Controversial Spying Bill Gets Past House --- Changes include a shorter term to fend off objections and a Trump intervention

"WASHINGTON -- The House passed legislation Friday to renew a controversial national-security spying power, after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) made changes to overcome a last-minute intervention from former President Donald Trump and objections from hard-line conservatives.

The bill extending the foreign surveillance program was approved 273-147, capping a bitter, yearlong fight that had aligned some conservatives and progressives in seeking more privacy protections against congressional leadership and the Biden administration, which warned that deep changes to the law could put American lives in danger.

The legislation, set to expire next week unless renewed, is supported by the White House and now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass. It would renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for just two years instead of the five sought by Johnson earlier in the week, a compromise to placate Trump and his allies.

Trump, who as president signed a renewal of Section 702 in 2018, had urged members to "KILL FISA" in a social-media post Wednesday, and holdout Republicans then blocked the bill from proceeding, forcing leaders to rework the proposal. The setback underscored the precarious state of Johnson's leadership in the House, where his party has a scant 218-213 majority.

Senior Biden administration officials say Section 702 is prodigious in generating intelligence used to thwart terror plots, fend off hackers and track spies. But the law's critics view it skeptically and have raised particular issues with how it allows the collection of some American communications without a warrant.

While dozens of mostly minor changes geared to safeguard privacy were included, an amendment to add a warrant requirement failed Friday in a nail-biter of a vote, with 212 in favor and 212 against. Members of both parties were riveted by the vote tally, with Republican conservatives cheering progressive Democrats, their allies on this matter, as they hurried to cast votes in favor. Senior Biden officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Attorney General Merrick Garland, called House members urging them to vote down the amendment, according to people familiar with the matter.

"If this becomes law, we will be blind" to recruitment efforts in the U.S. by terror groups, said Rep. Mike Turner (R., Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He let out a celebratory whoop when the warrant amendment failed, and pumped his fist.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), who supported the warrant amendment as critical to protecting Americans' constitutional rights, laid the blame for its failure on Johnson, who was a crucial "no."

"It was the deciding vote," Massie said. "This would have been a good time for him to stay off the board, frankly."

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), whose panel wrote the provision, said, "It's not complicated. If you want to spy on American citizens, you need to get a warrant."

The bill's backers touted the overall package as the most sweeping reform of FISA since its creation in 1978. Among other changes, it sharply reduces the number of Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel who can conduct U.S. searches, creates criminal penalties for abuse, bars the FBI from searching the database solely for evidence of a crime rather than a national-security purpose, mandates more auditing of the program and codifies other changes already adopted by the FBI.

Friday's vote was a much-needed win for Johnson, on his fourth attempt to advance FISA legislation.

In shortening the length of the renewal, lawmakers appeared to be giving Trump the opportunity to seek further changes to the law should he be elected in November.

"We wanted to give Trump an at-bat to tackle FISA," said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), a critic of the law who pushed for a warrant requirement. "That was a principal objective."

Former intelligence officials said it may be even harder to defeat a warrant requirement in two years if Trump is elected in November. At a press conference late Friday with Johnson, Trump said he isn't "a big fan of FISA." He did credit the House with adding "a lot of checks and balances," softening his rhetoric from earlier in the week, and spoke approvingly of the two-year extension -- noting the deadline would fall within his next administration should he defeat Biden.

Even if the Senate unexpectedly fails to pass the House's bill, the spying program could continue for an additional year because of how and when the secretive court that oversees FISA grants annual approval for the categories of intelligence collection allowed under Section 702. Such a scenario could invite lawsuits challenging the program, including from U.S. technology companies that are compelled to cooperate.

Amendments passed Friday that expand the scope of permitted spying to include more leeway in targeting international narcotic trafficking and to allow the program to be tapped to vet foreigners entering the U.S. for terrorist ties.

Also passed was an amendment to codify a prohibition against a type of surveillance known as "about collection." The NSA halted in 2017 the once-secret practice, which allowed it to collect without a warrant the communications of Americans who mentioned -- or talked about -- a foreign intelligence target in their messages or phone calls.

---

Seeking a Limit

To Surveillance

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act grants the National Security Agency broad authority to collect electronic communications from U.S. technology firms to hunt for national-security threats living overseas and share those intercepts with other intelligence agencies. Though it targets foreign suspects believed to be on foreign soil, it sweeps up an unknown amount of communication belonging to Americans, such as when they text or call a foreigner who is under surveillance.

Skeptics say that arrangement amounts to backdoor searches of Americans who have repeatedly been improperly viewed by FBI analysts, including disclosures last year that the power was used to monitor George Floyd protesters, participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign and a sitting U.S. senator." [1]

1. U.S. News: Controversial Spying Bill Gets Past House --- Changes include a shorter term to fend off objections and a Trump intervention. Volz, Dustin; Wise, Lindsay.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 13 Apr 2024: A.4.