New FISA proposal unveiled in House
Three-year extension of surveillance powers would not include warrant requirement
House Republicans on Thursday released a new proposal that would extend a powerful surveillance authority for three years, but it was not immediately clear if it would garner enough support to clear the chamber.
The updated text would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a statute that’s raised concerns among privacy-minded lawmakers from both parties. The new proposal outlines several oversight provisions but does not include a warrant requirement regarding FBI searches tied to American information swept up in the program.
The proposal is the latest from House Republicans as lawmakers scramble to pass a reauthorization measure before the statutory authority for Section 702 expires April 30 under a stopgap measure. The new FISA bill is being offered as an amendment to unrelated legislation that the Rules Committee will consider on Monday.
Among other changes, the new text would order the attorney general to issue new procedures that ensure the access of congressional lawmakers and staff to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court proceedings.
It also includes a provision requiring the FBI to provide the Civil Liberties Protection Officer within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence with the written statements for searches related to American information collected under the surveillance authority.
But the text would not install a warrant requirement for those searches, a provision privacy advocates in both parties have demanded in calling for further guardrails on the program.
It remains unclear as of Thursday afternoon whether the proposal would have enough support in the House to pass.
Last week, Republican privacy hawks and Democrats banded together on the House floor to torpedo reauthorization proposals that did not include a warrant requirement for those types of searches.
Section 702 allows the U.S. government to collect digital communications of foreigners located outside the country. But the program is controversial because it also sweeps up the communications of Americans and allows the FBI to search through data without a warrant, using information such as an email address.
A few hours before the House released the three-year extension text, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who’s been adamant in demanding Section 702 changes, said there was “some stuff people still want.”
“There’s still some moving parts,” Roy said.
Another lawmaker calling for changes to FISA is Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who weighed in on the law Thursday morning with comments before the text was released.
“They’re asking for too little right now here on these FISA negotiations,” Massie said at a news conference. “It’s ‘mother may I, pretty please, give us some breadcrumb, some morsel in this FISA reauthorization to give us some hope that we’re not being spied on.’”
“What they should be addressing, comprehensively, is all of the ways that we’re being spied on, and they’re not,” he said.
Supporters of a clean reauthorization have pointed to changes passed last Congress during the last reauthorization of Section 702.
But privacy advocates argue the government has not followed key requirements outlined in the last reauthorization measure and has produced incomplete figures on searches tied to American information collected under Section 702.
The intelligence community has long argued Section 702 is indispensable to U.S. national security, saying it protects critical U.S. infrastructure, helps foil terrorist attacks and assists authorities in identifying foreign actors targeting people in the U.S.
Valerie Yurk contributed to this report.




