In a 273 to 147 vote, U.S lawmakers on Friday, April 12, 2024, renewed Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act(FISA), which is set to expire on April 19, 2024.
The controversial law allows for far-reaching monitoring of foreign communications but has also led to the collection of US citizens’ messages and phone calls.
An amendment that would have required authorities seek a warrant failed, in a tied 212-212 vote across party lines.
The approved legislation would extend the surveillance program two years, rather than the five first proposed.
U.S House Speaker, Mike Johnson hoped that the shorter timeline would sway Republican critics by pushing any future debate on the issue to the presidency of Donald Trump if he were to win back the White House in November.
Section 702 allows for government agencies such as the National Security Administration to collect data and monitor the communications of foreign citizens outside of US soil without the need for a warrant, with authorities touting it as a key tool in targeting cybercrime, international drug trafficking and terrorist plots.
The collection of foreign data can also ingest communications between people abroad and those in the US.
The law, which gives the government expansive powers to view emails, calls and texts, has long been divisive and resulted in allegations from civil liberties groups that it violates privacy rights.
House Republicans were split in the lead-up to vote over whether to reauthorize section 702, the most contentious aspect of the bill, with Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, struggling to unify them around a revised version of the preexisting law
Debate over Section 702 pitted Republicans who alleged that the law was a tool for spying on American citizens against others in the party who sided with intelligence officials and deemed it a necessary measure to stop foreign terrorist groups.
Ohio Congressman Mike Turner, Republican Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told lawmakers on Friday that failing to reauthorize the bill would be a gift to China’s government spying programs, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“We will be blind as they try to recruit people for terrorist attacks in the United States,” Turner said Friday on the House floor.
California Democratic representative and former Speaker, Nancy Pelosi also gave a statement in support of passing section 702 with its warrantless surveillance abilities intact, urging lawmakers to vote against an amendment that would weaken its reach.
“I don’t have the time right now, but if members want to know I’ll tell you how we could have been saved from 9/11 if we didn’t have to have the additional warrants,” Pelosi said.
Bill Unable To Head To Senate
Right after the House passed the FISA bill, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, objected to its passage.
Luna requested a vote on the motion to reconsider the legislation.
That means the FISA bill will not be able to head to the Senate yet until after the House votes to table the motion to reconsider the vote next week.
Section 702 dates back to the George W. Bush administration, which secretly ran warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.
In 2008, Congress passed section 702 as part of the FISA Amendments Act and put foreign surveillance under more formal government oversight.
Lawmakers have renewed the law twice since, including in 2018 when they rejected an amendment that would have required authorities to get warrants for US citizens’ data.
Section 702 has faced opposition before, but it became especially fraught in the past year after court documents revealed that the FBI had improperly used it almost 300,000 times – targeting racial justice protesters, January 6 suspects and others.
That overreach emboldened resistance to the law, especially among far-right Republicans who view intelligence services like the FBI as their opponent.
READ ALSO: World Bank Petitions Investors to Embrace Emerging Markets
