Section 702 of the FISA act was reauthorized despite fierce resistance from former President Donald Trump.
The US House of Representatives has voted to renew a surveillance act that allows the government to spy on American citizens without a warrant. Pro-Trump Republicans blocked an earlier version of the act, but were persuaded to lift their veto by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The House voted 273-147 on Friday to fund Section 702 of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Drafted in 2008, Section 702 legalized a formerly clandestine program, granting US intelligence agencies the power to monitor internet and phone communications from abroad made through American networks like Google.
Ostensibly designed to target foreigners, the program also ‘indirectly’ collects data from millions of American citizens, which can then be accessed without a court warrant. According to data released in 2022, the FBI used this program to probe the electronic data of nearly 3.4 million Americans in 2021.
A group of 19 conservative lawmakers blocked a procedural vote on Wednesday, preventing Johnson from holding a full floor vote on the renewal of Section 702. Supporting the 19 Republicans was former President Donald Trump, who encouraged them to “kill FISA,” complaining that the FBI “illegally used” the act to spy on his 2016 campaign.
On Friday morning, however, the dissidents agreed that they would allow a vote to take place if Johnson cut Section 702’s funding from five years to two, and held a separate vote on an amendment that would require the FBI and other spy agencies to obtain warrants before using the program against Americans.
The amendment – backed by an unlikely alliance of left-wing progressives and hardline conservatives – received 212 votes for and 212 votes against. However, Johnson used his tie breaking vote to defeat the amendment, ensuring that the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens can continue and incurring the wrath of Trump’s Capitol Hill allies.
“Speaker Johnson was the final vote. He was the one that caused the warrant amendment to fail,” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters. “What’s the difference between Speaker Pelosi and Speaker Johnson? There’s not one,” she added, referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“A Republican Speaker voting against warrant requirements for American citizens after this very process was blatantly abused to spy on Donald Trump and his campaign is beyond the pale,” Florida Rep. Greg Steube wrote on X.
Johnson is due to meet with Trump in Florida later on Friday. The pair are expected to discuss the FISA reauthorization.
No comment from the Trump Campaign on this or what he would do to repeal this illegal and un-Constitutional spying via Executive order or a Presidential Decision Directive.
But…then again, Trump gave Israel everything it wanted under the direction of Jared Kushner. The J*** then turned on him with a tactic of ‘good J** vs bad J**’ for the sake of Zionism making gains at Trump’s expense.
Trump can’t see that he’s being played by the Zio-Communist factions, or chooses to ignore and disbelieve that it’s actually happening!
Trump has yet to address the horrors of Gaza and the West Bank, and the saber-rattling in the Middle East in general, or what he would do to stop the same.
& BTW- NOT ONE ‘elected’ or ‘appointed’ official has their oath of office on file, because they serve Israel, unconditionally, with ironclad ‘Pledges to israel’ thus violating the U.S. Constitution, and making subversive traitors out of the Mossad-compromised and blackmailed ‘Elected Representatives’.
https://banned.video/watch?id=66152d8b34a98569f6ba4367
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKydyiPvmZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCnHkjkJFOc
Not only Israhell. Also the US and world j***ry is complicit in this
Read 200 hundred years together bt alexander soljenitsyne.
It is a pattern on how they operate
Shocking.
I feel shocked 😐
Terrorist state…end of story. Nothing aggressive or hostile about spying on people who are not from the nation in question. DONT USE US MADE IT, especially search engines and email services.