Tag: fisa

Amendment to end warrantless surveillance up for vote as FISA renewal bill moves to House floor

Abill to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is moving to the House floor for a final vote, likely to take place by Thursday, and an amendment to end warrantless surveillance will be considered by the full House of Representatives.

The “Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act” would extend Section 702 of FISA for 5 years, which “permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States,” according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans have teamed up in an effort to include a warrant requirement in the FISA renewal bill. Some members have said they would oppose a bill to reauthorize FISA without a provision to end warrantless surveillance. 

The Brennan Center for Justice and other organizations wrote a letter on April 5 urging lawmakers to vote in favor of amendments to the bill that will require a warrant.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., former chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who sponsored amendments to the FISA reauthorization bill related to the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the federal government from conducting “unreasonable searches and seizures.” One of those amendments to the bill includes requiring law enforcement to obtain a warrant before executing a “U.S. person query” for foreign intelligence collection under Section 702 of FISA. The current law has no such requirement.

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CIA Wants Congress to Expand Top-Secret Eavesdropping Program To ‘Fight Against Fentanyl Crisis’

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), along with other members of the U.S. intelligence community, are pushing for Congress to expand Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 in order to fight the ongoing fentanyl crisis.

According to the Brennan Center of Justice, Section 702, “Authorizes the government to collect the communications of non-Americans located abroad without a warrant from a court. While this surveillance is supposed to target foreigners, it inevitably sweeps in Americans’ private phone calls, emails, and text messages too.”

USA Today has reported that top CIA officials spent most of 2023-2024 urging members of Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the FISA Act of 1978.

However, CIA officials believe in its current form, Section 702 limits the intelligence community from targeting everyone involved in the fentanyl trade overseas and are advocating lawmakers to expand Section 702 so U.S. spies will have more liberty when it comes to going after criminals engaged in the fentanyl trade.

Many lawmakers are skeptical of expanding Section 702 due to the CIA previously misusing the law to spy on American citizens.

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Did the Leak of Alleged Russia National Security Threat Kill The Bill To Reform Warrantless Surveillance?

The contentious US surveillance program’s reauthorization faced a major setback over the last week. The United States House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) played a pivotal role in derailing the process, leading to a stalemate that hindered any progress before Congress’s focus shifts to the impending government shutdown in March.

Negotiations between opposing House committees unraveled on Wednesday when HPSCI members, instead of participating in a key meeting, chose to derail a pre-agreed plan for a “compromise” bill. This development came as a blow to months of efforts aimed at renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial intelligence tool that has, despite promises not to, has allowed the warrantless surveillance of US citizens.

This deadlock in Congress has left the intelligence community in disarray and pushed security advocates to defend surveillance practices, despite their acknowledged susceptibility to misuse.

Key insiders reveal that HPSCI leaders reneged on a privately negotiated deal after lengthy discussions. As reported by Wired, these sources, who requested anonymity, indicated that the collapse of the deal was due to an amendment proposal. This amendment aimed to stop the government from buying information from US companies without a warrant, focusing particularly on cell phone location data often used for tracking individuals.

HPSCI Chair Mike Turner was at the center of this upheaval. He skipped a critical hearing that took place on Wednesday, where lawmakers were to set the voting rules. His absence, coupled with HPSCI’s failure to file necessary amendments, signaled a lack of commitment to the process. Concurrently, Turner was reportedly involved in private discussions with House Speaker Mike Johnson, threatening to torpedo the bill he had previously endorsed.

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Republican Majority Rewarded FBI-DOJ for Breaking the Law – Approved FISA Process Through Next Election Cycle

Former Defense Department Chief of Staff Kash Patel joined Maria Bartiromo this morning along with Attorney Alan Dershowitz to discuss political hitman Jack Smith and his political maneuvers to take down Donald Trump.

During their conversation Kash Patel reminded the FOX News audience that Republicans just voted to reauthorize the FISA Program through the 2024 election that was used to spy on President Trump by the FBI in 2016 and beyond.

It is well known today that the FBI knowingly and willfully lied to the FISA Court to spy on the Trump Campaign in 2016 and later on his administration and even family members.

Kash Patel: Yeah, it’s great to be with you, Maria. Look, the biggest concern I have going forward is the politicization and weaponization and creation of a two tier system of justice as a result. Back when Devin Nunes and I ran the Russia gate investigation and exposed the FISA corruption, we recommended a slew of fixes. So it never happened again. Unfortunately, Congress chose to allow 702 FISA to basically be reauthorized.

What does that mean? What is 702? It’s fancy for foreign intelligence surveillance. It means me, as a former national security prosecutor and intelligence operative, would go overseas and manhunt terrorists. That’s what it’s for. But the FISA court, in April of 2022, publicized an opinion that said the FBI used it illegally 275,000 times domestically against Americans, 16 different occasions against those affiliated with, January 6, 19,000 times domestically against donors to a congressional campaign, and, wait for it, 24,000 separate times against Americans and groups in and around January 6.

That FISA process has been turned on its head, redirected inwards. And anyone who says, oh, that’s just a Republican conspiracy speak, that’s the FISA court that rescinded Rod Rosenstein’s illegal surveillance of Donald Trump twice based on our investigation. And now they do it again, and they prove the FBI and DOJ have weaponized justice. And the Republican leadership in Congress allowed it to be reauthorized, essentially through the next election cycle…

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