House Republicans walked out of a closed session late Wednesday afternoon, enraged by 19 Republicans who blocked the floor from considering a bill that would update the federal government’s critical surveillance tools.
“When you have a majority and the majority of members don’t support the rules and procedures established by the majority, you effectively hand over control to the minority party, and that’s what these members have to do,” said Congressman Andy Barr. That’s what we’re doing,” said Congressman Andy Barr. , Republican of Kentucky, told Fox News Digital.
This comes after a normally sleepy procedural vote known as a rules vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 Reform and Renewal Act failed 193-228 on Wednesday afternoon. This is the seventh time that a rules vote has been rejected in Congress. Prior to that, there hadn’t been a failed regulation vote in 20 years.
“What is frustrating to me here is that the same members who are trying to repeal this rule are also vocally advocating for FISA reform. I understand they are not thinking of those 56 reforms.”Go far enough…But even if you eliminate this rule and make it impossible to pass this basic reform bill.” , they won’t get anything,” Barr said.
Speaker Mike Johnson faced a major setback on Wednesday when 19 members of his own party voted in favor of blocking a bill to update key surveillance tools. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, Getty Images and Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto, Getty Images)
Conservative privacy hawks who criticized the bill were outraged by its handling of the bill, including its exclusion of an amendment that would have required a warrant to buy Americans’ data from third-party data brokers.
But Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., suggested the group’s tactics regarding the vote in the full House were taking it away from its actual goals.
“I think people are making good, outstanding arguments. The problem is in the way they speak. If you just scream, no one will listen to you anymore,” he said. “And I think a lot of good arguments have merit, but if you’re always crying wolf and everything’s a no, you’re undermining your own credibility.”
Votes on rules are typically held along partisan lines, with even lawmakers who oppose the bill voting to allow it to proceed if proposed by their own side. But a small faction in the razor-thin House Republican majority is weaponizing the rules vote to defeat their own party’s bills as a form of protest against their leaders.
“What I heard there was that they weren’t convinced about the underlying bill. The FISA bill itself was about 56 reforms and all that. That’s a good thing,” said another Republican. told FOX News Digital. “Why they voted against this rule is not because of the FISA bill itself. It was the process. They actually moved against it because they were not allowed to bring it to the floor. This is because it was an amendment that did not exist.”
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Rep. Greg Murphy (RN.C.) accused Republican lawmakers of being “crying wolves.” (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, via Getty Images)
Section 702 is a tool that allows the federal government to conduct warrantless surveillance of non-Americans in foreign countries suspected of having ties to terrorism, even if the person communicating with them is an American.
The battle, ahead of an April 19 expiration deadline, has left House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) at odds with the House Judiciary Committee and its allies, the U.S. intelligence community and national security hawks in Congress. is placed in a difficult position. While the former positions Section 702 as a tool of exploitation and invasion of privacy, the latter argues that Section 702 is a narrowly focused tool important for preventing terrorist attacks.
Another issue for Republican hardliners is Johnson’s opposition to a judicial Republican-backed amendment that would force the federal government to request warrants to query data about American citizens.
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House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.), one of the 19 Republicans who voted against the bill, told reporters: “It’s better for the bill to lapse than for it to not be amended properly. Some people want that,” he said.
But another Republican lawmaker who supports the bill argued that such an amendment would water down the purpose of the tool.
They explained that if a terrorist suspect overseas is communicating with a U.S. national at home, a Section 702 search would already detect specific communications with that U.S. national. Critics warn that the proposed amendments would require authorities to request a warrant before reviewing communications, potentially wasting valuable time in the event of a serious threat. .
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good was one of 19 Republicans who opposed the bill. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) suggested to reporters Wednesday night that letting Section 702 expire on April 19 would have dire consequences. “On April 20th, we will go blind,” he warned.
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“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation out there about FISA. FISA is not a mass data collection program. It’s not spying on Americans.” “The government collects data on foreign nationals abroad who represent a very small group of 250,000 people who pose a national security threat. We will not be able to see communications with people who are under security threat: ISIS, Hamas leaders, al-Qaeda leaders, unviable structures.”
It was not immediately clear what House Republican leadership’s next action would be. Multiple Republican senators told FOX News Digital that considerations include a short-term extension of the current Section 702 program, with both sides of the debate saying it is ripe for abuse or that the Senate They criticize the government for being forced to deliberate on a bill to update the
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Privacy hawks, on the other hand, want to allow votes on as many amendments as they’d like to ensure that all members have a say in shaping the legislation, even if they don’t pass the Democratic-controlled Senate. Prime Minister Johnson is being approached.
