Senate approves extension of FISA surveillance just after deadline

The Senate passed a two-year reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) warrantless surveillance program early Saturday morning, after hours of intense and sometimes acrimonious debate on the Senate floor. I narrowly avoided going dark.

Senators voted 60-34 to send the bill to President Biden’s desk shortly after the midnight deadline to expire expanded surveillance powers.

The bill would extend the government’s ability to spy on foreign nationals overseas for two more years, and the process would also scrutinize communications of Americans with whom they have contact.

The bill, the Information Reform and Securing America Act, enacts a number of reforms to Section 702 of FISA, although it falls short of the expectations of privacy hawks.

“This is not a complete reauthorization of existing legislation. This is a reform bill that fixes many of the problems we experienced with Section 702,” said Senate Intelligence Committee member John Cornyn. Sen. (R-Texas) pointed out on the floor Friday.

The bill targets what privacy hardliners see as the FBI’s misuse of the 702 database, sharply narrowing the number of people who can approve queries, from about 10,000 people to just 550. It also establishes post-auditing of queries involving the United States. Increases civil and criminal penalties if tools are found to be misused.

It also codifies several FBI reforms aimed at curbing abuse, with 702 The number of Americans searched in the database has dropped significantly.

“If passed, the reforms contained in this bill would be the most comprehensive reforms ever enacted,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.).

However, there are skeptics as to whether these measures are sufficient.

The debate over the bill stems from deep rifts within both parties over the 15-year-old plan, which supporters praise as essential to national security and critics argue is a gross violation of Americans’ right to privacy. exposed the cracks.

The FISA surveillance program briefly appeared to be expiring until Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York announced a breakthrough on the Senate floor shortly after 9 p.m. Friday.

“All day long, we persevered and persevered, hoping to reach a breakthrough. I’m glad we got it,” Schumer declared on the floor in relief.

“Allowing FISA to lapse would have been dangerous. It is a critical part of the national security toolkit, helping law enforcement stop terrorist attacks, drug trafficking, and violent extremism.” he said.

Schumer faces fierce opposition from within his caucus, including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who will “do everything in his power to prevent passage in the Senate.” I swore.

Wyden and other critics argued that law enforcement agencies are abusing the expanded surveillance powers granted to them under Section 702 of FISA.

“Investigations are underway of American protesters, political campaign donors, and even people who simply reported crimes to the FBI. Abuse is widespread and well-documented,” Wyden said. he argued to his colleagues.

He proposed an amendment that would strike down language added in the House that expanded the types of companies that would be forced to comply with government oversight requests.

Privacy hardliners say the House’s draft language is poorly drafted and would recruit a wide range of companies for espionage.

But Wyden’s attack failed, 34-58.

Schumer also faced threats from Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin of Illinois. Mr. Durbin worked with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R.N.D.) on an amendment that would require the government to obtain a warrant before reviewing collaterally collected communications from Americans. .

The proposed changes were a top priority for privacy hawks, who said intelligence agencies would water down their tools and prevent them from acting on information in real time. It was rejected by a vote of 42-50.

The House-passed bill had strong support from members of the Senate Republican leadership, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Cornyn.

McConnell argued on the Senate floor that the House should expand the types of electronic communications covered by the law because “the internet was in the dark ages” when it was first enacted.

Cornyn, a member of McConnell’s leadership team, called FISA’s expanded surveillance powers “the most important piece of legislation that most Americans have never heard of,” calling it “the intelligence agency that protects the American people from all threats.” He praised it as an indispensable tool.

Republican leaders clashed with conservatives in the conference, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who both tried to amend the bill, forcing them to change it. He threatened to extend the debate beyond Friday’s deadline. You will have the opportunity to vote on changes.

Paul argues that the FISA program undermines Americans’ right to due process, while Lee said the House-passed bill has “more problems than a math book.”

“If passed, this bill would dramatically increase egregious Fourth Amendment violations against the American people,” Lee warned.

Paul proposed an amendment that would prohibit intelligence and law enforcement agencies from purchasing data on Americans from third-party vendors, and strict limits on surveillance of Americans under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. proposed an amendment to impose the

Both proposals were rejected by votes of 31-61 and 11-82, respectively.

Mr. Lee proposed an amendment that would require the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to appoint outside counsel to advocate for the rights of Americans the government wants to secretly monitor. It would also have required government officials appearing in FISA courts to disclose factual evidence that could cast doubt on the accuracy of their statements.

It also passed the Senate with 77 votes in 2020, but was rejected.

The sweeping bill, which passed the House 273-147 a week ago, expands the use of Section 702, including a House-passed amendment that would allow the use of tools to vet people entering the country as travelers or immigrants. Contains clauses.

The provision’s sponsor, Rep. Mike Walz (R-Fla.), said it would allow the government to “look into your background and make sure you’re not a terrorist.”

And the bill expands on other sections of FISA that provide a framework for conducting domestic surveillance, all of which were added to address the 2016 spying on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. It was done.

Unlike Section 702, domestic espionage requires a warrant, and under this law law enforcement agencies cannot use investigations of political opponents or media reports to apply for a warrant.

Although this targeted two issues underlying the spy warrant against Page, a later investigation concluded that the FBI did not include evidence that contradicted the premise of trying to monitor Page.

Another controversial provision in the bill includes a provision to notify some lawmakers about investigations in which they are involved, which critics have called “for me, not for you.” He explains that it is for protection.

The bill was approved in the House after 19 Republicans took a procedural vote to move the bill forward, a move that did not win any of their policy demands.

But House conservative rebels persuaded Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) to extend FISA 702 for just two years, instead of the original five years originally provided for in the bill.