(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Despite all the bluster about protecting civil liberties, Congress voted on Thursday to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—the controversial law that allows agencies to spy on foreigners, but which often results in the surveillance of Americans’ communications.
Section 702 of FISA was set to expire by the year’s end, and the House Judiciary Committee had recently passed a bill that would require agencies such as the FBI to obtain warrants before searching information collected about Americans under Section 702.
However, FBI Director Chris Wray and numerous other intelligence officials opposed warrant requirements. Caving to that pressure, senior congressional leaders snuck a provision to extend Section 702 in the National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the military every year.
Faced with the choice of opposing FISA or voting to fund the military, most members of Congress voted for the latter. Section 702 is now extended until April.
In the House, most of the GOP Freedom Caucus voted against the NDAA. A notable exception was Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Co., who voted in favor of the military bill.
After the vote, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, voiced his frustrations at the inability to reform FISA.
“The fact of the matter is what’s being stated is it is impossible to oppose the National Defense Authorization Act because we put a pay raise in it or because we put something in there that is seemingly so important that we have to ignore the critical destruction of our civil liberties by adding FISA extension right on the top of it without doing the forms necessary to protect the American people,” he said, according to The Hill.
“We do this every year.”
The American Civil Liberties Union also put out a statement, calling the vote “disheartening.”
“As long as Section 702 is being used by the government to spy on Americans without a warrant, we will continue to fight this unconstitutional law and work with Congress to strengthen our Fourth Amendment protections against government surveillance,” the ACLU said.
The one happy party is the national security state. Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general for the National Security Division, reportedly said he was “relieved” by the vote.
“We cannot afford to be blinded to the many threats we face from foreign adversaries,” he said, according to The Hill.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
