H.Res. 1137

Mr. Chair, I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Even in this time of 2024, we need this legislation to protect now one of the most revered civil rights leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King. Yes, we need legislation that would, in fact, protect someone who simply wanted to provide justice to this Nation. He was the subject of COINTELPRO, a distorted investigation of his family, his belongings, his extended family members, and his wife, who I think at the time was expecting.

This legislation is important to save lives. It is important legislation to ensure that our intelligence community, our law enforcement community, can do their jobs, but it is not legislation that should be utilized to abuse the American people.

I rise today to speak of the concerns on H.R. 7888. It is a bipartisan bill to reauthorize an essential intelligence authority, section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, and other FISA provisions before they would expire on April 19. In doing so, we find ourselves being subject to the eye of the knife, if you will, in penetrating the personal matters of individuals that have no desire to do harm to this country.

As we know all too well, expiration of 702 authorities would deprive our Federal Government of the necessary insight into precisely the threats Americans expect their government to identify and counter. We understand that, as highlighted and emphasized through Federal administration, if we lose 702, we lose vital protections to the United States and its allies from hostile foreign adversaries, including terrorists, proliferators, and spies, and to inform cybersecurity efforts.

We are also acutely aware that 702 is an extremely controversial, warrantless surveillance authority that must not be reauthorized without substantial reform to rein in warrantless surveillance of Americans. We simply cannot do that. Indeed, warrantless surveillance intended for non-American targets located abroad inevitably has resulted in the collection and capture of Americans' communications and, yes, the results of capturing information that safeguards the American people and provides us with a safety net that we can fight for justice, fight for civil rights, and yet be protected.

It is no secret that intelligence agencies have turned section 702 into a domestic spying tool used to perform hundreds of thousands of warrantless backdoor searches for Americans' private phone calls, emails, and text messages.

By the way, Mr. Chair, we have a whole new world of technology where you can probe every aspect of our lives. These searches have included shocking abuses, including against civil rights leaders, protesters, Members of Congress, 19,000 donors to congressional campaigns, political parties.

Mr. Chair, I rise today to speak on H .R. 7888--Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), a bipartisan bill to reauthorize an essential intelligence authority, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (``FISA''), and other FISA provisions before they would expire on April 19, 2024.

As we know all too well, expiration of Section 702 authorities would deprive our federal government of the necessary insight into precisely the threats Americans expect their government to identify and counter.

As highlighted and emphasized through federal administration, if we lost 702, we would lose vital protections to the United States and its allies from hostile foreign adversaries, including terrorists, proliferators, and spies, and to inform cybersecurity efforts.

We also are acutely aware, that Section 702 is an extremely controversial warrantless surveillance authority that must not be reauthorized without substantial reform to rein in warrantless surveillance of Americans.

Indeed, warrantless surveillance intended for non-American targets located abroad ``inevitably'' has resulted in the collection and capture of Americans' communications, too.

And it is no secret that intelligence agencies have turned Section 702 into a domestic spying tool, using it to perform hundreds of thousands of warrantless ``backdoor'' searches for Americans' private phone calls, e-mails, and text messages every year.

Yes, these searches have included shocking abuses, including baseless searches for the communications of Black Lives Matter protesters, members of Congress, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, a local political party, and tens of thousands of people involved in ``civil unrest.''

To protect the American people, we need to maintain the vital collection authority as intended to protect our nation and national security, while at the same time strengthening its protective guardrails with the most robust set of reforms ever included in legislation to reauthorize Section 702.

Importantly, H.R. 7888, as amended here today provides several critically needed reforms--including a fix to the backdoor search loophole and a prohibition on the ``abouts'' collection provision, and ultimately seeks to accomplish the necessary balancing we seek for national security protections and the protection of American's privacy rights.

To protect the American people, we need to maintain the vital collection authority as intended to protect our Nation and national security. We must do that while at the same time strengthening its protective guardrails with the most robust set, if you will, of protection that we possibly can.

That is why I have joined with several Members, including Mr. Cline, to offer the ``abouts'' amendment. We will offer that as one of the Judiciary three. This amendment does something Congress should have done 7 years ago, prohibit the government from resuming ``abouts'' collection, a form of section 702 that poses unique risks to Americans. ``Abouts'' collection is a collection of communications that are neither to nor from an approved target of surveillance--can you imagine?--under section 702 of FISA but merely contain information related to the target.

Mr. Chair, it is unbelievable that we would go after innocent Americans and Members of Congress in the random searching and fishing of information that may not be relevant. In the past, ``abouts'' collection focused on collecting communications that include a target's email address, phone number, or Twitter handle or something like that, but in theory, ``abouts'' collection could be used to collect emails that merely mention a person who is a target of section 702 surveillance.

Mr. Chair, I rise today to indicate that we cannot pass this legislation without these vital amendments and that we cannot pass this legislation without the American people believing that when they pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, they are pledging allegiance to civil liberties, freedom, and justice and equality for all. I rise to support these amendments and as well a free nation with democracy and liberty for all.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record a list of groups who support this amendment.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, April 12, 2024.

Dear Colleague: Please join us in supporting our amendment

to H.R. 7888, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America

Act. Rules Amendment #5 would end what is known as ``abouts''

collection, which involves the capturing of massive amounts

of communications by government agencies such as the National

Security Agency (NSA) in which the selector, for example, an

email address, of a target appears somewhere in

communications, even if that target is not a party to the

communications. It has long been controversial.

The FISA Court previously discovered that the government

had misrepresented its activities and held that handling this

type of data was of significant concern and a violation of

the Fourth Amendment. Although the NSA abandoned the practice

of ``abouts'' collection in 2017, Congress in 2018 amended

FISA to prohibit this type of collection unless the AG and

DNI notify the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary

Committees of its plans to resume such collection. But that

only means that if the NSA notifies Congress, they can resume

``abouts'' collection at any time. Our amendment would

proactively end the practice for good.

The following groups support this important amendment:

FreedomWorks--Key Vote; Due Process Institute; Americans

for Prosperity; Project for Privacy and Surveillance

Accountability; Reform Government Surveillance; Center for

Democracy and Technology; American Civil Liberties Union;

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC); Restore the

Fourth; Defending Rights & Dissent; Brennan Center for

Justice; Wikimedia Foundation.

Demand Progress; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Project on

Government Oversight; United We Dream; Asian Americans

Advancing Justice; Muslim Advocates; Free Press Action;

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Freedom of

the Press Foundation; New America's Open Technology

Institute; Fight for the Future; Stop AAPI Hate.

We urge you to vote in favor of Amendment #5.

Sincerely,

Ben Cline,

Member of Congress.

Sheila Jackson Lee,

Member of Congress.

Mr. Chair,

I rise today in support of the Cline (VA)/Jackson Lee (TX) Amendment [#3] to H.R. 7888--Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA).

This amendment does something Congress should have done seven years ago: prohibit the government from resuming ``abouts'' collection, a form of Section 702 surveillance that poses unique risks to Americans.

``Abouts'' collection is the collection of communications that are neither To nor From an approved target of surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), but merely contain information relating to that target.

In the past, ``abouts'' collection focused on collecting communications that include a target's email address, or phone address, or Twitter handle, or something like that. But in theory, ``abouts'' collection could be used to collect emails that merely mention a person who is a target of Section 702 surveillance.

Nothing in the text or legislative history of Section 702 indicates that this type of surveillance is authorized.

Under Section 702, the surveillance must target a non-U.S. person outside the United States. The term ``target'' has a well-understood meaning. When a person is a target, it means the government can collect that person's information or other data, not the communications or data of other individuals.

As we all know, ``abouts'' collection under Section 702 has a sordid history.

The National Security Agency (NSA) used ``abouts'' collection when it was conducting upstream surveillance, in other words, when it was intercepting communications directly as they transited over the Internet backbone, rather than collecting stored communications from service providers.

Not surprisingly, this practice resulted in the collection of tens of thousands of purely domestic communications--communications between and among Americans inside the United States.

Moreover, often these Americans were not even discussing the target. Instead, their communications were lumped in with other communications, transiting over the Internet backbone as a packet. The NSA was collecting the entire packet of communications, simply because somewhere in that packet was a reference to information about a target.

This was a problem from the moment Section 702 went into effect in 2008. And yet for years, the government did not disclose this problem to the FISA Court.

To the contrary, the government affirmatively misrepresented how the program was working. It was not until 2011 that the court learned the government was sweeping in tens of thousands of purely domestic communications.

The court was livid. It noted that the belated disclosure, and I quote, ``marks the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program.''

At the time, the court chose not to prohibit the use of ``abouts'' collection. But it held that special minimization rules were required for upstream communications, and that without those rules, the program would violate both Section 702 and the Fourth Amendment. One of those rules was a prohibition on U.S. person queries of communications obtained through upstream surveillance.

Five years later, the NSA discovered that its agents had been routinely violating this prohibition. But rather than immediately report these violations to the FISA Court, the NSA waited for several months. When it finally admitted the violations, the FISA Court chastised the NSA for its ``institutional lack of candor,'' and refused to approve the continuation of Section 702 surveillance until the NSA cleaned up its act.

The NSA proved incapable of bringing its agents into compliance. The agents continued to routinely search though the upstream data in an effort to find and review Americans' communications, in violation of Section 702, the Fourth Amendment, and the FISA Court's orders. Well aware that the court would not continue to approve Section 702 surveillance under these conditions, the NSA, in 2017, made the only decision it could: it terminated ``abouts'' collection.

Well, it has now been seven years since the NSA stopped ``abouts'' collection, and the government has not claimed that ending this practice has resulted in a loss of critical intelligence or had any other kind of negative impact on national security. No official has pointed to a single bad result that could have been averted through the use of ``abouts'' collection.

Collecting communications that are neither to nor from an approved target of surveillance is contrary to the text and intent of Section 702.

It inevitably results in the collection of wholly domestic communications, which Section 702 expressly prohibits.

Over the course of a decade, the NSA proved that it was incapable of operating ``abouts'' surveillance responsibly and in accordance with the law--and the past seven years shown that ``abouts'' collection is not necessary for national security.

It is time for Congress to shut the door on ``abouts'' collection.

In the future, if the government can show that it needs ``abouts'' collection for national security purposes and that it can operate the program without violating the law and the Fourth Amendment, it can come to Congress and ask for authorization. But the burden should be on the government to show the need and the ability to lawfully conduct the program.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Cline/Jackson Lee Amendment [#3].

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman very much.

I am delighted to be able to work with the gentleman from Virginia on what I think is crucial to codify, because as you said, the FBI had stopped doing it, but here we are again.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes), the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee.

I have the time.

I have yielded a minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes).

He had yielded to me, but I will be happy to yield back so he can get his time.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Virginia, the home of my alma mater, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the gentleman from Connecticut, also the home of my alma mater.

To be able to find collegiality in a very important question for the American people is very much a statement that should be made.

This amendment does something Congress should have done 7 years ago, as I have indicated, prohibiting the government from resuming ``abouts'' collection, a form of section 702 surveillance that poses a unique risk to Americans.

It is also very disturbing, Mr. Chair, because most Americans would scratch their heads and wonder why is this relevant to the immediate investigation. ``Abouts'' collection is a collection of communications that are neither to nor from an approved target of surveillance under 702, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, but merely contain information relating to that target. That means that you become a target because it happened to be sitting around you or it happened to be going to you or from you.

In the past, ``abouts'' collections focused on collecting communications that include a target's email or phone, address, Twitter handle, or something like that, but in theory ``abouts'' collection could be used to collect emails that merely mention a person who is a target of 702 surveillance.

I think it is extremely important to recognize ``merely mentions'' that individual, and you could have your materials, your private information, wrapped up in a roundup or a lassoing of the extended material that is scattered around you, and you could be subject to some kind of haul, if you will, a hauling in of data about you.

Nothing in the text or legislative history of 702 indicates that this type of surveillance is authorized. That is why I think this amendment with Mr. Cline is extremely important because it shows that we are working together.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of the Cline (VA)/Jackson Lee (TX) Amendment No. 3 to H.R. 7888--Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA).

This amendment does something Congress should have done seven years ago: prohibit the government from resuming ``abouts'' collection, a form of Section 702 surveillance that poses unique risks to Americans.

``Abouts'' collection is the collection of communications that are neither to nor from an approved target of surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), but merely contain information relating to that target.

In the past, ``abouts'' collection focused on collecting communications that include a target's email address, or phone address, or Twitter handle, or something like that. But in theory, ``abouts'' collection could be used to collect emails that merely mention a person who is a target of Section 702 surveillance.

Nothing in the text or legislative history of Section 702 indicates that this type of surveillance is authorized.

Under Section 702, the surveillance must target a non-U.S. person outside the United States. The term ``target'' has a well-understood meaning. When a person is a target, it means the government can collect that person's information or other data, not the communications or data of other individuals.

As we all know, ``abouts'' collection under Section 702 has a sordid history.

The National Security Agency (NSA) used ``abouts'' collection when it was conducting upstream surveillance, in

other words, when it was intercepting communications directly as they transited over the Internet backbone, rather than collecting stored communications from service providers.

Not surprisingly, this practice resulted in the collection of tens of thousands of purely domestic communications--communications between and among Americans inside the United States.

Moreover, often these Americans were not even discussing the target. Instead, their communications were lumped in with other communications, transiting over the Internet backbone as a packet. The NSA was collecting the entire packet of communications, simply because somewhere in that packet was a reference to information about a target.

This was a problem from the moment Section 702 went into effect in 2008. And yet for years, the government did not disclose this problem to the FISA Court.

To the contrary, the government affirmatively misrepresented how the program was working. It was not until 2011 that the court learned the government was sweeping in tens of thousands of purely domestic communications.

The court was livid. It noted that the belated disclosure, and I quote, ``marks the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program.''

At the time, the court chose not to prohibit the use of ``abouts'' collection. But it held that special minimization rules were required for upstream communications, and that without those rules, the program would violate both Section 702 and the Fourth Amendment. One of those rules was a prohibition on U.S. person queries of communications obtained through upstream surveillance.

Five years later, the NSA discovered that its agents had been routinely violating this prohibition. But rather than immediately report these violations to the FISA Court, the NSA waited for several months. When it finally admitted the violations, the FISA Court chastised the NSA for its ``institutional lack of candor,'' and refused to approve the continuation of Section 702 surveillance until the NSA cleaned up its act.

The NSA proved incapable of bringing its agents into compliance. The agents continued to routinely search though the upstream data in an effort to find and review Americans' communications, in violation of Section 702, the Fourth Amendment, and the FISA Court's orders. Well aware that the court would not continue to approve Section 702 surveillance under these conditions, the NSA, in 2017, made the only decision it could: it terminated ``abouts'' collection.

Well, it has now been seven years since the NSA stopped ``abouts'' collection, and the government has not claimed that ending this practice has resulted in a loss of critical intelligence or had any other kind of negative impact on national security. No official has pointed to a single bad result that could have been averted through the use of ``abouts'' collection.

Collecting communications that are neither to nor from an approved target of surveillance is contrary to the text and intent of Section 702.

It inevitably results in the collection of wholly domestic communications, which Section 702 expressly prohibits.

Over the course of a decade, the NSA proved that it was incapable of operating ``abouts'' surveillance responsibly and in accordance with the law--and the past seven years shown that ``abouts'' collection is not necessary for national security.

It is time for Congress to shut the door on ``abouts'' collection.

In the future, if the government can show that it needs ``abouts'' collection for national security purposes and that it can operate the program without violating the law and the Fourth Amendment, it can come to Congress and ask for authorization. But the burden should be on the government to show the need and the ability to lawfully conduct the program.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Cline/Jackson Lee Amendment No. 3.

Mr. Chair, I include in the record a letter from Representative Cline and myself listing the groups in support of this amendment.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, April 12, 2024.

Dear Colleague: Please join us in supporting our amendment

to H.R. 7888, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America

Act. Rules Amendment No. 5 would end what is known as

``abouts'' collection, which involves the capturing of

massive amounts of communications by government agencies such

as the National Security Agency (NSA) in which the selector,

for example, an email address, of a target appears somewhere

in communications, even if that target is not a party to the

communications. It has long been controversial.

The FISA Court previously discovered that the government

had misrepresented its activities and held that handling this

type of data was of significant concern and a violation of

the Fourth Amendment. Although the NSA abandoned the practice

of ``abouts'' collection in 2017, Congress in 2018 amended

FISA to prohibit this type of collection unless the AG and

DNI notify the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary

Committees of its plans to resume such collection. But that

only means that if the NSA notifies Congress, they can resume

``abouts'' collection at any time. Our amendment would

proactively end the practice for good.

The following groups support this important amendment:

Freedom Works--Key Vote; Due Process Institute; Americans

for Prosperity; Project for Privacy and Surveillance

Accountability; Reform Government Surveillance; Center for

Democracy and Technology; American Civil Liberties Union;

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC); Restore the

Fourth; Defending Rights & Dissent; Brennan Center for

Justice; Wikimedia Foundation.

Demand Progress; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Project on

Government Oversight; United We Dream; Asian Americans

Advancing Justice; Muslim Advocates; Free Press Action;

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Freedom of

the Press Foundation; New America's Open Technology

Institute; Fight for the Future; Stop AAPI Hate.

We urge you to vote in favor of Amendment No. 5.

Sincerely,

Ben Cline,

Member of Congress.

Sheila Jackson Lee,

Member of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 7888.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This bill is about the extension of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That is the act under which we are able to spy on our adversaries, those individuals who intend to do our Nation harm.

There has been great debate and great discussion among the Members in this body. Everyone is in agreement that there have been unbelievable abuses by the FBI of access to foreign intelligence. The underlying bill, for which there is broad support, punishes the FBI. It criminalizes the FBI's abuses, limits and restricts the FBI's access to foreign intelligence, and further puts guardrails to punish the FBI.

What is also in agreement here on this House floor is the protection of Americans' civil liberties. You have to have a warrant, and there is absolute constitutional protection of Americans' data. There is no place in this statute where Americans' data becomes at risk.

Debate today, though, is not about FISA. It is not about spying on our adversaries. The debate today is about a warrant requirement in an amendment that has been offered by Representatives Biggs and Jayapal.

This amendment, largely drafted by Senator Wyden and cosponsored by Senator Warren, would for the first time in history provide constitutional rights to our adversaries. It would provide constitutional rights to our enemies. No law has ever come out of this body that would provide constitutional rights to our adversaries.

We spy on Hezbollah. We spy on Hamas. We spy on the Ayatollah. We spy on the Communist Party of China. This bill provides them constitutional protections to communicate with people in the United States to recruit them for the purposes of being terrorists, for being spies, and for doing espionage.

The 9/11 perpetrators were in the United States, and they were communicating with al-Qaida. At that time, we made a grave mistake in that we were not spying on al-Qaida and didn't see who they were communicating with in the United States. We changed that and began to spy on al-Qaida and got to see the extent to which they were recruiting people in the United States to do us harm.

If this amendment passes, al-Qaida will have full constitutional protections to recruit in the United States; the Communist Party will have full constitutional protection to recruit in the United States; and there will be no increased protection of constitutional protections for Americans and their data. The only data that would become protected is data that is located in al-Qaida's inbox and the Communist Chinese's inbox.

Now, how is it that they become protected? This amendment would require that we have to have a warrant to look into Chinese Communist Party data for the recruitment efforts that they are doing within the United States. We would have to have evidence of a crime that is occurring in order to get that warrant, which means we will be blind.

If this becomes law, we will be blind, and we will be unable to look at what Hezbollah is doing in the United States, what Hamas is doing in the United States, and what the Communist Party is doing in the United States. There are no additional protections for Americans in this amendment. Americans still have full constitutional protection of their own data.

Mr. Chair, let me give you an example of how this works under their amendment. We are spying on Hamas. Two people in the United States send emails to Hamas. One says happy birthday, and one says thank you for the bomb-making classes. When those two emails go to Hamas, right now, we see them.

If you send a happy birthday to Hamas and we see it, that doesn't matter. It is not a threat to the United States.

If you send an email that says thank you for the bomb-making classes, we intercept that email, read it, and find out who it is. Then, when we come here to go find that person to arrest them and to make certain that they don't harm Americans, we have to go to court and get a warrant.

There already is a warrant requirement for the protection of Americans and people who are here in the United States. If you have to have a warrant to look at the two emails that are sent to Hamas, happy birthday and thank you for the bomb-making classes, then you have no evidence of a crime. You have no ability to read these two emails. We will go dark. We will go blind.

The FBI abuses have been extraordinary in their searching of foreign data. We need to punish them. This underlying bill punishes the FBI. We should not punish Americans. We should not make our Nation less safe by giving constitutional protections to Hamas and by giving constitutional protections to the Chinese Communist Party.

I have been talking to Members on the floor, and they say this amendment is about protecting Americans' data in the United States. It is not. Americans' data in the United States is already protected by the Constitution. There is nobody on this House floor who would argue that you don't need a warrant to look at Americans' data in the United States.

I encourage everyone to pick this amendment up and read it. It applies to the data that we collect in spying on Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Chinese Communist Party. To give them a warrant and to give them constitutional protections means that they are open for business.

The day after this passes and we go blind, the Chinese Communist Party has a complete pass to recruit in the United States students to spy on our industry and on our universities. Hamas and Hezbollah have a complete pass. We will be blind as they try to recruit people for terrorist attacks in the United States.

Currently, we keep America safe by spying on our adversaries. Do not give our adversaries constitutional protection.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup).

Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining on Dr. Wenstrup's 3 minutes?

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford).

Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Crenshaw).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Rutherford), who opposes giving constitutional rights to our foreign adversaries.

Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment by Mr. Biggs.

First of all, I thank Mr. Biggs. He participated in the working group that we had that was joint between the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee that drafted and put together this underlying bill, including working directly with the Speaker's Office in the second working group that drafted the specific bill, this underlying bill.

We disagree about his amendment though, which is why we are here on the debate.

This amendment is not about Americans' inboxes and outboxes. This is not about Americans' data. This amendment is about Hezbollah's data, Hamas' data, and the Communist Chinese Party's data.

You don't have to take my word for it. Just pick up this amendment. Read the front of the amendment. This amendment says that you need to get a warrant to go into data collected by 702. The 702 data which we all agree--everybody on this floor agrees that 702 data is the collection of foreigners abroad. That is Hamas, Hezbollah, the Chinese Communist Party, al-Qaida.

What they want is a warrant to search the inbox and outbox of Hezbollah, al-Qaida, and the Chinese Communist Party when they are communicating with people in the United States.

This is dangerous, it will make us go blind, and it will absolutely increase their recruitment of people inside the United States--not even American citizens--to do terrorist attacks, recruit for espionage, and to harm Americans.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes), the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee.

What Mr. Biggs just said is a great description. If this amendment passes, the Chinese Communist Party, Hezbollah, and Hamas get to fully recruit in the United States free because we would have to get a warrant to monitor them--not to monitor Americans. Already the Constitution requires that you have to have a warrant and you have to go to court for a warrant because their constitutional rights have been protected since the birth of this Nation.

Americans' inboxes and outboxes are protected by a constitutional right for a warrant.

The inbox and outbox of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Chinese Communist Party are not. If they are recruiting into the United States and people are communicating back with them, that is not protected speech. If you send a thanks for the bomb-making classes email to the head of Hamas, that shouldn't take a warrant for us to see because we need to protect Americans.

Now, inside the United States, everybody's communications are protected. The Constitution is sound, and since the birth of this Nation, we have fought to ensure that. I would say it is the definition of a swamp when you stand on this floor and say you are going to give the American people something they already have; they have protections of their communications. They don't have the protection to be able to talk to Hamas and Hezbollah and the Chinese Communist Party and say that they are going to be recruited to be a terrorist to do espionage or to be a spy. That is what we are talking about.

There should not be a warrant for those types of communications. We wouldn't be able to see them. We would go blind. Our Nation would be unsafe.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the gentleman is correct, the Intelligence Committee does oppose this amendment. We oppose this. There was a working group that was put together by the Speaker which had two Representatives of the Judiciary Committee, two Representatives of the Intelligence Committee, two Representatives appointed by the leadership and the chair, Mario Diaz-Balart. Every person in that working group opposed this amendment.

Now, the underlying bill already includes a provision of a requirement that the FISA court now create transcripts and that those transcripts be transmitted to the Congressional committees of jurisdiction, which includes Judiciary and Intelligence.

We will already know what is happening. The difference is whether or not you pull up a seat and you eat popcorn while you are watching the court.

I want to go back to the Biggs amendment here for a second because the Biggs/Jayapal amendment is really what is dominating this whole debate.

This amendment, if you just read the front page of it, clearly says that it is about the intelligence that is gathered from foreigners abroad. This is not about Americans' data. Americans' data is safe, constitutionally protected. They are inboxed and outboxed. No amendment on this floor can change the Constitution. No statute on this floor can change the Constitution.

The statute that we are talking about is 702, which is the spying on foreigners abroad.

Now, everybody in this House is pissed at the FBI and is pissed about the abuses that occurred. Punish the FBI. Pass this underlying bill. Do not pass the Biggs amendment and cause us to go blind and make America less safe.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, in conclusion, as we look at this debate and this bill, which is about spying on foreigners abroad, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Chinese Communist Party, giving them constitutional protections is unprecedented. There is no court that has ever done it. There has been no bill that has passed this House that gives constitutional protections to foreigners abroad.

Americans' constitutional rights are preserved in the Constitution. This amendment undermines our security by giving Americans' constitutional rights here in the United States to foreign adversaries.

Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote on the Biggs amendment, and a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition because the National Security Agency stopped ``abouts'' collection in 2017 because it was fraught with peril. This amendment is not necessary because the intelligence community is not doing this and hasn't been doing it since 2017.

I do want to go back and assist somewhat in the debate of some of the terms that are occurring with respect to the Biggs-Jayapal amendment.

The Biggs-Jayapal amendment, as I indicated, would make us go blind. It would make it so that we can't read the inboxes and outboxes of foreigners abroad who are al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Chinese Communist Party.

The reason I say that is because 702, which is the underlying bill here that is being reauthorized, is tailored only to the adversaries and those who want to do us harm. It is for national security threats. It is for our adversaries. Their inbox and their outbox are not protected. If you are a terrorist or if you are committing espionage or you are a spy and you are communicating with the Chinese Communist Party or Hezbollah, Hamas, or al-Qaida, right now, because we are spying on them, we can read those communications. America wants us to read those communications because it is how we keep America safe.

On 9/11, we had terrorists inside the United States. For all intents and purposes, as people were saying in this debate, they were Americans. They weren't American citizens, but under this law, they were Americans and they had protection under the Constitution. Their communications to al-Qaida were not protected. At that time, we weren't looking. We were not looking. We were blind and we were not listening.

Now, we are looking. If somebody is in this country and they are a terrorist or they are a spy for the Chinese Communist Party, we are looking at the Chinese Communist Party and al-Qaida. In reading those, we can take those to a court and get a warrant and then keep America safe from people who are here who intend to do us harm. This would shut that off. It would

make us be blind with respect to those communications.

Mr. Chair, vote ``no'' on the Biggs-Jayapal amendment, and vote ``no'' on this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, we had Members stand and say that they are for vetting foreigners who want to come into the United States. I assume we should vet them for whether or not they have ties to terrorist groups and organizations. Perhaps we should just ask them because I am sure they will tell us the truth, but they won't, which is why we have 702. Section 702 collects information on foreigners abroad and terrorist groups and organizations.

What this amendment does is it allows us to search Hamas on these individuals who want to come into the United States, to find out if they are affiliated with Hamas because they are not just going to tell us.

If my colleagues are for vetting, my colleagues are for vetting, looking at terrorist groups and organizations to see if they have ties to people who are trying to come into the United States.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, there is a SCIF off of the House floor to provide additional information to Members that I am not able to present here.

This amendment is to correct a technical issue that was found by the FISA court with respect to critical intelligence and a technological issue in which there was a gap.

Again, 702 is about collecting data and information on foreigners abroad. You have to be both. You have to be a foreigner, and you have to be abroad. You can't be a foreigner in the United States, and you can't be an American abroad. It is about foreigners abroad.

There have been people who have been saying on this amendment that this is about collecting at your local Starbucks, this is about collecting at your local McDonald's. It is not. It is about foreigners abroad.

I end with this: With respect to the Biggs-Jayapal amendment, this important surveillance tool of foreigners abroad is limited to just foreigners abroad and individuals who are in the United States who are being recruited by terrorist groups and organizations and the Chinese Communist Party when they communicate with them and their communications end up in the inboxes of the Chinese Communist Party, Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaida.

If we are reading the inbox of al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Chinese Communist Party, and there is an email in there from somebody located in the United States because they are being recruited, either to do espionage, or because they are being recruited for terrorism, my colleagues want the government to read that.

Now, our constitutional protections, which we dearly uphold here and everybody is committed to, is that no American shall have their inbox, their outbox, their electronic communications, and their data spied on by their government. Our constitutional protections require that there be a warrant, and no one should stand in this well and pretend that they do not.

There are constitutional protections for American communications within their data. However, if a person located in the United States is communicating with al-Qaida, Hamas, and the Chinese Communist Party, in this limited group of people that we collect under 702, they can pose a threat to this country.

Additionally, if the Biggs-Jayapal amendment passes, we will go dark. We will no longer see solicitations from the Chinese Communist Party to students in the United States to go and spy for them.

We will no longer see al-Qaida recruiting people in the United States to undertake terrorist attacks.

We will no longer see people who are sympathetic with Hamas, who contact Hamas and say: How can I perpetrate a terrorist attack in the United States?

It is imperative that the Biggs-Jayapal amendment fail and that this underlying bill, which punishes the FBI but protects the American people, pass.

Mr. Chair, I urge passage of this bill and a ``no'' vote on the Biggs-Jayapal amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this legislation.

First, let me emphasize again that, as the chairman said, section 702 is our single most important intelligence authority. We use it every day to protect the Nation from threats ranging from China and Russia to terrorist plots, fentanyl traffickers, and much more. It cannot be allowed to expire.

It is also true that the 702 program requires substantial reform. We have done this before, and we are doing it in this base bill.

I would also make a critical point here, which is that this is arguably our most heavily scrutinized and overseen intelligence authority. It is approved--and I am going to say this twice--every single year and has been since 2009 by Federal judges, Federal judges who crawl all over this program looking for constitutional violations and looking for violations of law, and since 2009, they have recertified this program.

It is also overseen by the Congress. The chairman and I see problems with the program. It is overseen inside by the Attorney General. It is the most scrutinized intelligence collection program that we have.

The bill before the House today is the product of very serious oversight, resulting in a base text that preserves the value of 702 while putting in place more than 50 significant reforms aimed at preventing its misuse, those misuses that were detailed and that the chairman referred to, which, by the way, are down to the tune of 90 percent. This bill would codify those reforms and require that the FBI continue to follow those rules.

This legislation contains the most significant reforms to 702 ever. Among many other proposals, this bill will continue the progress already made, which I referred to, by the Biden administration and others to ensure compliance.

The bill would ban queries conducted to find evidence of a crime and cut by 90 percent--90 percent--the number of FBI personnel that can approve U.S. person queries.

That is what we give up if we don't pass this bill.

We will consider several amendments to the bill, most of which I will support. However, I am opposed to the Biggs amendment. It is an extreme and misguided proposal that seriously undermines our national security.

I understand the instinct. There is no way to collect intelligence on foreign emails and texts without having some Americans on the other side of this. This bill puts in place protections to make sure that the abuses of the past don't continue into the future.

I would add that I understand the concern. Federal judges crawl all over this program every single year, and not one Federal judge--not one--has found constitutional issues with U.S. person queries.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the PCLOB, proposed a warrant that is much less extreme than the one in the Biggs amendment. The PCLOB--and by the way, this proposal was split on the PCLOB--proposed that only in the event that a U.S. person query produces information, only in that event, which is about 2 percent of all queries, would a warrant be required.

The Biggs amendment would require a warrant for every single U.S. person query that the government makes inside information that it already has.

The narrow exceptions included in this amendment will also not work. You don't need to take that from me, Mr. Chair. Talk to anybody in the government who uses this program.

We don't know if a query is about something that is an exigency until we know what is in the information that that query would turn up.

Enacting this amendment would make us far less safe. We will lose the ability to disrupt terrorist plots, identify spies, interdict fentanyl, and much

more, not because it was constitutionally required but because we simply chose not to look.

As Jake Sullivan said this week: ``The extensive harms of this proposal simply cannot be mitigated.''

I would point my colleagues, particularly on my side of the aisle, to the President's extraordinarily strong Statement of Administration Policy in which he reiterates the damage that will be done by this amendment should it pass.

Mr. Chair, with a lot of what we do here, the consequences don't appear immediately. If we turn off the ability of the government to query U.S. person data, then the consequences will be known soon, and we will audit why what happened happened. The consequences will be known soon, and accountability will be visited.

Once again, Mr. Chair, I urge Members to vote for the underlying bill and to oppose the Biggs amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). The Speaker Emerita is the single longest serving member of the Committee on Intelligence ever. She is a member whose, as my Republican colleagues regularly remind me, progressive bona fides are unchallengeable and who came to this institution to fight for civil liberties.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Crow), who, prior to coming here, defended this Nation's security at risk to his own life in the uniform of the 75th Ranger Regiment.

Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Houlahan).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Goldman).

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his terrific work in the face of very real challenges and his commitment to bipartisanship.

This is a critical and bipartisan effort, and it is one that he and I and many others have spent thousands of hours on. As we close out debate, two things are very clear: Number one, this authority must be reauthorized.

I have heard too many Members saying that I will vote to reauthorize it so long as I get this amendment passed. If you are serious about keeping the American people safe, if you are serious about what you said, which is that this must be reauthorized, vote for final passage. This is our single most important tool to keep Americans safe.

Secondly, the Biggs amendment is an extreme amendment, and I understand the instinct.

As I mentioned before, the PCLOB, the President's Civil Liberties Oversight Board, proposed something that would require, in very limited circumstances, a judicial amendment. This amendment is far more extreme than that one, and it is not driven by constitutional concerns. Not a single Federal court after years and years of scrutiny has identified a Fourth Amendment issue.

This is a policy choice, and I would say to those friends of mine on my side of the aisle, maybe you have spent more time on this collection authority than I have. I have probably spent 2,000 or 3,000 hours, so maybe you have spent more. I am willing to concede that. Maybe you know better than I do, but I would ask you to listen to the people who use this every single day at the Department of Justice, at our intelligence community. I would ask you to read the last paragraph of the administration's statement of administration

policy, which concludes with the line: ``Our intelligence, defense, and public safety communities are united: The extensive harms of this proposal simply cannot be mitigated.''

We are Article I. You have probably done a lot of work. Maybe you know better on the Biggs amendment. We will find out. Pass the Biggs amendment. Do what the SAP says would badly damage our safety. We will find out.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank both the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee for this important debate.

I sat here and listened to the Judiciary Committee's support for the warrant amendment, and the entire argument is constructed on the foundation of the notion that U.S. person queries violate the Constitution. That is the argument.

I am not a lawyer, so I tend to defer to my good friends on the Judiciary Committee, but I am likely to defer more immediately to the people who are charged with defending our constitutional rights in the Federal courts. I am going to quote from the PCLOB report here, a statement made by the FIS court in April of 2022: ``All three United States Circuit Courts of Appeals to consider the issue [the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits] have held that the incidental collection of a U.S. person's communications under section 702 does not require a warrant and is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.''

I am not a lawyer, but I am inclined to defer to three separate circuits.

So my friends on Judiciary point to the PCLOB. The gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal) quoted the chair of the PCLOB. She did it right. She was quoting the Chair of the PCLOB in her personal capacity. The PCLOB had profound misgivings with their own warrant requirement, which was far narrower than the Biggs amendment warrant requirement.

The two Republican members of the PCLOB wrote a rebuttal of the PCLOB's proposal, and I will just quote this. The Republican members--I would suggest that I am always amazed by the Chairman of Judiciary's alignment with his party. The Republicans said that: ``FISC preapproval would most negatively impact the most important and urgent queries--the ones that show a connection between foreign targets and U.S. persons, the ones that the FBI must review as quickly as possible.''

Please vote against the Biggs amendment.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas and the gentleman from Virginia. I support this amendment and will be recommending a ``yes'' vote on this amendment to the minority caucus.

I surprised the gentleman from Virginia in asking for a minute, because I think it is very important that this Chamber not believe that this is an argument between civil rights and denigrating civil rights.

Mr. Chair, again, I think I surprised the gentleman from Virginia in saying that I will recommend a ``yes'' vote on this amendment because I think it is very, very important that this not become a debate between civil rights and perhaps those who are less concerned about civil rights.

I will yield to no one in my defense of the civil rights incorporated in our Bill of Rights. I am the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. I spend my days marinating in the depredations that the Chinese would visit upon us, but I voted against the TikTok ban because I felt it had, and courts have held that it has, First Amendment equities at stake.

This amendment is a good one. ``About'' collection, first of all, is not undertaken today by the IC; it is too technically difficult and too risky. There is too much of a risk that communications that are not about a target to an American get swept up in this ``about'' collection.

I will be adamant and stand with the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits in saying that the Biggs amendment is not addressing constitutional issues, but this is an important amendment that I support.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank my friend, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), for the customary 30 minutes.

(Mr. NEGUSE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, today's rule, as Mr. Massie articulated, again provides for the consideration of four bills.

Mr. Speaker, I suspect that you will be familiar with these four bills because these four bills were under a rule 2 days ago.

What happened to that rule? It failed, and that is part and parcel of the chaos and dysfunction that House Republicans have engulfed this august Chamber in for the better part of the last 15 months.

As of 2 days ago, seven rules--seven--have failed on the House floor, Mr. Speaker. You might be wondering and those watching from home might be wondering how many rules failed when Democrats had the majority under Speaker Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi.

In fact, from 1999 to 2023, only two rules failed on the House floor, neither of which happened when House Democrats were in control of this Chamber.

The last bill, Mr. Speaker, to pass the Rules Committee and make its way to the President's desk without suspension of our rules was almost 1 year ago. That is unprecedented.

It is not hyperbole to say that Republicans have literally presided over the most ineffective session of Congress in history.

Despite, by the way, Mr. Speaker, the pressing challenges that our Nation faces, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle repeatedly show that Republicans have no capacity or desire to govern, instead prioritizing unwarranted censures, sham impeachments, and nonbinding resolution after nonbinding resolution.

Instead of debating core issues, like lowering costs, growing the middle class, building safer communities, addressing our critical national security needs, we have spent yet another week here in Washington wasting time.

This is the third time that we are considering a variation of one of these nonbinding resolutions today. Stunts over solutions, Mr. Speaker, has become unfortunately, the majority's motto. This is not how governing is supposed to work.

I have served in this body for some time now. I know there are serious Members on the other side of the aisle. I wish Republicans would pull back their caucus and this institution from the brink and work with us in a bipartisan way to address core needs of the American people. Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have yet to show any desire to do so, but hope springs eternal.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, while I congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), the chairman of the distinguished Rules Committee, I must say I am confounded by the audacity of any House Republican to come to the floor and lecture any of us about national security when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have held hostage a bill that passed the United States Senate on a bipartisan basis to address the national security needs of this country. For months, the majority has held that bill hostage and refuse to put the bill on the floor.

Republicans also have the audacity to come to the floor and lecture us or the White House. The White House needs no reminder about the necessity of supporting our allies. My colleagues have implored this institution to do its job in supporting our allies abroad. It is the Speaker and the House Republican caucus that refuse to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my colleague from Wisconsin. We served together on the Subcommittee on Federal Lands, and I certainly agree with him about the preservation of liberty and the importance of liberty in our founding documents as the core fabric, core threat in our country, but I must also just say that I don't think the American people share House Republicans' priorities. Let me explain why.

On Monday, the Rules Committee will be meeting to consider a number of bills. House Republicans put out a notice yesterday what those bills would include. Let me just give you a sampling, Mr. Speaker: the Refrigerator Freedom Act, the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, the Clothes Dryers Reliability Act, and--this may be my favorite--the Liberty in Laundry Act.

While I appreciate the gentleman from Wisconsin's very passionate defense of liberty, I am not so sure the American people had that in mind. I don't think they are thinking of the Liberty in Laundry Act. I think they expect this House Republican majority to actually address the consequential challenges that face our country, not waste time on petty games and nonsense bills.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, again, I appreciate the passion of the speakers on the other side of the aisle, including the gentlewoman from Wyoming, but facts matter, Mr. Speaker. And this body must dispense with the notion that any of this, the ills that they have spent all this time describing, are attributable to the Biden administration.

Mr. Speaker, I will read you a quote. This is from January 2018: ``I would have preferred a permanent reauthorization''--let me repeat that--``permanent reauthorization of title VII to protect the safety and security of the Nation. By signing this act today, however, I am ensuring that this lawful and essential intelligence program will continue to protect Americans for at least the next 6 years. We cannot let our guard down in the face of foreign threats to our safety, our freedom, and our way of life,'' President Donald J. Trump.

I understand we are going to have robust debates about the mechanics and the nuances with respect to this particular bill but spare us lectures about the need for a shorter runway and a shorter reauthorization, when the former President, whom apparently the House Republican caucus continues to take orders from, made clear and abundant his desire for a permanent reauthorization of this program with none of these reforms, by the way. None of them.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to read from an article from a few days ago. This is from FOX 5 in Atlanta. The headline: ``Marjorie Taylor Greene standing by eclipse, NE Earthquake comments.''

``Georgia Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene is standing by comments she made about last week's earthquake in the Northeast and Monday's eclipse.''

Yes, sir.

No, I am addressing the Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am reading an article, a newspaper article. Has that become objectionable now in this body?

I thank the Speaker. I will dispense with it quickly. I will just simply say, again, this is quoting from the article here that: ``The Republican Representative then posted on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, that `God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent.' Greene also pointed to Monday's eclipse, saying there are `many more things to come.'''

To the extent that my friend from Kentucky was looking for me to make a connection here to the debate that we are having, I suspect it is self-evident, but I am not so sure that the American people should necessarily be taking much stock into the arguments that are being made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, including from the speaker that we just heard from.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, I am going to go through this list of bills that they have noticed for Monday: the Liberty in Laundry Act, the Clothes Dryer Reliability Act, and the Refrigerator Freedom Act. I can assure the gentleman from Ohio, I don't think any of the American people believe that he works in a think tank, given these bills that they have apparently noticed for this House to consider next week.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Today's rule, put simply, is a testament to the Republican playbook since assuming the majority 15 months ago: chaos, gridlock, and infighting. Over the past year, honestly, it has been difficult to understand what my colleagues across the aisle truly want.

At the beginning of this Congress, the other side of the aisle voted for a House rules package that they promised would entail an open rules process for amendments, yet this Congress is on pace to have more closed rules than any Congress in the last 100 years, over a century.

A minority of House Republicans now dictate what proposals will even have a chance to be considered in this Chamber, to stand in the marketplace of ideas that our colleagues claim to love so dearly.

Mr. Speaker, our colleagues across the aisle reject compromises at every turn. My Republican colleagues rejected a bipartisan immigration deal that came out of the Senate before even reading the bill text. The bill passed with 70 votes, Mr. Speaker, in the United States Senate.

Our allies around the world have literally been left stranded, and House Republicans won't even bring the bill up for an up-or-down vote. Instead, their top priority is the Refrigerator Freedom Act, Mr. Speaker.

The American people deserve better. They expect better. Enough of the political stunts. Enough of the infighting. Let's get back to work, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, in 2021, 2022, the FBI did over 3 million U.S. person queries of this giant 702 database--of this giant haystack of information, 3 million queries of United States persons. Make no mistake, query is a fancy name for search. Three million Americans' data was searched in this database of information, and guess what? The FBI wasn't even following their own rules when they conducted those searches. That is why we need a warrant.

This is not Jim Jordan talking about it. This is not Ranking Member Nadler talking about it, but The Washington Post reported last May that 278,000 times the FBI found, the Justice Department found, that they didn't even follow their own darn rules when they searched this giant haystack, this giant database of information on Americans.

What we are saying is, let's do something that the Constitution has had in place for a couple hundred years that has served our Nation well and protected American citizens' liberties. Let's make the executive branch go to a separate and equal branch of government, the judicial branch, and get a probable cause warrant to do the search.

After all, it has done pretty well for this great country, greatest country ever, for a long, long time. Why wouldn't we have that here?

By the way, in a bipartisan fashion coming out of our committee, 35-2 vote, we said we will even put exceptions in there. If it is an emergency situation, the FBI doesn't have to get a warrant. They can do the search. If it is an emergency situation, they can do it. We have put exceptions in there.

Here is the fundamental question that I raised the other day: Of the over 3 million searches in a 2-year time span, how many of those aren't covered by the exceptions we have in our warrant amendment? What is the number? Guess what? We can't get an answer. They won't tell us, which should be concerning in and of itself, but if it is a big number, we should be particularly frightened.

If they don't follow the exceptions and they are searching Americans, searching your name, your phone number, your email address in this giant database, that should scare us. And if it is a small number, then what is the big deal? We can't get an answer to that question.

The underlying bill has got some changes and reforms that are positive, that are good, but short of having this warrant amendment added to the legislation, we shouldn't pass it.

This amendment is critical, particularly when you think about the 278,000 times they abused the system, didn't follow their own rules. Now we say, oh, we have got some new rules, they will follow them now. No. No.

The real check we have in our system is a separate and equal branch of government signing off on it. That is how we do things in America. And never forget, this is the FBI who has had some other abuses in different areas.

This is why we think this warrant requirement is so darn important, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), my friend and a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Before yielding to my good friend, I just want to underscore what the gentlewoman from Washington just described. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created by the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, says that our amendment is consistent with what should happen. Our amendment is consistent with the majority recommendation of that board.

This was a board specifically created to protect Americans' liberties, looking at how the intelligence community operates by the 9/ 11 Commission Act of 2007. The majority of that board said this amendment is what needs to happen.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew), a member of our committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Texas (Mr. Self), my friend and colleague.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Fitzgerald), a Judiciary Committee member and friend.

Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I think the ranking member is right. The vote was 35-2 on a major piece of legislation. That doesn't happen a whole lot in our committee.

I thank our committee and I thank the Members on the Republican side who worked so hard over the last year putting this legislation together. We had three individuals in particular, Ms. Lee, Mr. Biggs, and Mr. McClintock, who served on a task force focused on this getting in right. I think they have a good product if, as the ranking member just said, the warrant amendment is actually adopted into the base text.

I also thank the Democrats who worked so hard, and their staff working with our good staff, on putting this together: Ranking Member Nadler, Ms. Jayapal, and several others working together to defend a fundamental principle.

The Judiciary Committee is supposed to be that--we are all supposed to do this, but where it is really focused is the Judiciary Committee is supposed to be that committee that is determined to make sure Americans' liberties are protected. I think the staff and the Members have worked hard to put together a product that will do that if, in fact, this amendment gets added here in a few minutes.

When the folks who started this country came together, they had it right when they created separate and equal branches of government. The checks and balances in our system are good. They protect our rights, our liberties, and key principles.

We should adhere to that. As I said earlier, it has served us well. This amendment follows that fundamental principal, so I hope we adopt it. Then if we adopt it, I hope we adopt the legislation.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chair, I would just point out that my good friend from Ohio says that we are searching foreigners in this database. Well, if we are just searching foreigners, why do we have this distinction called ``U.S. person queries''?

If you are just searching the bad guys, that is one thing, but you are not or you wouldn't have violated U.S. person inquiries 278,000 times. That is the fundamental distinction.

You can search all the bad guys you want--that is what we want. Do surveillance on them. They are in the database. You want more about them in the database, go do it. But if you want to search an American-- their name, their phone number, their email address--you have to get a warrant.

That is all this does. We shouldn't make it too complicated. That is all this does.

Mr. Himes just used the term, ``U.S. person queries.'' That is not a foreigner, that is someone here in the United States who is a person, and they are being searched. All we are saying is if you are going to do that, go get a warrant from a separate and equal branch of government.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, now they want to expand it. This is the second amendment in a row where they are going to expand FISA.

We can't have a warrant for the existing program, this giant haystack of information. You can't have a warrant when you go search American citizens there, but now they want to expand it and tell us you still can't have a warrant.

Holy cow. Pretty soon, this is going to be everybody gets searched for any darned reason they want. That is not how it works in America, at least it is not how it is supposed to work.

The third amendment is going to expand it, too. We spent all morning talking about the warrant requirement, which should be so obvious, and they want to expand it.

Mr. Chair, I understand we have a border problem. Holy cow, do we understand that. I may not agree with my

Democratic colleagues on how to fix it. In fact, I know I don't, but expanding FISA, you have to be kidding me. This amendment authorizes surveillance of a whole new category of individuals.

We should absolutely vet foreigners who seek to enter the United States, whether legally or illegally, but Congress should not expand FISA or section 702 beyond its current scope of authority.

This whole year, we have been focusing our committee on limiting FISA and reining it in so that we still can do what we needs to be done: look after bad guys and look at bad guys but not infringe on Americans' liberties. This just expands it. That is not what the purpose of this bill is.

We should address the border problem. Holy cow, our committee spent a boatload of time on it. That is an issue where, unfortunately, we didn't get a 35-2 vote on H.R. 2, which is a good piece of legislation.

This is going to sweep up so many more Americans, where the FBI 278,000 times illegally--not illegally but didn't follow their own rules when they queried the database. Now, they have even more.

Holy cow, Mr. Chair, this is the wrong way to go.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington.

I will close my time by saying, Mr. Chairman, every time you expand FISA, you underscore the need for a warrant. The bigger and bigger this database gets and the more that U.S. persons are going to be searched, you underscore the need for a warrant, which we spent a whole morning debating.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.