Implications of the House Judiciary Committee Amendments to the Privacy of the Secret-Trial Court Program in the Early 2020s

The program itself will carry on into the next year, regardless of whether Johnson manages to muster up another vote in the next week. Congress does not directly authorize the surveillance. It allows the US intelligence services to get certifications from a secret court once a year.

When the reauthorization was up for a vote in February, some House Republicans described the privacy amendments as nonnegotiable. “We have to have these amendments,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, told Politico in February. There is no way we aren’t going to have them.

Johnson praised the latest version of the bill, saying it contains dozens of “specific reforms,” including new procedures to curtail the FBI and “institute unprecedented transparency across the FISA process.”

“If our bill fails, we will be faced with an impossible choice and can expect the Senate to jam us with a clean extension that includes no reforms at all,” Johnson wrote. “That is clearly an unacceptable option.”

“To Kill Natalia”: When the Intelligence Committee Becomes Aware of Americans’ National Identity Violation and the Campaign to End Its Deportation

The chair of the Intelligence Committee said in an interview with CNN that if Americans were to communicate with the Islamic State, their communications would be captured. You would want us to do that. All Americans want us to keep ourselves safe.

Johnson may not be able to get other members of his party to fall in line. Some members of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus have joined libertarians and progressive Democrats in advocating for FISA reform. Former President Donald Trump has also waded in to the debate. To kill Natalia. It was used against me and many other people. They spread on my campsite. Trump posted on Truth Social.

Correction April 10th, 2:08PM ET: Due to an editing error, this story published before the final vote on the bill to greenlight debate on the bill for Section 702 renewal was called. The previous version of the article said that the House will debate the bill on Wednesday.

The FISA Section 702 Program is Good for Detection, But Not for Business: The Coalition Against Its Misuse by the FBI

The outcome of today was avoidable but it requires the intelligence community to recognize that its days of unrestricted espionage on Americans are over.

Even though it was seen to be a good program, it needed significant and meaningful reforms according to James Czerniawaski, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity.

The coalition formed last year to try to end warrantless searches, many Republicans were vocal critics of the FBI in the wake of its misuse of the FISA act to look at a Trump campaign staffer. (The 702 program, which is only one part of FISA, was not implicated in that particular controversy.)

An amendment the Intel committee offered could potentially increase the number of US businesses who are forced to cooperation with the program according to a group of attorneys.

“It seems Congressional leadership needs to be reminded that these privacy protections are overwhelmingly popular,” says Sean Vitka, policy director at Demand Progress, a civil liberties-focused nonprofit. “Surveillance reformers remain willing and able to do that.”

Privacy experts have criticized proposed changes to the Section 702 program championed by members of the House Intelligence Committee, as well as Johnson, who had previously voted in favor of a warrant requirement despite now opposing it.

Although the government says it only “targets” foreigners, it has acknowledged collecting a large amount of US communications in the process. (The actual amount, it says, is impossible to calculate.) Nevertheless, it claims that once those communications are in the government’s possession, it is constitutional for federal agents to review those wiretaps without a warrant.

The program remains controversial due to a laundry list of abuses committed primarily at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which maintains a database that holds a portion of the raw data collected under 702.

The program can be used in cases involving terrorism, cybercrime, and weapons proliferation if the certifications are obtained. The program is an important tool in the battle against the flood of Fentanyl-related substances entering the US from overseas.

The Justice Department applied for new certifications in February. It was announced last week that the court had approved them. The government’s power to issue new directives under the program without Congress’s approval, however, remains in question.

Johnson lost 19 Republicans on Tuesday in a procedural vote that traditionally falls along party lines. Republicans control the House with a razor-thin margin. Just hours before the failed vote, a post on Truth Social by Donald Trump ordered Republicans to kill the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which it is authorized.

Speaker Johnson has failed to get unanimous support for the third time in a row to reauthorize a critical US spy program, raising questions on the future of the law that requires businesses to wiretap foreigners.