President Trump’s highly politicized appointment of an entirely unqualified acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) underscores why the government’s warrantless mass spying power must be reformed. 

Congress now faces a deadline of Friday, June 12 to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, an unconstitutional program rife with problems, loopholes, and compliance issues. Section 702 allows the National Security Agency to collect communications from targets overseas – including communications with Americans in the U.S. – and stores them in massive databases. The NSA then allows other agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to access untold amounts of that information.  

Under current practice, the FBI can query and even read the U.S. side of that communication without a warrant. What’s more, victims won’t even know and have very few ways of finding out that their communications have been surveilled. EFF and other civil liberties advocates have been trying for years to know how data collected through Section 702 is used in domestic investigations and prosecutions.  

Our advocacy to reform Section 702 has been consistent across administrations, including when the federal Intelligence Community was run by people with experience in the relevant agencies. In fact, the 2004 law creating the position of DNI – which coordinates America’s 18 spy agencies – requires those who hold it to have “extensive national security expertise.” 

Enter Bill Pulte. 

Trump on Tuesday named Pulte – currently director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – to replace current DNI Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her resignation last month. Pulte lacks any intelligence, military, or congressional experience.  

“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Pulte isn't a qualified intelligence administrator. He does, however, seem to be unquestioningly loyal to President Trump and willing to use his position to attack and smear the President’s political foes.   

Because Trump named him acting DNI, Pulte isn’t subject to Senate confirmation. And under the Vacancies Act, Pulte could remain in the role for about seven months. 

This is particularly concerning because of Pulte’s history of using private information held by the government as a political weapon. In his FHFA role, he has accused several of the President’s political foes and targets – including New York State Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook – of mortgage fraud based on private data held by his agency.  

All these targets and others have denied wrongdoing. A federal criminal complaint filed against James in Virginia imploded after a judge found prosecutor Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully appointed, and prosecutors twice failed to convince a grand jury to indict James. Pulte’s accusations against Schiff, Cook, and others have not led to criminal charges. 

Pulte also used his FHFA pulpit to attack then-Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and dismantle internal oversight. 

Pulte isn't a qualified intelligence administrator. He does, however, seem to be unquestioningly loyal to President Trump and willing to use his position to attack and smear the President’s political foes. As acting DNI, Pulte would have access to every scrap of classified information the Intelligence Community holds, and under Section 702, that includes massive amounts of information about Americans. 

Even lawmakers who are typically friendly to the intelligence community acknowledge that this is a disaster in the making. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who is the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, told NPR that Pulte has "no experience in the military, no experience in Congress, no experience in the intel community or law enforcement" and was chosen because he is "100% loyal to doing anything and everything President Trump demands." 

And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters “we don’t need a weaponized” national intelligence director. Asked about fears that Pulte might pursue Trump’s political opponents, Thune said: “We need professionals there.” 

Congress already has had trouble reauthorizing Section 702 as Freedom Caucus Republicans and many Democrats joined forces to demand reforms including the common-sense requirement that federal agencies get a probable cause warrant from a judge before searching any data involving Americans. Pulte’s appointment exemplifies why no administration should have the power granted by Section 702 without the independent judicial review required in seeking a warrant. 

Governments must not adopt emerging and powerful AI technologies without also adopting strong and clear safeguards to protect Constitutional rights, EFF Senior Policy Analyst Dr. Matthew Guariglia testified today to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection. 

During the hearing on “The AI Security Landscape: How Frontier Models, Agentic AI, and AI Coding Tools Are Reshaping Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Resilience,” he explained that the use of generative AI for the purposes of mass government surveillance would supercharge unconstitutional violations of civil liberties. He also highlighted how government secrecy, in addition to the black box of for-profit proprietary technology, prevents the public and lawmakers from knowing when AI models make mistakes, including errors that seriously impact the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure and the lives of individuals.  

“AI also has a track record of getting things wrong—from false citations on legal briefs to a major AI mistake that sent DHS recruits to the field without proper training. There are likely more consequential examples that we do not even know about because of classification that would prevent a more thorough accounting," he said in his opening remarks.

Privacy info. This embed will serve content from youtube.com

“At this level the question is not how do we rein in AI, it’s how do we rein in the agencies that would unleash AI on the American public,” Matthew said in response to a question by Subcommittee Ranking Member Delia Ramirez, D-Ill.  

You can read his full testimony as prepared here. 

EFF welcomes our new Executive Director Nicole Ozer today! 

Nicole is a legal expert on privacy and surveillance, artificial intelligence, and digital speech who previously served as the inaugural executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco. From 2004-2025, she was founding director of the Technology and Civil Liberties Program at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. 

Nicole has long been a partner of EFF’s in the fight to defend civil liberties in the digital world. Many of us already know her, and she’s basically as close to EFF “family” as someone can be without actually having worked here.   

Over her more than two decades leading public interest technology work, Nicole has:  

• spearheaded passage of the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act – working with EFF to enact the nation’s strongest electronic surveillance law, requiring a warrant for government access to electronic information; 
• modernized California law to protect reading records in the digital age by helping, along with EFF, to craft the Reader Privacy Act, requiring a “super warrant” for government access; 
• created a groundbreaking model law for local democratic oversight of surveillance systems which inspired 25 laws across the country that help safeguard the rights and safety of more than 17 million people; 
• litigated civil liberties cases, including work with EFF on the NSA cases, and drafted influential amicus briefs on technology issues at all levels of state and federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court and California Supreme Court; and 
• developed multi-year campaigns to strengthen the anti-surveillance policies related to social media surveillance and face recognition of major technology companies and foster stronger privacy and free expression protection for billions of people worldwide. 

And that's just the TL;DR! You can read more about her bona fides here. 

EFF’s work to ensure technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation is more urgent than ever. And with Nicole’s decades of leadership in public interest technology work, EFF is poised to be stronger than ever to meet this moment and build for the fights ahead. 

Nicole succeeds Cindy Cohn, who has been with EFF for more than 25 years and served as executive director since 2015. Cindy is leaving EFF later this month – not to retire, but to find a role that puts her back in the courtroom doing what she does best: suing the government! She’ll still be part of the EFF community. 

We are living digital lives, using technology to connect, communicate, and mobilize for change. And we need you in these critical fights to defend and advance rights in the digital world – so join EFF today, and sign up for our EFFector newsletter to make sure you’re updated on the latest EFF news including upcoming events to help you get to know Nicole. 

Welcome Nicole!