Speaker Johnson pushes lawmakers to support FISA reauthorization vote next week

House Speaker Mike Johnson told lawmakers in a “dear colleague” letter that he would bring a bill to the floor that reauthorizes the government’s most powerful spying tool, pushing them to get behind the bill that overhauls the law but does not rein in warrantless surveillance of electronic communication abroad that sometimes snares Americans.

He assured lawmakers the overhaul would “strictly prohibit future abuses” such as a repeat of the FBI spying on the Trump campaign in 2016.

The bill, authored by Rep. Laurel Lee, Florida Republican, is known as the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America (RISA) Act. Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, described it as a “vital national security tool  [that provides] robust protections for the fundamental rights of Americans.”

The same bill was first introduced in February to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA. Mr. Johnson pulled from consideration amid fierce opposition from privacy hawks.

FISA’s Section 702, set to expire on April 19, grants the government broad powers to scoop up mass quantities of electronic communications to snoop for evidence of plots and dangers. Americans aren’t supposed to be targeted but can have communications snatched up and even searched without a warrant.

House lawmakers are scrambling to reauthorize the 1978 warrantless spy power that has divided Congress into two factions, those who will only support reauthorization of Section 702 if a warrant is issued by a court and security hawks who say that could jeopardize national security.

Another sticking point is a data broker loophole provision, which would prevent law enforcement from sidestepping the Fourth Amendment by outlawing the purchase of U.S. individuals’ data from brokers without a warrant.

Mr. Johnson said the Section 702 powers “have been essential to intercepting communications of dangerous foreign actors overseas, understanding the threats against our country, countering our adversaries, and saving countless American lives.”

“However, as a former constitutional law litigator and chair of the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, I can state unequivocally that the FBI terribly abused the FISA authority in recent years, and in turn, violated the trust and confidence of the American people,” he wrote in the letter.

The bill contains 56 changes establishing new procedures to rein in the FBI, increase accountability at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and impose penalties for wrongdoing.

These include:

• Requiring FBI personnel who conduct 702 queries to undergo annual training.

• Requiring prior approval from the deputy director of the FBI for queries involving sensitive matters such as involving a U.S. elected official, prominent political organizations, or media organizations.

• Requiring prior approval from an FBI attorney for queries involving a religious organization or someone prominent in a religious organization.

• Requiring FBI to prepare a prior written statement of factual basis supporting U.S. person query search.  

• Prohibiting political appointees from approving 702 queries by the FBI.

• Mandates disciplinary action, including termination or suspension without pay, for intentional misconduct in FISC or FISC-R proceedings.

• Requires FBI to establish minimum accountability standards for employees

• Makes FBI leadership compensation contingent upon compliance with U.S. person query requirements.

Mr. Johnson said that if RISA had been law when Donald Trump was running for election in 2016, the “baseless attack against his campaign would never have been possible.”

A December 2019 Justice Department Inspector General report said the FBI made “at least 17 significant errors or omissions” in its FISA applications to surveil Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign, over his purported ties to Russia.

Mr. Johnson said it was critically important that the House “succeed in passing these reforms next week because the April 19th expiration of FISA’s Section 702 authority is quickly approaching.”

“If our bill fails, we will be faced with an impossible choice and can expect the Senate to jam us with a clean extension that includes no reforms at all. That is clearly an unacceptable option.”

Mr. Johnson said lawmakers would discuss the FISA overhaul on Wednesday at both a Republican Conference meeting and an all-members classified briefing by intelligence community officials.