The House voted to advance reauthorization of a controversial spy tool on Friday on Speaker Mike Johnson’s fourth try.
After a rule vote to advance renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Information Surveillance Act (FISA) failed earlier this week, Johnson made an agreement with former President Donald Trump and his allies to renew it only for two years instead of five.
That way if Trump wins the election, Congress can more thoroughly reform FISA under his presidency.
The rule to begin debate on the FISA bill, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, passed 218 to 208. The House will now begin debate and vote on six amendments.
The House voted to advance reauthorization of a controversial spy tool on Friday on Speaker Mike Johnson ‘s fourth try
Under a two-year reauthorization, if Trump wins the election, Congress can more thoroughly reform FISA under his presidency
The national security surveillance bill includes new guardrails aimed at oversight and transparency, after a report found that intelligence agents had improperly queried Americans 278,000 times under the law.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a May 2023 report that details how the FBI improperly used Section 702 to ‘query’ – or search – names of individuals who were suspected of being on the Capitol grounds during the January 6, 2021 riot, Black Lives Matters protestors, victims of crime and their families and donors to one congressional campaign.
The White House released a statement in support of the FISA bill, and in opposition of the amendment from Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., to require a warrant before picking up conversations of those on U.S. soil who communicate with suspected terrorists.
Trump had deflated FISA’s chances of passing earlier this week when he posted on Truth Social ahead of the Wednesday vote: ‘KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!! DJT.’
Another part of the law that is not up for reauthorization – Title 1 – was used to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016 when he was suspected of communications with the Russians. Trump reauthorized FISA in 2018.
Section 702 specifically allows the U.S. government to surveil foreign nationals with suspected terror ties who are not on U.S. soil, even if the party on the other side of such communications is a U.S. national in America.
It is set to expire on April 19, after which ‘America will go blind,’ Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner warned reporters.
Without Section 702, intelligence agents would not be able to get the full picture of conversations of suspected terrorists abroad who are communicating with people on American soil.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, tore into the right-wing House Freedom Caucus and its allies who want the FBI to have to get a warrant to pick up those conversations, which critics say would bog down the process of fighting terrorism.
‘Let’s be clear. Your position is aligned (and cosponsored) with the progressive caucus – Jerry Nadler, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal – the list goes on and on. It is the far left socialists that want this same policy,’ he said.
‘What the progressives want to do is much more than just fix the program, they want to kill it entirely. I’m not surprised when Rashida Tlaib wants to make it easier for terrorists to kill Americans, but I am VERY surprised that many Republicans agree with her.’
Crenshaw likened it to a wire tap of criminal investigation. Police don’t have to get a warrant to probe conversations of suspects and the people they talk to. He noted that intelligence agents need to track would-be terrorists’ conversations with those in the U.S. at early stages, potentially before a judge would approve a warrant for ‘probable cause.’
‘This requirement – while perhaps well intentioned – would actually destroy our ability to detect domestic terror attacks (or drug trafficking, or espionage), because it prevents our investigators from moving past step 1 of the investigation process, which is simply connecting the dots with data we already legally have.’
Biggs, who sponsored the warrant requirement, shot back: ‘You’ve aligned yourself with the DC Cartel that insists on spying on Americans and violating the Bill of Rights.’
Crenshaw claimed the FBI ‘HATES’ the new reforms in the bill. ‘It severely degrades their access to the FISA database. It imposes criminal penalties for abusing it. It makes clear you can’t search anyone for any reason, but only for investigations related to foreign intelligence, WMD, or terrorism.’
While many of Section 702’s uses remain classified, intelligence officials leaked late last year that they had used the controversial tool to thwart weapons sales to Iran.
The CIA and other intelligence agencies had used information gathered through monitoring the electronic communications of foreign weapons manufacturers and stopping several shipments of advanced weapons to Iran.
On Thursday FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a dire warning to members of Congress about what could happen if FISA lapses. ‘It will massively increase the risk of missing crucial intelligence during a time of heightened national security threats across a whole multiple of fronts,’ Wray said.
‘If we’re blinded from seeing what our adversaries are, who they’re working with, I can tell you that’s going to most definitely have consequences for our ability to protect the American people, because I can assure that none of our adversaries are tying their own hands. So now is not the time for us to hang up our gloves.’
The ODNI report states 13 people connected to January 6 were inappropriately queried in order to determine if they had ‘foreign ties.’
In addition, over 130 individuals were searched in the database who were linked to the social unrest and riots conducted by Black Lives Matter activists in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
The FISA search was conducted to gain information on whether they were connected to any counterterrorism plots – which DOJ wrote in the report was ‘reasonable,’ but the high level of redactions don’t allow for a fuller explanation.
There was also a ‘batched inquiry’ of over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, which was unnamed.
The FBI analyst who conducted the search said the campaign was a possible target of foreign influence.
However, the Department of Justice said there were only ‘eight identifiers’ used in the search in total that ‘had sufficient ties to foreign influence activities to comply with the querying standard.’
Additionally, FBI FISA searches were conducted on crime victims, including ‘individuals listed in police homicide reports, including victims, next-of-kin, witnesses, and suspects.’
DOJ said these queries were inappropriate because there was ‘no reasonable basis’ to expect the individuals would be linked to foreign intelligence through those searches.