House Republican leaders’ goal of passing the bill by the end of the week nearly didn’t come true after 19 far-right Republicans blocked debate on the measure Wednesday. by voting against moving beyond a procedural hurdle. The group took advantage of Republicans’ narrow two-vote majority to protest the failure of their demands to incorporate changes into the bill.
The divisions stem from a debate over how to amend Section 702 of FISA. The post-9/11 provision gave U.S. spy agencies the ability to monitor only noncitizens abroad suspected of threatening national security. At issue is whether spy agencies can analyze the communications of Americans who may have interacted with the foreign target, something privacy advocates on the far right and left view as unconstitutional.
The group that Stalled debate on the bill Wednesday wanted Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to include language prohibiting U.S. government agencies from purchasing Americans’ personal information from private data brokers and requiring U.S. agencies to obtain a warrant before viewing the communications of scanned American citizens. in gathering intelligence abroad.
Although Johnson did not include any targets in the bill up for debate Friday, he nonetheless found a solution Thursday that appeased hard-liners, agreeing to shorten the reauthorization window from five to two years. The speaker argued that this would give far-right members a chance to incorporate their legislative changes under a Trump administration, if the former president is elected later this year.
Johnson also promised to pass a separate bill next week that would prohibit U.S. agencies from purchasing information on U.S. citizens from data companies.
The changes were enough to persuade hardliners to abandon their blockade on Friday, allowing the debate to continue. But that did not prevent a moment of suspense in the House when an amendment almost led to the adoption of a text that would have required the government to require a warrant if the FBI wanted to analyze the communications of Americans targeted by the Section 702. The far-right House Freedom Caucus enthusiastically applauded and applauded members of the far-left group “Squad” and the Congressional Progressive Caucus as they voted for the amendment.
The amendment, proposed by a political odd couple, Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), did not pass because it ended in a tied vote. The amendment would have radically changed the bill, likely rendering it dead upon arrival in the Senate. According to three Democrats familiar with the development, the White House pushed House Democrats to vote against it. After his failure, House Intelligence Chairman Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) celebrated briefly and quietly in the Speaker’s Lobby behind the House floor.
Privacy and national security hawks fought inside the conference for months over how to approach changes to Section 702, leading Johnson to twice withdraw consideration of several measures due to delayed support. Privacy advocates say government agencies should require a warrant, while Republicans — and Democrats — concerned about national security say adding warrants would seriously affect agencies’ ability to thwart potential activities. terrorists.
The Biden administration has for months emphasized the need to reauthorize Section 702, one of the most powerful foreign surveillance authorities in its arsenal. Section 702 provides more than 60 percent of the information in the president’s daily brief, administration officials said.
Section 702 “directly contributed to our ability to remove (al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-) Zawahiri from the battlefield,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday. This helped identify the perpetrator of the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline, he said. “It helped us uncover Russian atrocities in Ukraine, including the forced resettlement of Ukrainian children in Russia and attacks on Ukrainian refugees. And it helped us foil an assassination plot on American soil against a dissident by a hostile foreign power.
Kirby added: “This is vital to our ability to defend ourselves, to defend the American people. »
Bipartisan members of the House Intelligence Committee dominated debate to express support for the bill and encourage their colleagues to vote against a bipartisan amendment backed by members on the far left and right that would ban warrantless search citizen communications “with exceptions for imminent threats to life”. or bodily harm, consent searches, or known signatures of cybersecurity threats.
“There is already a warrant requirement for the protection of Americans and people who are here in the United States,” Turner said. “This amendment… applies to data we collect in connection with espionage for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Chinese Communist Party. Giving them a mandate, giving them constitutional protection, means they’re open for business.”
That hasn’t stopped former President Donald Trump’s supporters in the House from falsely claiming that without reforms, President Biden’s “weaponized” Justice Department will continue to target Trump and other conservatives.
“The question today is: ‘Do you trust the government?’ » said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). “The same intelligence community that spied on President Trump’s campaign was deeply invested in reauthorizing FISA. … These are also the same people in the intelligence community who abused FISA and spied on hundreds of thousands of Americans, and I would say they will continue to do so.”
In response, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.), a former Navy SEAL, spent time on the ground separating myths from facts.
“Myth: FISA is used to spy on Americans. The myth is this: if you ask an American’s name, you can see their inbox, but that’s not true. It’s used to spy on foreign intelligence targets, foreign terrorists, and to do that you need a warrant,” he said. “Reforms here would put an end to what happened to President Trump. »
Ellen Nakashima, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.
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