By a vote of 273-147, the House on Friday approved the renewal of national-security spying power.
House Speaker Mike Johnson made changes to the bill in a bid to overcome last-minute objections from former President Donald Trump and conservatives.
The legislation would renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for just two years instead of the five sought by Johnson earlier in the week, a compromise analysts said was designed to placate Trump and his allies.
In shortening the renewal time frame, 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 Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, a critic of the law who pushed for a warrant requirement. “That was a principle objective.”
In a social media post on Wednesday, Trump had urged members to “KILL FISA”. After the post, holdout Republicans blocked the bill from proceeding, forcing leaders to scramble to rework the proposal.
An amendment proposed by Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs that would have installed a warrant requirement for FISA requests on U.S. citizens failed with a tie vote of 212-212.
"The intelligence community wants control with no checks. Congress cannot allow the FBI to continue skirting the Fourth Amendment. Get a warrant," Biggs said in pressing for the amendment.
86 Republicans voted with Joe Biden and the Uniparty to allow the FBI to continue spying on Americans without a warrant.
The Swamp is deep. — Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) April 12, 2024
The bill’s supporters say the overall package is the most sweeping reform package to FISA since its creation in 1978.
“This legislation contains the most significant reforms to Section 702 ever,” said Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a key architect of the legislation, who opposed the warrant rule. “This bill puts in place protections to make sure the abuses of the past do not continue into the future.”
Among other changes, the bill sharply reduces the amount of FBI 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 internally adopted at the FBI.
Section 702 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 communications belonging to Americans, such as when they text or call a foreigner who is under surveillance.
Honor their memory: The ‘shot heard round the world’
The legislation, which would expire next week unless renewed, is backed by Team Biden. It now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.
Friday’s vote is seen as a much-needed win for Johnson, "who has struggled to navigate a way forward on other matters including Ukraine while presiding over a fractious and narrow Republican majority," the Wall Street Journal noted.
He had previously attempted three separate times to advance FISA legislation only to be forced back to the drawing board or punt, as he did in December when Congress passed an extension only for 3½ months.
