Speaker Johnson to vote against warrant requirement for FISA spying on Americans

House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to vote against requiring the government to get a warrant when using its power to spy on email, phone calls and texts, a lawmaker close to the speaker told The Washington Times.

Mr. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, had been caught between two factions of lawmakers, privacy hawks and national security hawks, fighting over a warrant requirement for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires on April 19.

The House is expected to vote this weed on a bill to reauthorize FISA, which allows the U.S. to capture electronic communications by foreigners abroad and sometimes inadvertently capture Americans’ data.

While the legislation has several changes to how the FBI and intelligence community use that power, it does not include a warrant requirement, an element the FBI did not want in the bill.

Lawmakers are expected to get a chance to add the warrant requirement through the amendment process on the House floor.

While Mr. Johnson, the source said, is not expected to vote for the warrant requirement, he does not plan to whip against it either.

Mr. Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.

Section 702 allows the government to pick up large amounts of digital data from foreigners living abroad. Americans’ communications can be scooped up if they are communicating with foreign targets.

The controversy arises when the FBI wants to run an American’s identity against the data without a warrant, and the agency has been shown to abuse the power routinely in the past.