A proposal to renew section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) cleared the House of Representatives by a vote of 259-128 on Monday, and it is now heading to the Senate.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) had put forward an amendment requiring the authorities to acquire a warrant before accessing information collected on American citizens using FISA, but it was unsuccessful. The Joe Biden regime opposed the amendment, despite FISA’s defenders insisting it is a tool to surveil foreigners rather than U.S. citizens.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) expressed strong disapproval of FISA’s renewal, noting that “the program has been abused to spy on American citizens in direct violation of American liberty and the 4th Amendment” and that “[t]he FISA court found that the federal government violated its own rules over 278,000 times.”
“The swamp won today. The intel bros, uniparty, and deep state won two more years of warrantless surveillance,” she posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Donald Trump had been FISA’s most high-profile opponent, and his intervention helped defeat another attempt to reauthorize it earlier this month.
“KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Following this initial defeat, Trump said at a joint press conference with Speaker Johnson that, while he was “not a big fan of FISA,” House Republicans “put a lot of checks and balances on and I guess it’s down to two years now so that it would come due in the early part of my administration.”
The former president was referring to changes to the initial bill requiring FISA to be renewed again in two years rather than five.