A controversial US wiretapping program that was just days away from expiring has cleared a major hurdle toward reauthorization.
After months of delays, false starts and interventions by lawmakers committed to preserving and expanding the spying powers of the U.S. intelligence community, the House of Representatives voted Friday to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years.
A bill to extend the program – controversial because it was abused by the government – passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 273-147. The Senate has yet to pass its own bill.
Section 702 allows the U.S. government to intercept communications between Americans and foreign nationals abroad. Hundreds of millions of calls, text messages and emails are intercepted by government spies, each with the “coercive assistance” of US communications providers.
The government may severely target foreigners believed to have “foreign intelligence,” but it also eavesdrops on the conversations of untold numbers of Americans each year. (The government claims it is impossible to determine how many Americans are being targeted by the program.) The government argues that Americans themselves are not being targeted and therefore the wiretapping is legal. Still, their calls, text messages and emails can be stored by the government for years and later viewed by law enforcement without a judge’s permission.
The House bill also dramatically expands the legal definition of communications service providers, something FISA experts, including Marc Zwillinger – one of the few advisors to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) – have publicly warned about.
“Anti-reformers not only reject common-sense reforms of FISA, they also push for a wholesale expansion of unauthorized spying on Americans,” U.S. Senator Ron Wyden tells WIRED. “Your amendment would force your cable guy to be a government spy and help monitor Americans’ communications without a warrant.”
The FBI’s track record of abusing the program sparked a rare détente last fall between progressive Democrats and pro-Trump Republicans — both equally concerned that the FBI was targeting activists, journalists and a sitting member of Congress. But in a major victory for the Biden administration, House members voted earlier in the day against an amendment that would have imposed new warrant requirements for federal authorities to access Americans’ 702 data.
“Many members who supported this vote have long voted for this specific privacy protection,” said Sean Vitka, policy director at the civil rights nonprofit Demand Progress, “including former Speaker Pelosi, Representative Lieu and Representative Neguse.”
The warrant change was passed earlier this year by the House Judiciary Committee, whose longstanding jurisdiction over FISA has been challenged by friends in the intelligence community. A Brennan Center analysis this week found that 80 percent of the basic text of the FISA reauthorization bill was written by members of the Intelligence Committee.
“This information database was searched through the data of three million Americans,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “The FBI didn’t even follow its own rules when it conducted these searches. That’s why we need an arrest warrant.”
Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, fought for months alongside top spy officials to reject the warrant changes, saying they would cost the office valuable time and hamper national security investigations. The communications were being collected lawfully and were already in the government’s possession, Turner argued; No further authorization should be required for the test.