at Wilmer Hale.
1:12.0	It's indispensable to our ability to understand the Iran threat, Al-Qaeda, China,
1:16.7	Russia, increasingly darko traffickers.
1:20.8	So it's a really extraordinarily valuable authority.
1:25.0	It's unimaginable that Congress and the executive branch would let it lapse,
1:30.3	given it how important it is. But here we are approaching the sunset.
1:34.5	We're talking Iran today. Terrorist attacks inside the United States, the dismantlement of American capability to repel them and the pending lapse of FISA 702,
1:48.4	the tool most obviously usable to prevent them. So, Matt, I asked you on to talk about FISA 702
1:58.6	reauthorization, which is coming up in a month or so. But before we get to that,
2:06.5	we should talk a little bit about the war in Iran and its likely implications for domestic,
2:17.1	malevolent events by Iranian forces. The National Security Division,
2:25.3	under your leadership and before had a long string of cases involving Iranian forces trying to do everything from assassinate people to blow things up.
2:38.4	Talk a little bit about this history.
2:41.4	Yeah. And I do look forward to talking about Section 702, as you know, something that I've worked
	...

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