House Freedom Caucus lawmakers have offered amendments that would bar intelligence agencies from searching Americans’ communications and prevent the creation of a central bank digital, which Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) has described as the “ultimate surveillance tool.”
House Republican leadership has teed up its latest bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as it will expire on Thursday.
Section 702 is a surveillance authority meant to be used to spy on foreign adversaries. However, Americans’ private communications incidentally get surveilled without a warrant — contrary to the Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless surveillance.
The latest proposal has faced criticism from pro-privacy proponents as the legislation does not contain warrant requirements and does not have a provision that would bar law enforcement and intelligence agencies from purchasing Americans’ private communications through third-party data brokers without a warrant.
Cloud has offered an amendment that would bar the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, from creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which he believes would allow the federal government to drastically increase its financial surveillance over Americans.
“Even as we are working to right the wrongs and abuses of FISA, it is important we permanently ban what would be the ultimate surveillance tool against our fellow citizens, a central bank digital currency,” Cloud told Breitbart News in a written statement.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) offered an amendment that would bar warrantless queries for the communications of United States persons:
Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) offered an amendment that would limit the reauthorization of FISA to three months.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Republican leadership remain confident that they will be able to push the latest FISA bill through the House despite conservatives’ protestations.
The House Rules Committee on Monday will meet at 1:00 P.M. to prepare the bill and decide if the committee would waive the House’s onerous rules against suspension votes to pass the legislation. He would likely need House Democrats to support the clean reauthorization of Section 702 to compensate for the conservatives that oppose a clean reauthorization.