Conservatives Enraged by Speaker Johnson Move to Scuttle Key Spy Powers Reform

Speaker Mike Johnson
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Sean Moran

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) handling of deep state surveillance reform has led many conservatives to blame the leader of the House for blocking reform of controversial surveillance laws.

This week the House will consider the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), a bill that is meant to reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial surveillance law that is meant to target foreign adversaries; however, it often surveils Americans’ private communications without a warrant, per the Constitution.

Watch: Rep. Jim Jordan — Warrants Should be Required for Section 702, Separate But Equal Branch Should Hold Intelligence Agencies Accountable

House Rules Committee

However, the House will move towards passing this bill without one of the biggest reforms that privacy advocates have asked for: an amendment to the bill that would bar law enforcement and intelligence agencies from purchasing Americans’ communications through third-party data brokers.

Instead, Johnson has moved to have the data broker issue be handled as a separate bill, which may kill the issue in Congress’s upper chamber.

“It’s disappointing to watch Speaker Johnson, who was a strong defender of essentially the same bills … when he was a member of the Judiciary Committee, now as speaker essentially has crossed all the way over to the intel point of view,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), sponsor of the First Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, said.

“They essentially want to concede that, ‘Okay, we allowed the debate to happen — but we are working very aggressively to make sure it doesn’t become law,” Davidson added.

The Biden administration, as well as deep state officials from the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies, will brief House members about FISA on Wednesday.

Davidson said that the Johnson’s moves have been favorable to the intelligence committees over time, imperiling any privacy advocates’ hopes of imposing a warrant requirement on surveilling Americans’ communications through Section 702.

“It seems the speaker has a plan to tank that as well,” Davidson remarked, speaking of the warrant amendment.

He added, “What it’s designed to do is to kill the entire reform effort.”

Related: Rep. Warren Davidson Calls to Pass Amendment that Bans Pentagon from Circumventing Fourth Amendment

U.S. House of Representatives

“[Mike] Turner fully sabotaged everything, so he must feel pretty happy,” Davidson continued.

Noah Chauvin and Elizabeth Goitein, two experts from the Brennan Center for Justice, explained that much of RISAA is largely copied from the Intelligence Committee bill:

RISAA reflects points on which HJC and HPSCI Republicans could agree. The vast majority of the text is copied directly from HPSCI’s bill, which would be broadly ineffective at preventing abuses. Even where the provisions would be marginally helpful, they are in almost every case substantially weaker than analogous provisions in the Protect Liberty Act or the GSRA. For instance, RISAA requires FBI agents applying for FISC orders to notify government attorneys of any exculpatory information, while the Protect Liberty Act and the GSRA require that the FISC be notified as well. [Emphasis added]

Johnson’s move to favor the intelligence agencies over privacy advocates arises at a dangerous time for the Speaker, as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) looks increasingly trying to use a motion to vacate to oust the Louisiana congressman as the leader of the House.

Greene wrote about the need to pass substantial surveillance reform:

And they will put pressure on all of us to vote for it by saying “an unknown number of terrorists are in America, we can’t allow another 9-11!” Yet they do NOTHING to secure the border. If they really cared about our safety, border security would be the most important issue on both sides of the aisle. Warrantless spying is wrong. And actually they don’t need FISA to go after terrorists who have come across our border because the constitution does not apply to them, they aren’t citizens. FISA has been abused by our government to spy on hundreds of thousands of Americans, and I don’t trust our government to stop abusing FISA. I’ll go ahead and give you my vote, it’s a NO to FISA reauthorization without warrants.

Ric Grenell, former President Donald Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, said, “Reauthorizing 702 in this current form is pathetically weak. It hasn’t been reformed. It was used by Democrats to spy on their political opponent (Donald Trump). You don’t get to say you are concerned about Washington’s overreach and weaponization of the courts if you vote for this current reauthorization. It’s better to end it than reauthorize it. And don’t pretend like we need it to stop terrorists – the southern border is wide open and terrorists have been pouring in for years.”

Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) wrote, “If the Swamp is given even an inch of ground when it comes to our liberties, it’s never long before they take a mile. A “clean” reauthorization of FISA 702 is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment and should be voted down.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said, “The U.S. government uses the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on Americans without a warrant. This week, the House will vote to require the Feds to get a warrant to snoop on Americans. Sadly this vote is likely to fail. I will demand a recorded vote & post results.”

Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

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