Congress ADVANCES renewal of surveillance tool used to catch terrorists that critics say has been used to spy on Americans, despite Trump demand Republicans ‘kill it’

The House of Representatives voted Friday to reauthorize a controversial spying tool, in Speaker Mike Johnson’s fourth attempt.

After a vote on extending Section 702 of the Foreign Information Surveillance Act (FISA) failed earlier this week, Johnson struck a deal with former President Donald Trump and his allies to extend it for only two years instead of five.

That way, if Trump wins the election, Congress can reform FISA more thoroughly under his presidency.

The line to start a debate on the FISA bill, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, passed by a vote of 218 to 208. The House of Representatives will now begin debating and voting on six amendments.

If Trump wins the election, Congress could more thoroughly reform FISA under his presidency under a two-year reauthorization

The National Security Surveillance Act includes new guardrails aimed at oversight and transparency, after a report found that intelligence agents had improperly interrogated Americans under the law 278,000 times.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a report in May 2023 detailing how the FBI improperly used Section 702 to “interrogate” (or search) names of individuals suspected of on the Capitol grounds during the January 6 attacks. Riot of 2021, Black Lives Matters protesters, crime victims and their families, and donors to one congressional campaign.

The White House released a statement in support of the FISA bill, and in opposition to Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.,’s amendment to require a warrant before initiating conversations of those on U.S. soil communicating with suspected terrorists.

Trump deflated FISA’s chances of passing earlier this week when he posted on Truth Social ahead of Wednesday’s vote: “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPYED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!! D.J.T.’

Another part of the law that cannot be reauthorized — Title 1 — was used in 2016 to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page when he was suspected of communicating with the Russians. Trump reauthorized FISA in 2018.

Section 702 specifically allows the U.S. government to surveil aliens with suspected terrorist ties who are not on U.S. soil, even if the party on the other end of such communications is a U.S. citizen in America.

It expires on April 19, at which point “America will go blind,” Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner warned reporters.

Without Section 702, intelligence agents would not be able to get a full picture of conversations of suspected terrorists abroad communicating with people on U.S. soil.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, blasted the right-wing House Freedom Caucus and its allies, who want a warrant for the FBI to pick up those conversations, which critics say would slow down the process of fighting terrorism.

‘Let’s be clear. Your position is aligned with (and co-sponsor of) the progressive caucus – Jerry Nadler, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal – the list goes on. It is the far left socialists who want the same policies,” he said.

“What progressives want to do is much more than just fix the program, they want to destroy it completely. “I’m not surprised if Rashida Tlaib wants to make it easier for terrorists to kill Americans, but I am VERY surprised that many Republicans agree with her.”

Crenshaw compared it to wiretapping in criminal investigations. The police do not need to obtain a warrant to investigate conversations of suspects and the people they talk to. He noted that intelligence agents would need to monitor potential terrorists’ conversations with people in the U.S. early on, possibly before a judge would approve a “probable cause” warrant.

“This requirement – ​​while perhaps well-intentioned – would effectively destroy our ability to detect domestic terrorist attacks (or drug trafficking or espionage) because it prevents our investigators from going beyond Step 1 of the investigative process, which is simply connecting the dots with data we already legally have.’

Biggs, who sponsored the warrant, fired back: “You have joined the DC cartel that insists on spying on Americans and violating the Bill of Rights.”

Crenshaw claimed that the FBI “HATED” the new reforms in the bill. “It seriously degrades their access to the FISA database. Criminal penalties are imposed for its misuse. It makes it clear that you cannot search anyone for any reason, but only for investigations related to foreign intelligence, weapons of mass destruction or terrorism.”

Although many of Section 702’s uses remain secret, intelligence officials leaked late last year that they had used the controversial tool to thwart arms sales to Iran.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies had used information gathered by monitoring the electronic communications of foreign weapons manufacturers and halting several shipments of advanced weapons to Iran.

On Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a dire warning to members of Congress about what could happen if FISA expires. “It will vastly increase the risk of missing critical intelligence at a time of heightened national security threats on a multitude of fronts,” Wray said.

‘When we are blinded When I see what our adversaries are and who they are working with, I can tell you that this will certainly impact our ability to protect the American people because I can assure that none of our adversaries will tie their own hands. So now is not the time to hang up our gloves.”

The ODNI report states that thirteen people linked to January 6 were improperly questioned to determine whether they had “foreign ties.”

In addition, the database was searched for more than 130 individuals associated with the social unrest and riots of Black Lives Matter activists in the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd.

The FISA search was conducted to obtain information on whether they were linked to counter-terrorism plots – which DOJ said in the report was “reasonable,” but the high number of redactions does not allow for a fuller explanation.

There was also a “batch survey” of more than 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, which was unnamed.

The FBI analyst who conducted the search said the campaign was a possible target of foreign influence.

However, the Justice Department said that in total only “eight identifiers” were used in the search that had “sufficient ties to foreign influence activities to meet the query standard.”

In addition, FISA searches were conducted by the FBI on crime victims, including “individuals identified in police homicide reports, including victims, survivors, witnesses and suspects.”

DOJ said these searches were improper because there was “no reasonable basis” to expect that the individuals would be linked to foreign intelligence through those searches.