Fourth time's the charm: House passes controversial spying bill after bitter infighting

WASHINGTON – The fourth time (yes, the fourth) was the charm for House Republicans when the lower chamber of Congress on a bipartisan basis voted to renew a controversial spying law, not without plenty of hiccups along the way.

The House approved reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, by a vote of 273-147, on Friday, with most of the bill’s dissenters coming from the body’s civil-liberty minded ultraconservative and progressive factions.

The law’s strongest advocates come from the intelligence committee, who say FISA's warrantless surveillance provisions are essential to protecting national security.

The final product wasn’t enough to completely satisfy most of the conservative hardliners that have long been a thorn in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s side. But they ultimately settled on a change to the program’s regular expiration date to two years from five years. They did that with the hope of enacting significant reforms later down the line should Donald Trump win back the White House in 2024 and be positioned through his administration to shape the contours of the next version of legislation.

Among the major sticking points that created headaches for Johnson and his fellow GOP leaders was a portion of the law called Section 702, which allows U.S. authorities to surveil communications of foreigners outside the United States.

That surveillance is later collected into a database for authorities to search without a warrant. But because those foreigners often contact Americans, domestic data is also swept up in collection as well.

Section 702’s opponents heavily pushed for a warrant requirement, claiming it was necessary for American’s privacy rights. The law’s supporters, though, pointed to other reforms made to FISA to prevent abuses and argued a warrant requirement would neuter the program.

“The constitutional liberties of Americans have to come first, we don’t suspend the constitution for anything,” Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said on the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday, flanked by his like-minded colleagues. “That has to be the premium, protecting American’s constitutional liberties.”

Against conservative opposition, Johnson defended Section 702 at a weekly news conference, saying “it’s a critically important piece of our intelligence and law enforcement.” Before becoming speaker last October, Johnson was also a conservative critic of the law but said that classified briefings on the law have given him a “different perspective.”

House Republicans were trying to lead on FISA renewal for months, but the issue revealed deep divisions within the GOP conference and forced Johnson to pull consideration of FISA from the House two times a few months prior due to infighting. The disagreements prompted Congress to temporarily extend the program until April 19.

The House returned this week expecting to reauthorize FISA earlier but it became apparent that right-wingers were heavily opposed to the legislation, accusing leadership of manipulating the process to sidestep them.

It certainly didn’t help that Trump essentially gave the hard-right his blessing, posting on Truth Social telling Republicans to “KILL FISA.”

In retaliation against leadership, 19 of those conservative lawmakers shot down a traditionally procedural “rule” vote for the bill on Wednesday, bringing the House to a standstill and highlighting the ugly divides between House Republicans once again.

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The new bill Republicans presented isn’t far off from what conservatives tanked earlier this week, with the only major change being the shortened two-year expiration date, but that modification was enough to satiate hardliners to allow the legislation to pass in hopes of Republicans taking full control of Washington in the 2024 elections to drastically change the law later on.

Conservatives were also able to pressure leadership to allow a vote on an amendment from Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., that would have included a warrant requirement under Section 702, but the amendment failed in a nail-biter vote of 212-212 where the issue divided both sides of the aisle.

The House isn't necessarily done yet though. In a bid to stop the bill from going to the Senate, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., filed a procedural motion just before lawmakers left Washington for the weekend that if it's adopted would force the House to vote again on the measure.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, moved to dismiss Luna's effort, and the chamber is now slated to once again vote on the issue when members return next Monday.

Without the warrant requirement, the bill is expected to easily clear the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House has expressed support for the renewal of the law as well.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House passes FISA renewal after chaotic week of infighting