House Approves Reauthorization of Warrantless Surveillance Act Provisions

The vote in the House passed by a wide bipartisan margin of 273 to 147 in favor. Of note was that the “no” votes were equally represented between the parties, with 88 Republicans surprisingly voting against it, along with 59 democrats.

When the tallies were counted, more democrats voted for the bill’s passage than did republicans.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s section 702 was passed in 2008, while George W. Bush was president. It was illegal then and is illegal now because it violates the U.S. Constitution.

After the attacks of 9/11 on American soil, which in themselves are still in question as to who was really behind the attacks and what precisely happened, the Bush regime initiated a broad range of surveillance actions through the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, FBI, and other organizations, under the excuse that this was to protect the people of the U.S. That surveillance included monitoring of phone calls, emails, and other communication, both foreign and domestic. This was despite that doing so against Americans was in direct violation of constitutional rights against searches without a court-authorized warrant, due process provisions, and more, as enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

It was so widespread that the agencies roped some of the biggest names in telecommunications at the time to be a part of the illegal snooping. Sinister AT&T was one of those coerced into the process, only to be caught in at least one well-publicized incident of the time when one of its contractors was discovered to be splitting off a parallel routing of fiber optic cable handling its network communications, so one of the lines passed the data for calls, emails, and other communications on normally, and a new one routed it to federal security agencies.

AT&T was far from the only one, of course. But when the federal government was caught, rather than being held accountable for its illegal acts, it moved to harness what was at the time a period of mass paranoia about foreign conspirators by passing the FISA Act. That Act provides for a means of spy and other government agencies to secure legal warrants via a special FISA court.

The most controversial – and abused – part of the FISA Act was Section 702. It notably allows federal organizations such as the National Security Agency to collect foreign communications outside of U.S. territory without warrants, which it can then scan, process, and even listen into “live” at will. The justification for that part of the law was that it would help those agencies catch foreign terrorists while helping stop international narcotics trafficking and cybercrime, among the many uses the agencies said they would use the rights for.

What the agencies did not mention was that by doing this, the Act would allow for direct surveillance of many Americans traveling abroad themselves, and those Americans emailing, texting, and calling others in foreign countries. And of course it ensnared Americans on U.S. soil communicating with anyone abroad. 

Legal experts declared such surveillance was illegal, in that as soon as the data was gathered under the terms of section 702 theoretically anything from Americans initiating communications from within the U.S. should have been discarded, as a violation of constitutional rights. And even in a period of government-directed paranoia about foreign forces coming to “get” the United States, enough citizens who understood some of the illegal actions the Act would have allowed fought to throttle back the powers the government would be granted.

The compromise agreement reached at the time was that Section 702 would have a “sunset” clause, meaning that it would expire if not reauthorized by the federal government every four years. Each time the Act has gone forward to be reauthorized, the White House of the time, the NSA and CIA, and the Department of Justice all lobbied Congress to ensure the bill would be reauthorized. It went through sometimes after considerable debate, but always passed again, despite the many abuses Section 702 has allowed for in the 16 years it has been in place.

Those abuses were brought into light most recently in May 2023 when redacted Top Secret documents resulting from internal investigations involving the FISA court were released to the public. That court document revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had misused Section 702 to justify illegal digital surveillance searches on American citizens a total of 278,000 times just in the past few years. Among the people it unlawfully monitored, in what are referred to in legal circles as “suspicionless searches”, were the victims of crimes and their families, some 19,000 donors to a candidate running for Congress, rioters protesting the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police, and suspects in the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol. Others caught in the illegal FISA web included journalists, members of the Black Lives Matter movement which led racially charged protests in cities across America, members of Congress, at least one U.S. senator, a state senator, and a state judge.

After these revelations, the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit legal rights organization, joined over 30 civil society organizations in a letter urging all members of the Senate and the Congress to block Section 702’s reauthorization, which must be passed and signed into law by the end of the coming week. That document summarized its arguments succinctly in the following:

“In its current form, this authority is dangerous to our liberties and our democracy, and it should not be renewed for any length of time without robust debate, an opportunity for amendment, and — ultimately — far-reaching reforms. That process should begin with the judiciary committees, which have primary jurisdiction over legislation affecting Americans’ constitutional rights and civil liberties, including FISA.

“Bypassing this process by slipping an extension of the law into the defense authorization bill during conference would demonstrate a blatant disregard for the civil liberties and civil rights of the American people.

“Even a short-term reauthorization of Section 702 would be inappropriate, as it is completely unnecessary. Although Section 702 itself is scheduled to expire on December 31, the government is currently conducting Section 702 surveillance pursuant to a one-year FISA Court authorization that expires in April 2024. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 provides that a FISA Court authorization ‘shall continue in effect’ until its expiration, notwithstanding any other provision of law. Accordingly, the government will continue to conduct surveillance under Section 702until April 2024, even if Section 702 itself expires. This gives Congress ample time to consider whether and how to reauthorize this deeply flawed authority.”

The reauthorization bill received strong opposition from the Republicans, who have since the days of George W. Bush altered their then strong backing for the FISA Act and Section 702 to one mostly strongly opposed to such widespread federal government surveillance of the American people. Further, as Donald Trump is moving closer to being renominated to run as the Republican candidate for president, Trump’s stand that those convicted in the January raid on the U.S. Capitol was already tainted since in his mind they did nothing wrong, and against the reauthorization of the FISA Act’s warrantless surveillance provisions, has influence the most far right members of the party.

Despite that opposition, the bill passed in the House easily.

On the Republican side, the far-right opposition which could have upended the entire vote was mollified by limiting the term of the current reauthorization to just two years. By doing so, those Republicans who believe Donald Trump will be in the White House again when Section 702 comes up for another reauthorization vote in 2026.

Democratic backing for the bill was strong enough to carry the bill the rest of the way to passage in the House, although a larger number of that party’s House members voted against it than many had expected. That backing was also in support of Joe Biden, who has long been a believer that warrantless surveillance of Americans via Section 702 was the right thing to do.

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi demonstrated that House Democrat position in comments she made on the House floor just before the vote yesterday.

“I don’t have the time right now, but if members want to know I’ll tell you how we could have been saved from 9/11 if we didn’t have to have the additional warrants,” she said.

The reauthorization bill is now being passed onto the Senate, where it is expected to pass easily early next week. Joe Biden will then sign it and the relentless warrantless surveillance can continue unabated.

Publisher's Comment

What many Americans understand is that the attacks of 9/11 were very much an inside job, the CIA controls most international terrorist and drug trafficking and the occupants of the White House are apparently conspiring with America's enemies to flood the country with foreign criminals, soldiers and agents. And as more Americans wake up to the fact that their own government is their greatest enemy, they understand that all of the spying is done not to protect them but to target them. 

And it is not just Americans' communications that are being captured, analyzed and used against them, it is everything they do. Web browsing, spending, cell phone locations, words spoken near a cell phone, medical records, school test scores, media consumption, energy usage at home, vehicle travel and social media usage are all recorded and processed by powerful AI to build in-depth profiles on every American. Those profiles are used to predict behavior with amazing accuracy. However, it is not just government but the international criminal corporations controlled by evil billionaires that hold and use the data. The data is used to influence most people. For those who are awake and aware, the data is used to not just influence them but to control them and in some cases ruin their lives or even destroy them.

And it is not just Americans that are targeted in this way by their government and oligarchs. It is nearly global and the surveillance and control systems are evolving exponentially.

At this stage, most people don't have anything to worry about from the surveillance, yet. Most humans do as their are told and believe what the authorities tell them. They don't represent a threat to the system. But, more people are awakening, seeing the threat and seeking ways to resist. These people are quickly identified by the system and closely monitored. 

Knowing that your cell phone is always listening, that everything you do online is recorded and analyzed and all of your other activities that can be monitored, are being monitored, means that you can influence the surveillance and control system by shaping how you express yourself. You can mess with and confuse the surveillance systems. The AI running it is not all that intelligent, yet, and there is vastly more data being generated than can be processed. 

One can also choose to spend less time online. Keep the mobile phone off and in a Faraday box or bag when not in use, hold private conversations in surveillance free areas, control the media consumed and project a managed image.  Or you could just be yourself and push back against the dark forces and help others do to the same. The light of truth has far greater power than the darkness.

Courage is ultimately far more protective and liberating than fear.