US lawmakers have passed a bill reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a law which allows the government to surveil American citizens without a warrant. A small group of Republicans previously blocked the vote but allowed it to proceed following a minor amendment to the law.
The two-year extension passed the House on Friday in a bipartisan vote of 273-147, with 126 Republicans and 147 Democrats supporting the bill, which will now proceed to the Senate. Though lawmakers also debated an amendment that would have forced federal agencies to obtain warrants before spying on Americans, it failed in a tie vote.
“This is how the Constitution dies… This is a sad day for America,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie said after the amendment went “down in flames.” He noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson provided the tie-breaking vote to kill the warrant requirement.
Though Johnson was once a vocal critic of FISA’s Section 702 – which handed US intelligence agencies sweeping powers to spy on Americans in the wake of the 9/11 attacks – he quickly reversed course after his promotion to House speaker.
“When I was a member of [the House Judiciary Committee], I saw all of the abuses of the FBI – there were terrible abuses, over and over and over,” Johnson told reporters earlier this week, explaining his about-face.
“And then when I became speaker, I… got the confidential briefing from sort of the other perspective on that, to understand the necessity of Section 702 of FISA and how important it is for national security. And it gave me a different perspective,” he added.
Fellow Republicans have been critical of Johnson’s abrupt 180, with Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz saying the speaker’s opposition to FISA was a view he “deeply held, like, 20 minutes ago.” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has gone further, threatening to advance a vote to oust Johnson from his position over his support for FISA, among other complaints.
The White House also worked to kill the warrant amendment, with both Attorney General Merrick Garland and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reaching out to lawmakers on Friday morning to urge them to vote it down, according to unnamed sources cited by NBC News.
The senior officials argued the amendment would make the United States “less safe,” and would prevent the government “from accessing lawfully collected information already in its possession to identify and disrupt critical threats to the American people.”
Friday’s vote followed heated debate over whether to extend the warrantless spying authorities, with a group of Republicans led by Rep. Gaetz resisting the move. During a procedural vote earlier this week, 19 GOP lawmakers blocked the bill from advancing, as Gaetz said the measure lacked “essential reforms to protect Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.”
However, the original bill was modified to extend the FISA authorities for a period of two years instead of five, which appeared to appease the GOP holdouts, including Gaetz. He later argued that should Donald Trump win the November presidential election; the two-year limit would allow his administration to “fix the system.”
Will Porter is assistant news editor at the Libertarian Institute and a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. Find more of his work at Consortium News and ZeroHedge.
Disgusting.
Roll call, vote the bums out:
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024119
I keep trying and he keeps winning.
On the key vote on the amendment to require a court warrant, the amendment failed 212-212. 13 people were recorded as not voting. Any one of them could have put it over the top. Call them first. Each one.
Babin
Gallego
González-Colón
Grijalva
Lesko
Luetkemeyer
Mooney
Payne
Perez
Plaskett
Radewagen
Strickland
Wittman
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024114
Benjamin Franklin said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety
Yes … what happened to “land of the free” and “give me liberty or give me death”?
Never much more than rhetoric and propaganda.
Yes, the U.S. as we knew it, at least what we thought was the U.S. has been buried and is waiting for the last couple shovels of dirt to be thrown on the cadaver.
I dunno … there was an independence and a roughness of spirit to the Americans of the 19th century and maybe even as late as the 1940s … I don’t think the Covid nonsense would have been tolerated back then.
But perhaps you’re right. We tend to overcount the Thoreaus and Menckens and undercount the many many more who played along to get along in every era.
A dense population density will want more government involvement.
A diverse society is a lower trust society and so wants more government protection.
A transient society has weaker bonds of community and so wants more centralised control.
You could probably map out the changes.
If I live in a cabin on raw land where I’m at risk from attack by Amerindians and criminals and where I depend on myself and can do most anything, I’ll be independent. However, if I live in a city where every conversation or action is recorded and uploaded, where the city provides a net and security, etc, then I’ll be dependent and obedient.
Liberty….NO. Death… no problem. We got a war for that.
It’s their safety, not ours. They want to make sure no one is gaining in mass activism against their corruption and crimes.
The USA has self transmogrified into the USSR.
With decrepit aging leadership too.
Our uniparty police state.
The Bipartisan Party. Coming to a ballot near you !
Vote for Nobody or Uncommitted. Turnout is the figure that counts. When the largest turnout in history writes in None of the Above, we the people will have nonviolently created the power to make a more perfect union and move the capitol.
“When I was a member of [the House Judiciary Committee], I saw all of the abuses of the FBI – there were terrible abuses, over and over and over,” Johnson told reporters earlier this week, explaining his about-face.“And then when I became speaker, I… got the confidential briefing from sort of the other perspective on that, to understand the necessity of Section 702 of FISA and how important it is for national security. And it gave me a different perspective,” he added.
He went from over and over and over again to it being necessary. Exactly what are the rest of the House members being fed if you don’t get the truth until you become speaker. And what made those TERRIBLE abuses he saw when he was on the House Judiciary Committee less terrible. Shouldn’t everyone get the confidential briefing if changes a person’s perspective 180 degrees? But sure Mike, we’ll take your word for it.
How the managerial state captures the decision makers … and if you resist, they have six ways from Sunday to make you regret it, as Schumer put it re Trump.
You’d have thought he was smart enough to leave out the “over and over and over” again and the “terrible” abuses if he was going to tell everyone he changed his mind.
Johnson got a “confidential briefing” that told him, “Vote for this – or we expose your peccadilloes.” The FBI and CIA have something on virtually everyone in Congress, have no doubt.
Ahhh, you get that vibe too, hey ?
I wonder what they have on Grijalva and the other abstainers.
Once something is put on the books it will become extremely difficult to remove.
And extremely easy for Their Guy to (ab)use at will.
It reminds me of someone telling me years ago how the Patriot Act would only be used on Muslims not “people like us.” Yea right…
Their guys. There’s only one political party left in the dimwitted hope for humanity.
Every one of these traitors regardless of party, should be voted out of office for this.
“And then when I became speaker, I… got the confidential briefing from sort of the other perspective on that, to understand the necessity of Section 702 of FISA and how important it is for national security. And it gave me a different perspective,” (Johnson) added.
We sure that J. Edgar is dead ? This seems like a “Mr. Speaker, our Agents obtained these photos of you…” kind of about-face.
Religious Republicans (or did I repeat myself ?) often have skeletons in the closet, but, Johnson strikes me as the sort to have a whole ossuary.
Bribes work too.
And the same people who arm twisted to ensure Congress let it through will tell you fascism is coming if they lose power. “You must vote for us because we’ve enabled future despots to spy on you.”
This is somewhat outdated just because neighbors spy on and record each other, now. You can’t say anything controversial in your house, in your car, or outside of those. People are expected to work, consume, and “participate in democracy” without the ability to discuss topics.
It should now be called Demonocracy
And so it goes…how did the Constitution die? Slowly, gradually, then all at once.
“The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of “freedom”.
Joseph Sobran
The Congress of the USA, oafs and ostriches. The administration? oligarchs and aged ogres.
Democracy is a farce, how much longer and it will be a failed Democracy?
Never was.
Yes, democracies seem to destroy themselves with an ‘excess of democracy’. And the death of a democracy can be just if not more violent than the death of other forms of government.
You are right, even Democracy needs common sense regulation. (Sorry, I keep repeating “common sense” over, and over again, only because our governing officials don’t have any)
A global military empire cannot coexist with democracy because the former requires a secret government, while the latter needs “a government of the people, by the people and for the people“, as President Lincoln said.
The Congress of the USA, oafs and ostriches. The administration? oligarchs and aged ogres.
The new Gestapo?…. Well, seems like it to me.
Memory police. Readjustment Bureau.
Marching down the road toward a fascist state. Weaponized FBI, CIA, DOJ, and the rest of the American government taken over by evil unelected criminals.
And you lot witter on about the Chinese and Russian govts spying on their people?
America the land of the not so free after all , and the if you don`t have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear was first uttered by none other than JOSEPH GOEBBELS ADOLF HITLERS PROPAGANDA MINISTER .
How does forcing the government to get a warrant before seeing Americans’ information harm national security? If their requests are honest, they will get what they need.