WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House just rejected an amendment to close the backdoor search loophole in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which would require federal agencies to obtain a warrant before searching for U.S. persons’ communications in databases of warrantlessly acquired information, by a vote of 212-212, while advancing privacy protections that exclusively serve members of Congress. The House further adopted the Intelligence Committee’s dangerous, overly broad FISA expansions, which target immigrant communities and turn swaths of businesses into facilitators of warrantless surveillance.
In response to the amendment passing a vote on the House floor, Demand Progress Policy Director Sean Vitka issued the following statement:
“House Leadership has pushed its thumb on the scale against privacy protections throughout this debate, as it has done for more than a decade. After wrongfully stopping the House Judiciary Committee’s legislation from reaching the floor, denying a vote on closing the data broker loophole, and rewarding the House Intelligence Committee for operating in staggeringly bad faith.
“This is a sharp betrayal of every American. Many members who tanked this vote have long histories of voting for this specific privacy protection, including former Speaker Pelosi, Representative Lieu, and Representative Neguse. They did so alongside a smear campaign by the House Intelligence Committee, led by Reps. Mike Turner and Jim Himes, which was defined by deceptive statements and outright lies. All eyes now turn to the Senate, but Americans will not forget this stab in the back by the House, in particular those members who have pretended for years to be aligned with civil liberties. This failure to protect Americans’ privacy may well have just handed Donald Trump dramatically expanded warrantless surveillance powers while defeating the single meaningful privacy reform that remained in the debate by the slimmest conceivable margin.
“The House-passed bill is dangerous and deserves the fiercest possible opposition because it specifically protects members of Congress and dramatically expands warrantless FISA surveillance of the rest of us.
“The Biden administration did everything in its power to keep Americans vulnerable to warrantless surveillance, which is unconscionable given the constant abuse of Section 702 and the explosion in warrantless surveillance facilitated by the government’s purchase of sensitive information from data brokers. This puts everyone at risk, in particular the communities that have for generations been disproportionately spied on.
“We applaud the leaders of the House Judiciary, including Reps. Andy Biggs, Pramila Jayapal, Jim Jordan, Jerry Nadler, Warren Davidson, and Zoe Lofgren, for fighting tirelessly for over a year to advance the serious privacy protections that the public overwhelmingly supports and deserves. Their efforts were heroic and fundamentally changed this debate, which is all the more impressive considering the deceit and dirty tricks wielded against reform over the past year.”
As context, here are roll call votes from today and previous votes on the backdoor search loophole: