The US has used controversial spy tool to STOP Iran buying weapons parts amid fears that Tehran is building up its ballistic missile program

National security officials say the U.S. has used a controversial oversight authority to thwart Iranian efforts to build bigger and more powerful weapons.

Their revelation is the latest in a series of arguments that Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a crucial tool for US protection, as Congress considers reauthorizing the authority before it expires at the end of this year.

Two U.S. officials said intelligence agencies used it to monitor the electronic communications of foreign weapons manufacturers to prevent parts from being shipped to Iran.

Details from other surveillance tools were used to identify Iranian-made components that Iran needed, which were then combined with a FISA intelligence database.

The results generated information that could be used to prevent the sale, they said.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, visits an exhibition of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace projects, including a drone labeled ‘Gaza’

It comes as the administration is increasingly concerned about Iran’s ballistic missile program, and fears it could share technology with Russia for its attacks on Ukraine.

The two officials told Politico that intelligence agencies were able to identify the cost, timing and size of the sales.

‘It wasn’t one specific action. It was a number of actions,” an official said.

“In at least one case, if not more, specific sales were stopped before they left or while they were in transit.”

Officials provided no further information.

But their careful background information shows how the government is eager to emphasize the importance of FISA powers.

Section 702 allows intelligence agencies on domestic soil and without a warrant to intercept emails and other electronic communications of foreign nationals abroad, including their interactions with Americans.

It faces fierce opposition from those who see it as a backdoor for monitoring Americans abroad, including privacy activists.

Many Republicans are also still angry about the mistakes the FBI made during its investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign.

Members of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force attend a rally in support of the Palestinians as an Iranian domestically built missile is on display, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, November 24

They are particularly angry about missteps in the way court orders were used to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, even though FISA authority was not used.

But an inspector general’s report found that the FBI improperly searched the FISA database to see if it could find political figures involved in the exchanges.

The Biden administration says fixes have been put in place and that Section 702 will not be effective if further limits are implemented.

Matthew G. Olsen, the assistant attorney general for national security, recently said: “In today’s threat environment – ​​following the Hamas attacks in Israel, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the continued threats we face from China and Iran – it is impossible to I overstate how operationally damaging a command requirement for inquiries about American persons would be to our efforts to protect the United States and Americans at risk abroad.”

Officials have made their case by releasing information about how it has been used to prevent fentanyl from entering the country, identify hackers and monitor abuse by Chinese dissidents.

The White House recently published an essay written by Admiral James Winnefeld describing how his son might never have died of an overdose if the statute had been fully enforced.

In an op-ed for Fox News, Winnefeld, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB), describes the phone call six years ago in which he was told his 19-year-old son was dead.

“This tragedy should not have happened,” he wrote. “Societal stigma, gaps in mental health and addiction services, and a lack of understanding of the disease of substance dependence are setting this young demand-side ‘warrior against addiction’ to failure.

‘But he was also let down on the supply side: the fentanyl that killed him should never have been on the street.

“If a key oversight authority used by our nation’s intelligence community had been fully applied to the fentanyl crisis that began to grip our country around the time of Jonathan’s death, that fatal dose may never have reached him.”