Unlikely Alliance of House Conservatives and Liberal Democrats Aim for Do-Over of Warrantless Surveillance Authorization

An unlikely alliance of House conservatives and liberal lawmakers will this week push for an amendment vote as part of the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They want to add a requirement to the bill that would force law enforcement to get a warrant before reviewing communications of Americans collected by the FBI. Speaker Johnson will put the FISA reauthorization bill on the floor some time this coming week. The House passed FISA reauthorization on Friday, but a motion to reconsider the bill was made, and a second vote will have to take place before the legislation is sent to the Senate.Just before the House passed the bill on Friday, an amendment from Congressman Andy Biggs that would have forced law enforcement to get warrants before surveilling Americans was defeated in a tie vote — 212 to 212. In total, there were 13 members absent, including Congresswoman Debbie Lesko, who was sick at home in Arizona. She later said on X that she would have voted for Mr. Biggs’ amendment had she been on the House floor that day. “So I’m supposed to say I want to grant more power to the intelligence community? More power to the government that is releasing terrorists as we speak onto the streets of Texas? It defies any kind of logic,” Congressman Chip Roy, one of the measure’s chief critics, said before the amendment vote. After the amendment failed and FISA reauthorization passed, he wrote on X that it was not “over” yet, and that the House would have to vote on a motion to reconsider the legislation. If that motion to reconsider succeeds, then an unlikely alliance of conservatives and liberals would get another chance to attach Mr. Biggs’ amendment. Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are on the same side in the fight, as are the leaders of the Judiciary Committee, Congressmen Jim Jordan and Jerry Nadler. Mr. Johnson still opposes the amendment. Of the top five Republicans in the House, only one — the majority whip, Congressman Tom Emmer — voted for the warrant amendment. The speaker said it wasn’t until he received a classified briefing from the intelligence community that he realized that a warrant requirement would greatly harm American national security. “It’s how we kill terrorists, it’s how we stop terrorist attacks on our own soil. That’s why we haven’t had another 9/11,” Mr. Johnson told Fox News on Sunday. “The whole point of the law is that we surveil foreign persons.”“Quick scenario: If we’re surveilling a terrorist in the Middle East and the terrorist sends an email to a guy named John Smith in Anytown, USA, and the email says, ‘the components will be delivered to your house for further assembly and delivered to the high school stadium during the game,’ I think every American would want the analyst who saw that email from that foreign terrorist to do a query of the other communications between those two,” Mr. Johnson said. The speaker is putting his job on the line to maintain this warrantless spying too. Ms. Greene has already called his lack of support for the warrant amendment a “betrayal” of conservatives, and has already filed a motion to vacate him from his position.

Unlikely Alliance of House Conservatives and Liberal Democrats Aim for Do-Over of Warrantless Surveillance Authorization

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