The House of Representatives passed a bill to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on Friday, setting up a Senate vote on the issue before it expires. This legislation allows the government to surveil foreigners with suspected terror links without a warrant, including collecting communications of foreign targets that may involve Americans. The bill has caused a divide between privacy and national security hawks within the GOP, with some seeing it as essential for preventing another 9/11-style attack while others seek to limit its scope due to concerns of abuse in collecting data on Americans.
The House Judiciary Committee supported an amendment requiring a warrant to query Americans’ data collected under Section 702, which opponents argued could hinder the intelligence community’s ability to quickly detect major threats. The amendment ultimately failed to pass in a tied vote, with a critical vote against it cast by Rand Paul. The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America (RISA) Act, a compromise effort aimed at narrowing who can access communications collected and making the misuse of that data a crime, was also critiqued by conservatives for not going far enough to protect Americans’ data.
Opposition to the bill included a group of 19 conservative privacy hawks who initially sunk the House GOP’s chance at passing it earlier in the week. These conservatives were particularly upset about the exclusion of an amendment that would have required the government to seek a warrant before buying Americans’ data from third parties. Former President Donald Trump also pushed back on the RISA bill, declaring “KILL FISA” on social media. House GOP leaders have promised a standalone vote on the excluded amendment, though the timing remains unclear.
The legislation modifies the Section 702 reauthorization window from five years to two years, allowing for a potential review of the tool early in the next presidential term, likely under a Trump or Biden administration. The bill, known as the RISA Act, aims to strike a balance between protecting Americans’ data and national security interests. However, its passage has faced challenges due to concerns about the misuse of collected data and calls for stricter protections for Americans’ privacy. The debate over the bill has sparked tensions within the GOP, as lawmakers navigate competing interests between national security and civil liberties.
