NSA Appoints Kerianne Tobitsch as General Counsel Ahead of FISA Renewal

The NSA has quietly appointed Kerianne Tobitsch as its new general counsel, effective June 15, 2026. Tobitsch joins the electronic eavesdropping agency from the Department of Homeland Security, where she served as a senior lawyer since April 2025. Prior to her government service, she spent more than eight years as a partner at Jones Day's New York City office, advising on emerging privacy and data security issues. Her appointment ends a roughly one-year vacancy in the role, which oversees attorneys who review or authorize clandestine intelligence operations, including signals intelligence collection programs.

The position had been empty since the dismissal of April Falcon Doss, who was appointed in 2022 during the Biden administration. Doss was removed after the Daily Wire published a story about her prior work as a Democratic staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee. The article was amplified on social media by Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist who previously claimed credit for the ouster of NSA and U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Timothy Haugh and his civilian deputy Wendy Noble. Two other senior NSA lawyers also voluntarily retired around that time, leaving multiple senior legal posts filled on an acting basis and creating anxiety within the command.

Tobitsch is expected to play a central role as Congress returns from summer recess to address the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The statute, which sunset in June, allows the NSA to compel American firms such as Google and AT&T to hand over the electronic communications of targeted foreigners abroad without a warrant—a sweeping authority that has drawn renewed scrutiny from civil liberties advocates. Individuals concerned about incidental data collection can run a DNS leak test to verify whether their browsing activity is exposed to their ISP, or use a VPN/proxy detector to audit their network anonymity posture.

Although the general counsel role is classified as a career civil servant position meant to remain apolitical, recent appointments have blurred that line. During the final days of Trump's first term, Michael Ellis was installed in the role in a move that congressional Democrats decried as a "burrow" attempt to convert a nonpolitical position into a politically aligned one. With Tobitsch now confirmed and additional senior personnel appointments underway, NSA officials say morale within the agency's legal directorate has begun to stabilize as the agency prepares for a consequential legislative fight over its core surveillance authorities.