The House voted on Friday to pass a revised version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act re-authorization over opposition from hardline conservatives and progressive Democrats.
A two-year FISA re-authorization package passed the House 273-147 after contentious debate between factions of each party regarding privacy concerns surrounding a section of FISA designed to conduct surveillance on foreign threats. The bill now heads to the Senate.
At the beginning of the day, House Republicans voted along party lines to advance the bill through a procedural hurdle after failing to do so earlier in the week. A group of Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday to vote down a bill to re-authorize FISA for five years and reform the process, causing the bill’s backers to revise down the renewal period to two years on the final bill that passed Friday.
Democrats were unified in their opposition to the final bill. Five Republicans and five Democrats abstained.
Representative Anna Pauline Luna (R., Fla.), one of the leading Republican voices opposed to the FISA renewal, is putting forward a motion to reconsider the legislation now that it passed the chamber. The motion is unlikely to succeed when it comes to a vote early next week.
FISA authority is set to lapse on April 19 if the legislation is not passed by the Senate and signed into law in time. The bill is expected to pass quickly through the Senate and reach President Joe Biden’s desk once the motion to reconsider fails.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) pushed the hardliners in his party to support FISA re-authorization and sought to address concerns over FISA section 702, a provision used by intelligence officials to spy on foreign threats to U.S. national security. As the rift between Johnson and his right flank grows, he and former president Donald Trump are set to meet at Mar-a-Lago later today. Johnson is expected to introduce legislation meant to ensure non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections.
Conservative hardliners sought to add a provision to FISA re-authorization requiring a warrant to spy on Americans due to concerns over intelligence officials using loopholes to monitor Americans without authorization. They were allied with progressive Democrats in their opposition to FISA re-authorization without significant reforms to the section 702 process.
Trump voiced his opposition to the FISA package ahead of the Wednesday vote and claimed it was used to spy on his campaign. He appeared to be referring to abuses of the FISA application process conducted by the FBI against former Trump advisor Carter Page.
The FBI obtained FISA warrants to spy on Page during its Crossfire Hurricane investigation of discredited Russian collusion allegations against the Trump campaign. Special counsel John Durham found the FBI received authorization to monitor Page despite the lack of evidence against him and numerous factual errors on the applications based on the debunked Steele Dossier.
However, the section of FISA deployed against Carter Page is a different aspect of FISA than section 702, which is designed for U.S. officials to spy on foreign threats outside of the country. Americans occasionally get looped into the process when they’re communicating with a foreigner who is being monitored.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified yesterday before the House Appropriations Committee and made the case for FISA re-authorization.
“Section 702 is indispensable in keeping Americans safe from a whole barrage of fast-moving foreign threats. It is crucial to identify terrorists in the homeland working with or inspired by a rogues gallery of foreign terrorist organizations who have publicly called for attacks on our country,” Wray said. He also cited the need for section 702 to help protect dissidents from countries such as China and Iran.
An amendment proposed by Representative Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) to add a search warrant for Americans subject to section 702 queries was put to a vote Friday after the legislation made it past the procedural hurdle. The amendment failed in a tie vote, 212-212, after receiving support from staunch conservatives and far-left progressives, and opposition from a bipartisan coalition of national security hawks. Speaker Johnson voted against the Biggs amendment despite the pressure from his right flank.
Before the vote, the Biden administration circulated talking points on Capitol Hill opposing the Biggs amendment in an effort to persuade Democrats against it. A majority of Democrats, 126, opposed the amendment, and 84 Democrats voted for it, compared to 128 Republican votes for it and 84 against.
Additionally, national security hawks pushed through amendments to allow section 702 to be used against foreigners traveling to the U.S. and international drug trafficking rings.
Reformers notched another win with an amendment introduced by Representative Chip Roy (R., Texas.) mandating the FBI give congress quarterly reports on the number of Americans queried under section 702.