House lawmakers are facing renewed pressure from both conservatives and liberals to strengthen protections for Americans as they debate reauthorization of the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.
Heritage Action, a conservative grassroots organization, announced Friday it is urging lawmakers to adopt a bipartisan amendment that would prohibit warrantless searches of U.S. citizens. (The Daily Signal is the news organization of The Heritage Foundation, an independent partner of Heritage Action.)
“The FBI’s repeated misuse of Section 702 to abuse Americans’ constitutional rights is a disgrace,” said Ryan Walker, executive vice president of Heritage Action. “If Congress reauthorizes Section 702 without strong reforms, lawmakers will have missed a massive opportunity to end some of the federal government’s glaring abuse.”
The underlying legislation has divided Republicans given the federal government’s past abuses of FISA. Earlier this week, 19 Republicans dealt a blow to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a supporter of the legislation, when they joined with Democrats to defeat a procedural motion on the bill.
Section 702 of FISA allows the U.S. government to gather intelligence on individuals located outside the country. In recent years, however, agencies such as the FBI have abused the law. The FBI, for example, misused the Section 702 database more than 278,000 times to collect information on American citizens.
The proposed amendment to H.R. 7888, known as the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, would ban warrantless searches of individuals residing in the United States. It is co-sponsored by Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.
Walker said, “Heritage Action cannot support reauthorization of Section 702 without changes and strongly encourages members to support the warrant amendment as a requirement for reauthorization.”
This story was updated to include more information about the amendment’s sponsors.