Renee Parsons
As the Congress had just returned from a two week paid vacation over the Easter holiday, the House was confronted with a dynamic duo of legislative behemoths.
As a former Brit General warned Ukraine is at ‘serious risk of collapse, it is preposterous that there will be a vote on another $60 billion budget supplemental to continue funding for the consistently failed war in Ukraine.
There is also the potential of a vote cashing in $300 billion worth of Russian securities obtained by US sanctions in 2022 which is sure to stir a BRICS response.
The other hot topic of contention has been the reauthorization of FISA to require a judicially approved warrant prior to any surveillance or spying on Americans. During the two days of House debate reached a level of intense resistance, seething with forceful pushback and determination that should have occurred twenty years ago before 911 opened the door to mass surveillance of Americans.
Originally adopted by the Church Committee in 1978, FISA was the result of revelations of widespread Fourth Amendment violations by the Federal government including unconstitutional, unlawful surveillance and spying on citizen activists and political groups.
Although FISA included established procedures to conduct surveillance, one gaping omission was that of a FISA court-appointed search warrant applied to Americans as it conducted foreign intelligence activities within the domestic USA.
No problem. What could go wrong? Who could not have predicted that institutional abuse by intelligence agencies would occur?
So it should be expected that Federal government abuse was cited in the DOJ’s Inspector General Report as the fraudulent Steele dossier was used by the DOJ and FBI to obtain four surveillance warrants against Trump campaign totally unimpeachable staffer Carter Page in 2016 and 2017.
Today, the FBI has been cited for rampant violations including 278,000 annual FISA searches in one year and another 3 million American ‘queries’ during 2021-2022 – all conducted without following DOJ rules and conducted on Americans without a Fisa-court approved search warrant.
As the House considered the rule to bring HR 7888 to the House Floor, it failed on a 193- 228 vote with 19 Republicans voting with the Democrats. Those nineteen Republicans understood the implications of exposing the lie of national security and that reauthorization without requiring a Court mandated warrant would continue unconstitutional government spying and conducting surveillance on the American public without their knowledge.
As the two days of debate unfolded, there was never any doubt that the Intel agencies especially treasure their ability to conduct spying and surveillance of Americans with no oversight or accountability since the Patriot Act was adopted in 2001 and that Congressional Intel Committees are in sync with their surveillance agenda.
By the second day, three amendments were brought to the Floor for consideration by sitting Members of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, all of which were easily adopted by 268-152, 239-193 and 236-186 votes. Those votes are indicative of the power the intel agencies still wield with their secret classified SCIF strategy.
As the Reauthorization continued, support for mandating a search warrant on Americans increased as the single most crucial item of importance upon which adoption of the reauthorization depended as Rep. Andy Biggs (Az) introduced an up-or-down amendment to “prohibit warrantless searches of US person communications.”
The Biggs amendment failed in the heartbreak of a 212-212 tie vote which according to House Chamber rules, is not adopted. In a review of the No voter names, some might consider it a blemish on Speaker Johnson that not one anti-warrant voter understood the essential Constitutional nature, albeit a clear Fourth Amendment issue within the Biggs amendment.
Obviously, not one anti-Biggs voter, even at the last minute, swing their vote to assure adoption of a Court-ordered search warrant on all Americans can only be considered a stunning rebuke of what remains of a less credible, duplicitous politcal class.
Joining Biggs in sponsoring the amendment were long time civil libertarians still within the Democratic party: Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY), Zoe Lofgren (Cal), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (Texas) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) as well as Republicans Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Rep. Warren Davidson (Ohio), author of the “Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act”.
As a sort of consolation prize, Rep. Chip Roy’s (Texas) amendment to “require the FBI to report to Congress on a quarterly basis the number of US person queries conducted” was adopted 269- 153. Does any one seriously expect the FBI to follow that amendment?
Allegations that the GOP House is in disarray, unable to accomplish or make any forward progress is a total misread of the split within Republican ranks.
As the American experiment in a Constitutional Republic struggles to retain its most fundamental rights, what is most disturbing is the coordinated threat by certain establishment GOP Americans who are in the forefront of the opposition along with Democrats who support a downward slide into totalitarianism.
Come Hell or High water, all 435 House of Representatives Members are up for re-election every two years and therein lies a Golden Opportunity to roust those who repeatedly fail in their duty to protect the country’s interest before the interests of their campaign donors. Final passage on “Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act” was 273 -147 with 126 Republicans voting with Dems to exclude a FISA Search warrant requirement for all Americans.