Ace Security Desk – House approves reauthorization of warrantless spy powers

The House on Wednesday approved the renewal of the nation’s warrantless spy powers in a 235-191 vote that cleared the chamber with support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The bill, which would renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), still has to clear the Senate, another challenging hurdle before the powers expire on April 30.

Section 702 of FISA allows the government to spy on foreigners located abroad, but it has long generated calls to include a warrant requirement before reviewing any information collected on Americans who communicate with overseas targets.

The measure passed by the House on Wednesday includes modest reforms to the program, including allowing a larger pool of lawmakers to review information presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It extends Section 702 for three years — longer than the 18-month request initially made by President Trump.

But those changes were not enough to win over privacy hawks on both sides of the aisle, a dynamic likely to replay itself in the Senate.

This year also saw a greater number of Democrats who opposed renewing Section 702, with many arguing the Trump administration could not be trusted not to abuse the powerful spy tool.

While 147 Democrats voted to renew Section 702 in 2024, this year just 42 did. And while 88 Republicans opposed FISA when it was last considered, this time just 22 did – a sign of Trump’s influence on the issue.

“This bill is a three-year permission slip and blessing for the Trump administration and the next administration to keep abusing the sweeping FISA Section 702 surveillance authority to spy on American citizens’ private communications, and to violate the privacy rights of the people,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Trump’s second term has seen numerous reversals since Section 702 was last renewed in 2024, with House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a longtime proponent of adding a warrant requirement, now leading the charge to renew the bill without one.

“It ain’t the same FISA,” Jordan said Wednesday, touting a package of 56 reforms included in the 2024 bill, including requiring a supervisor to approve any FBI searches on Americans.

“We’re beginning to see the effect of those reforms. In the year after [the 2024 bill] was passed, the FBI reported conducting 9,089 U.S. person queries. Of those, roughly 9,000 queries, just 127 did not comply with the rules. … That’s real improvement. That’s a different program.”

Other Republicans were direct in saying that Trump being in the White House had changed their minds in favor of reauthorization.

“I’m convinced that this has been fixed,” House Rules Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who voted against FISA renewal in 2024, said Tuesday. 

“As long as we have Republicans in office, I believe it is fixed.”  

Numerous GOP lawmakers have been vocal critics of renewing Section 702 without a warrant, however none of them spoke out on the House floor Wednesday after pushing the body to repeatedly reconsider the legislation.

Section 702 had a complex path to the House floor, with GOP leaders punting initial plans to consider the legislation earlier this year. Amid a scramble to meet the initial April 20 expiration deadline, a prior proposal to reauthorize it failed on the House floor, with some GOP hardliners who had negotiated the package voting against it. In the chaos, both parties agreed to approve a 10-day extension.

With the extended deadline, GOP leaders crafted a new proposal, which also requires greater review of Section 702 queries on Americans by a civil liberties division within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The FBI will also have to report to the division each month, explaining the rationale behind any query of an American. It also increases the criminal penalty for intelligence officers that improperly use FISA. 

Though support for Section 702 doesn’t split cleanly along party lines, during floor debate Wednesday, only Democrats spoke in favor of the bill, while GOP figures who have been major critics of renewing Section 702 without a warrant requirement did not make that pitch on the floor.

“In my decade on the House Intelligence Committee, I’ve seen countless, countless instances where the intelligence obtained through Section 702 quite literally saved lives. Section 702 is the single most important foreign intelligence collection authority we have, and every day – every day – it is used by apolitical professionals throughout the [intelligence community] and apolitical professionals at the FBI to keep Americans safe here and abroad. There is no way to replace the value that Section 702 provides,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the panel, said during debate.

“We have seen no evidence that this administration is misusing Section 702, but nonetheless, we must remain hyper vigilant, given the other abuses that we have seen from this administration,” Himes said, adding that he doesn’t trust FBI Director Kash Patel “any more than my Democratic colleagues do.”

As a condition for securing votes from members of the House Freedom Caucus, the GOP agreed to attach a bill previously passed by the House that bars the Federal Reserve to establish a central bank digital currency (CBDC), something Republican privacy hawks say would give the government the ability to track consumer spending.  

That bill would be “engrossed” to the Section 702 bill before it goes to the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday that FISA is “dead on arrival” if it included the CBDC provision.

The Senate can remove that provision and send the bill back to the House. Language included in a rules package approved by the House allows the Speaker to call up bills through a fast-track suspension of the rules process through this Friday – a tool normally only available Monday through Wednesday, and a sign House leaders expect to come back and quickly approve a Senate bill that does not include the provision. 

Wednesday’s final vote, however, fell short of the 290 that would be needed to pass the bill on suspension, raising further questions about the ability to secure passage of the Section 702 renewal.

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