The House voted Friday to renew the government’s most important spying tool without any major change, giving the country’s intelligence community the powers it wanted.
Lawmakers shot down an attempt to add a new warrant requirement before the FBI can scour the data looking for American citizens’ identities, with a majority of the House agreeing with intelligence officials that it would be too dangerous to make the government have to take that step.
Drama surrounded the warrant proposal vote, which ultimately failed after a tied 212-212 vote. The bill passed on a 273-147 vote.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is what gives the government the ability to scoop up vast amounts of electronic data from foreigners living abroad, though Americans’ communications can be scooped up if they are communicating with foreign targets. Problems arise when the FBI wants to run an American’s identity against the data.
The bill’s backers said adding a warrant would have blinded the government at a time when worldwide threats are increasing.
“What they want is a warrant to search the inbox and outbox of Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and the Communist Chinese Party when they are communicating with people in the United States,” said Rep. Michael Turner, Ohio Republican and chair of the House intelligence committee. “This is dangerous.”
But opponents pointed to a history of abuses, including searches run on American protesters and political campaign donors.
“Searching Americans’ private communications in the 702 database, communications they would not otherwise have access to without a warrant, is the constitutional equivalent of conducting a warrantless search,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat.
Section 702 was first approved in 2008 and needs to be reauthorized regularly.
The current authorization runs through April 19, which means the Senate must pass the bill next week to avoid a lapse.
The bill’s passage is a significant win for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who for months struggled to cobble together a winning coalition. A key moment came when he agreed to cut the next renewal target for the law from five years to two years, giving opponents another chance to force changes much earlier.
However, lawmakers who were upset that the warrant requirement failed used a procedural motion on Friday to prevent the bill from going to the Senate.
The House will have to hold a vote Monday on the motion to reconsider — a virtual redo of the vote to pass the bill — before it goes to the Senate for final passage.
The legislation makes 56 changes to current law, including increased accountability at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and imposing criminal penalties for wrongdoing.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said those changes largely codify improvements he’s already made internally.
But he fought vehemently against the idea of a warrant, saying it would be too cumbersome in cases when the bureau can get one, and pointing to times when he said the bureau wouldn’t be able to get one at all.
He told of one plot the FBI uncovered last year where agents knew a terrorism suspect overseas had contact with someone the FBI thought was already in the U.S. Agents queried the person and uncovered a person who’d already amassed weapons and bomb-making materials and had circled targets.
“There is no judge on the planet that would have given us a warrant based on what we knew at the time,” Mr. Wray told Congress this week.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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