Key Votes Related to the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, H.R. 7888

On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your representative on amendments related to the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, H.R. 7888. The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act is the base text of the reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (also known as “Section 702”). 

The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act is seriously flawed and deeply problematic. The legislation is modeled on the so-called “reform” bill produced by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The critical reforms included in the House Judiciary Committee’s bill, the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act, have been excluded from the base text.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who supported surveillance reform before he was against it, claims that the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act includes 56 so-called “reforms.” Let’s go through some of those purported “reforms.”

• At least 13 so-called “reforms” only codify existing practices. These existing practices are in place at this moment, and FISA is still being abused by the FBI and the intelligence community. 
• 13 relate to reporting or transparency requirements and don’t touch surveillance. 
• 10 are related to the application process.
• 9 can be waived by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). 
• 3 apply exclusively to Members of Congress and no one else. 
• 1 weakens existing oversight of FISC. 
• 1 “reform” isn’t a reform at all. 

The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act does absolutely nothing to protect Americans from searches of information collected through Section 702 by the FBI. This isn’t a matter of debate. The changes proposed in this waste of paper are toothless. Nearly all the abuses that we’ve previously cited—spying on donors to a congressional campaign, individuals engaged in lawful First Amendment activities, journalists, and members of Congress without a warrant—would continue under the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act.

Why? Because the FBI very rarely uses “evidence of a crime” as justification for searches of information collected under Section 702. In fact, there are only two (2) instances between December 2021 and November 2022 in which the FBI accessed the contents of communications pursuant to an “evidence of a crime”-only query that would be prohibited by this bill. That means the FBI would be prohibited from accessing content in one one-thousandth of 1 percent of all backdoor searches. This change in law is supposed to be a reform? Are we supposed to take this seriously?

Under the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, oversight of the FISC would be substantially weakened when Congress should expand oversight and make it stronger. Weakening oversight of the FISC—which is already nonadversarial and needs to be strengthened, not weakened—is an idea that’s so terrible it’s difficult to put into words how mindbogglingly absurd it is. 

The process for the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act has been awful. First,  House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Mike Turner took his ball and went home on February 14 as the House Rules Committee heard the debate on amendments to the previous iteration of the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, H.R. 7320, and threatened to defeat the rule for the bill. Speaker Johnson capitulated to Turner by pulling the bill from consideration that week. Turner also attempted to scare Members by revealing “a serious national security threat” that wasn’t imminent.

 Before jumping into the various amendments, here are the topline positions on the underlying bill. The outcome of amendment votes will have an impact on how we view the bill.

• If any of the amendments proposed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence are adopted, FreedomWorks will key vote NO on the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act and weigh the vote accordingly.
  
• If the House rejects amendments proposed by the House Judiciary Committee and moves forward with a vote on the base text, FreedomWorks will still key vote NO on the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act and weigh the vote accordingly.
  
• If, at minimum, the backdoor search loophole amendment is adopted, FreedomWorks will key vote YES on the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act.

We are making the following vote recommendations on amendments. Each vote may be included in our 2024 Congressional Scorecard.  

Vote YES on the Biggs-Nadler Amendment to Close the Backdoor Search Loophole: Between December 2021 and November 2022, the FBI conducted more than 200,000 queries of U.S. Persons of information collected under Section 702. Only 16 of these queries were “evidence of a crime-only” searches. As already noted, searches included donors to a congressional campaign, individuals involved in lawful First Amendment activities, and journalists. The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act would not prevent the worst abuses of Section 702. 

This amendment is a key part of the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act. The amendment would ensure that a warrant is required for all U.S. person searches, subject to reasonable, narrowly-tailored exceptions, such as where there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, where the U.S. person gives their consent, or to search for malicious computer code. This amendment would reinforce basic Fourth Amendment protections and even has narrowly tailored exceptions. 

To quote Rep. Mary Scanlon, “Protocols are not warrants.” Congress must close the backdoor search loophole. 

Vote YES on the Cline Amendment to Permanently End “Abouts” Collection: “Abouts” collection allowed the National Security Agency to collect communications that merely mention a potential surveillance target, regardless of whether the person was communicating with anyone associated with the target. Americans were captured in this particular mass surveillance practice. “Abouts” collection was so constitutionally problematic that the FISC forced an end to the practice. However, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 provided a path to restart “abouts” collection. This amendment would repeal that provision. 

Vote NO on the Turner-Himes Amendment to Expand Domestic Surveillance: Currently, 50 U.S.C. §1881(b) defines an electronic communications service provider as a telecommunications carrier defined by 18 U.S.C. §2510, a provider of an electronic communications service defined by 47 U.S.C §153, a provider of a remote computing service defined by 18 U.S.C. §2711, any communication provider that has access to wire or electronic communications transmitted or stored, and an officer, employee or agent of any of the preceding providers. The Turner-Himes amendment would massively expand the definition of an electronic communications service provider to everything but dwellings defined by 42 U.S.C. §3602, public accommodation facilities defined by 50 U.S.C. §1861, food service establishments defined by 7 U.S.C. §1638, and community facilities defined by 42 U.S.C. §1592n. This amendment is nothing short of the PATRIOT Act 2.0. 

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has engaged in bad faith throughout the course of the consideration of the reauthorization of Section 702. We simply don’t trust that the amendments filed or that will be filed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will do what members and the intelligence community claim they will do. Other than acting in bad faith, misleading members and staff about their proposed changes, and, in some cases, outright lying about proposed reforms offered by the House Judiciary Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has more than proven that it’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of the intelligence community. Therefore, may key vote NO on other amendments offered by HPSCI. 

The debate over Section 702 is fundamentally a debate over protecting our civil liberties from government overreach. In the backdrop of this debate is the rise of authoritarianism and illiberalism inside the United States. Partisans point fingers at each other while complaining about the “weaponization of government.” Many of these same partisans fail to realize that Section 702 has been abused, and it will almost certainly be abused in the future since the so-called “reforms” in the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act aren’t going to prevent backdoor searches and weaken existing oversight. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the intelligence community are inviting that abuse. That is their intent. 

For these reasons, I urge you to call your representative and ask him or her to vote in accordance with the vote recommendations in this notice for the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, H.R. 7888. FreedomWorks will count these votes on our 2024 Congressional Scorecard and reserves the right to score and weigh any related votes. The scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of the House and Senate who consistently vote to support economic freedom and individual liberty.

Sincerely,

Adam Brandon
President, FreedomWorks