Washington- A bill that would reauthorize a crucial element national security monitoring program was blocked on Wednesday by a conservative revolt in the House, making uncertain the prospects of a final passage in the context of an imminent deadline. The legislative impasse also follows an executive order earlier in the day from former President Donald Trump to “kill” the measure.
The legislative failure comes months after a similar process to reform and reauthorize the surveillance program collapsed before it even reached the House floor. Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, called the program “critically important” but struggled to find a path forward on the issue, which has been plagued by partisan wrangling for years. The procedural vote to introduce the bill failed by a vote of 193 to 228. Nineteen Republicans voted no.
The bill under consideration would renew the surveillance program with a series of reforms intended to satisfy critics who have complained about civil liberties violations against Americans. But Republican critics complained those changes didn’t go far enough, calling into question whether the bill backed by the Biden administration and Johnson would have enough votes to move forward.
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At issue is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes the U.S. government to collect the communications of non-Americans outside the country without a warrant to gather foreign intelligence. It is set to expire on April 19 if Congress does not act.
U.S. officials have said the tool, first authorized in 2008 and renewed several times since then, is crucial to disrupting terrorist attacks, cyber intrusions and foreign espionage and has also produced intelligence which the United States relied on for specific operations.
But the administration’s efforts to get the program reauthorized have been met with fierce, bipartisan resistance. Democrats who have long championed civil liberties, like Sen. Ron Wyden, have aligned themselves with Republican Trump supporters, who in an article on Truth Social on Wednesday falsely said that Section 702 had been used for spying his presidential campaign.
“Kill FISA,” he wrote in capital letters. “It was used illegally against me and many others. They spied on my campaign.” A former adviser to his 2016 presidential campaign was targeted over potential ties to Russia under another section of the surveillance law.
One specific area of concern for lawmakers has focused on the FBI’s use of the vast intelligence repository to seek information about Americans and others in the United States. Although the surveillance program only targets non-Americans in other countries, it also collects Americans’ communications when they are in contact with these targeted foreigners.
Last year, U.S. officials revealed a series of abuses and errors by FBI analysts for improperly querying the intelligence repository for information about Americans or others in the United States, including a member of Congress and participants in the 2020 racial justice protests and the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol.
These violations led to the FBI being required to obtain a warrant before performing database queries on Americans, which FBI Director Chris Wray said would effectively reduce the effectiveness of the program and was also legally unnecessary since the database contained information already legally collected.
“While it is imperative to ensure that this critical authority of 702 does not disappear, we must also not compromise the effectiveness of this essential tool with a warrant requirement or similar restriction, crippling our ability to do facing rapidly evolving threats,” Wray said. in a speech Tuesday.
Johnson made a renewed push for passage Wednesday, saying, “It’s critical that we address these abuses because we don’t want to lose Section 702 of FISA.” “
Although the program technically expires on April 19, the Biden administration has said it expects its intelligence collection authority to remain operational for another year, thanks to an earlier opinion from the Oversight Court Foreign Intelligence, which oversees surveillance applications.
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