Oliver Johnson
washington — The Chamber approved on Friday a bill to reauthorize a crucial national security surveillance programtwo days after a conservative revolt prevented similar legislation from reaching the floor.
The bill reforms and extends a portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act known as Section 702 for a reduced two-year period, rather than the full five-year reauthorization initially proposed. The change was made to influence critics of the Republican Party.
The vote on final approval was 273 votes in favor and 147 against.
Skepticism about the government’s spying powers has grown dramatically in recent years, especially on the right. Republicans have clashed for months over what a legislative review of the FISA surveillance program should look like, creating divisions that spilled onto the House floor this week when 19 Republicans broke with their party to block the bill from coming up for a vote. .
However, some of the original opponents voiced their support for the new plan on Thursday.
“The two-year time frame is a much better landing point because it gives us two years to see if any of these things work rather than throwing out five years,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican. “They say these reforms will work. Well, I guess we’ll find out.”
The fight for FISA
The legislation in question would allow the U.S. government to collect, without a warrant, the communications of non-Americans located outside the country to gather foreign intelligence. The reauthorization is tied to a series of reforms designed to satisfy critics who have complained of civil liberties violations against Americans.
But far-right opponents complained that these changes did not go far enough. Among the detractors were some of Johnson’s harshest critics, members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, who have criticized the president in recent months for reaching across the aisle to perform the basic functions of government.
To appease some of those critics, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, plans to introduce a separate proposal next week that would close a loophole that allows U.S. authorities to collect data on Americans from big technology companies without a warrant.
“It all added up to something that I think gave a lot of comfort,” Roy said.
Although the program is technically scheduled to expire on April 19, the Biden administration has said it expects its authority to collect intelligence to remain operational for at least another year, thanks to an opinion earlier this month from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, that receives surveillance requests. But officials say court approval should not supersede congressional authorization, especially since communications companies could cease cooperation with the government.
First authorized in 2008, the spying tool has been renewed several times since then as U.S. authorities consider it crucial to stopping terrorist attacks, cyber intrusions and foreign espionage. It also produced intelligence that the US relied on for specific operations.
But the administration’s efforts to secure the program’s reauthorization have repeatedly met fierce, bipartisan resistance, with Democrats like Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who have long championed civil liberties, aligning themselves with Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump. , who in a post on A Truth Social on Wednesday incorrectly claimed that Section 702 was used to spy on his presidential campaign.
“Kill FISA,” Trump wrote in all 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 the subject of surveillance over potential ties to Russia under a different section of the law.
One particular area of concern for lawmakers is the FBI’s use of its vast intelligence repository to search for information about Americans and others in the United States. Although the surveillance program only targets non-Americans in other countries, it also collects communications from Americans when they are in contact with targeted foreigners.
Last year, US authorities revealed a series of abuses and errors committed by FBI analysts when they improperly queried the intelligence repository for information about Americans or other people in the US, including about a member of Congress and participants in the justice protests. 2020 and the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
These violations led to requirements that the FBI have a warrant before conducting database queries on Americans, which FBI Director Chris Wray warned would effectively destroy the effectiveness of the program and would also be legally unnecessary since that the information in the database has already been legally collected.
“While it is imperative to ensure that this critical 702 authority does not lapse, we also must not undermine the effectiveness of this essential tool with a warrant requirement or some similar restriction, paralyzing our ability to confront fast-moving threats,” Wray said. in a speech on Tuesday.
An amendment that would have required authorities to obtain a warrant before searching Americans’ communications in the 702 database failed in a dramatic vote before the bill was approved for final approval.
