House Republicans punt Section 702 renewal... again

The Republican-led House on Wednesday ditched its latest effort to advance legislation to reauthorize a major foreign surveillance tool, the latest reflection of deep divisions among GOP lawmakers.

The abrupt decision was made as the House Rules Committee was holding a hearing on a bill to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, along with amendments that could have set up several divisive floor votes between security and privacy hawks on Thursday.

“In order to allow Congress more time to reach consensus on how best to reform FISA and Section 702 while maintaining the integrity of our critical national security programs, the House will consider the reform and reauthorization bill at a later date,” Raj Shah, a spokesman for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), shared on X.

In order to allow Congress more time to reach consensus on how best to reform FISA and Section 702 while maintaining the integrity of our critical national security programs, the House will consider the reform and reauthorization bill at a later date.

— Raj Shah (@RajShahDC) February 14, 2024

The announcement ends what policymakers on both sides of the aisle considered a hasty push to extend Section 702, which is intended to target foreign intelligence targets but sweeps up the information of an unknown number of Americans. The spying powers will expire on April 19 without congressional action.

The House Judiciary and Intelligence committees each passed measures to reauthorize the authority last year. Johnson initially planned to bring both to the floor under a rarely used procedure where each would get a vote, but without the ability to amend them, and the winner would go to the Senate.

That proposal, too, fell apart amid divisions within the GOP Conference.

The Rules panel was considering a new, negotiated FISA bill drawn from the two previous bills but more closely resembled the legislation approved by the Intelligence Committee.

Judiciary and Intel leaders also sought floor votes on six amendments on the amalgam bill.

The more privacy-minded Judiciary members wanted a warrant requirement for the FBI to search for information on U.S. persons gathered in the NSA’s 702 database; close certain loopholes that allow data brokers to sell consumer data to law enforcement and federal agencies; and codify the end so-called “about” collection, the practice of gathering up digital communications that merely mention foreign surveillance targets. NSA ended the practice in 2017.

Speaking before the Rules panel, Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jerry Nadler (NY), the panel’s top Democrat, said the warrant requirement was imperative after a string of recent revelations that the FBI conducted tens of thousands of improper searches of the NSA database for data on Americans.

“If the warrant requirement doesn’t go in the legislation, I ain’t supporting it,” Jordan said.

Upon hearing the latest push had been abandoned, Jordan told reporters it was “disappointing because you saw how good this meeting went.”

Meanwhile, the Intelligence Committee wanted three amendments of its own, including one that would have allowed 702 to be used to vet immigrants crossing U.S. borders.

The panel’s leaders did not have the chance to appear before Rules as the rest of the hearing was canceled.