Reply to Wyden on an Impossible Amendment that Reauthorizes FISA, a Data-Driven Threat to the U.S. Government
In a statement, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) decried the House vote. Wyden said that the House bill was one of the most dramatic expansions of government surveillance authority in history. It allows the government to spy on Americans who install, maintain, or repair anything that sends or stores communications. Anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, or a phone is included. There would be no court oversight of the Americans who received the government directives, and they would be bound to silence. I will do everything in my power to stop this bill.”
Progressives and Republicans were concerned alike by the FBI’s targeting of activists, journalists and a sitting member of Congress, but the FBI’s track record of abusing the program resulted in a detente last fall. But in a major victory for the Biden administration, House members voted down an amendment earlier in the day that would’ve imposed new warrant requirements on federal agencies accessing Americans’ 702 data.
This amendment is not about Americans. This amendment is not about Americans’ data. Turner said the amendment was about data from Hezbollah, Hamas and the Chinese communist party. “This is dangerous, it will make us go blind, and it will absolutely increase their recruitment of people inside the United States — not even American citizens — to do terrorist attacks and harm Americans.”
The amendment that required intelligence officers to obtain a warrant before accessing Americans’ data was once again pushed for by the Republican holdouts.
“We just bought President Trump an at bat,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told NBC News, referring to the two-year extension in the latest version of the bill. “The previous version of this bill would have kicked reauthorization beyond the Trump presidency. Now President Trump gets an at bat to fix the system that victimized him more than any other American.”
Securing enough House votes to reauthorize FISA has been an uphill battle for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). The speaker was unable to move the bill forward again because of the comments former president Donald Trump made on Tuesday. It was an illegal method used against me and many other people. They jumped on my campaign. He posted.
There are some unexpected alliances in the House over privacy issues. The amendment to impose a warrant requirement for the surveillance of Americans was defeated narrowly by the Freedom Caucus and a coalition of progressives.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is scheduled by statute to expire on April 19th, though the FISA court recently granted a government request that would have authorized the program for another year without congressional approval.
The FBI isn’t Listening: Why Do Americans Think We Need a Warrant? An Analysis of the FISA Reauthorization Bill
Sean Vitka is the policy director at Demand Progress, and he says that many members who tanked this vote have long histories of voting for privacy protection.
Representative Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, says that three million Americans had their data searched. “The FBI wasn’t even following its own rules when they conducted those searches. That’s why we need a warrant.”
The legislation extending the program passed in the House by a wide margin. The Senate has yet to pass its own bill.
The warrant amendment was passed earlier this year by the House Judiciary Committee, whose long-held jurisdiction over FISA has been challenged by friends of the intelligence community. Analysis by the Brennan Center this week found that 80 percent of the base text of the FISA reauthorization bill had been authored by intelligence committee members.