To amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and for other purposes.

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

Mr. Speaker, when we first met on the majority's confusion and disarray over FISA at 1:30 in the morning on April 17, we pointed out that the majority's language departed so sharply from the requirements of the Fourth Amendment in the Constitution that, for the very first time, it would have authorized the government to use 702 to specifically and deliberately target and spy on the communications of American citizens.

That midnight maneuver quickly collapsed as support melted away all across the body. On unanimous consent, we agreed to a 1-week extension to give the House leadership a chance to discuss and negotiate necessary reforms with their own Members who had been ignored and bypassed in the process, as well as with us.

Speaker Johnson never once invited us to the table. He never got in touch with us.

One week later, congressional Republicans again failed to pass their own bill. I stood in this spot, and we agreed to a one-time 45-day extension as a gesture of legislative good faith to give the leadership a chance to meet with their own members who had been bypassed and with the Democratic side of the aisle, which had been completely bypassed, and to engage in good-faith negotiations for serious FISA legislation.

That means legislation that meets both the requirements of the Constitution for the privacy rights of the people and the needs of our foreign policy and national security. Again, we never heard from the Speaker. We never heard from his staff. They never came to talk to us.

Now, we are here to consider a bill drafted, it looks like, at 4:33 p.m., about 1 hour ago, just to kick the can down the road one more time.

For months, we have offered to work in good faith with our friends across the aisle, our colleagues in the Senate, and intelligence community to reauthorize 702 in a manner that preserves the necessary authority while protecting essential constitutional values and the privacy rights of the people.

Despite this, again, Speaker Johnson has never once invited Democrats to the table.

I know Speaker Johnson. We served together on the Committee on the Judiciary. We used to speak and interact freely, but he has completely vanished in this process.

We have an incredible shrinking Constitution under Donald Trump, and now we have an incredibly shrinking Speaker under Donald Trump.

Look, our touchstone has been a fundamental principle at the core of the Fourth Amendment. A judge must come between the Federal Government and the private communications of American citizens. That is the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The FBI has abused this powerful surveillance authority for decades.

The FISA court has recently raised serious questions today about how section 702 is operating. Instead of implementing the modest self- administered guardrails Congress required as part of our 2024 reauthorization, the FBI appears to have been actively circumventing and violating those guardrails.

We cannot trust Kash Patel not to violate FISA when he readily admits he queried some government databases to dig up dirt on journalists who dared to report about him and the government services he has made available to his girlfriend.

Believe it or not, the administration's invitation to trust Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, which the majority of this body was not interested in, has now gotten even less enticing. Today, President Trump just appointed Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence, making it even more obvious that he intends to use FISA to investigate, harass, and persecute his political opponents.

Director Pulte has no national security experience, zero, zilch, none. He is famous in America for only three things:

One, he vowed to engage in fisticuffs with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent when he was at Donald Trump, Jr.'s club in Georgetown, the Executive Branch.

Two, he brought Palantir into the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he was director, to help him scour through American's personal financial data, looking for dirt on Trump's designated political enemies.

Finally, he then used this AI-enabled technology to create personal mortgage dossiers on Adam Schiff, Leticia James, and Lisa Cook, who he then referred to the Department of Justice for felony criminal prosecutions. He engaged in criminal referrals. All three of these attempted prosecutions, fortunately, collapsed either at the Department of Justice or in Federal court because they were so flimsy.

That is what he spends his time doing, trying to dig up dirt through this AI-enabled technology on American citizens, including elected officials.

So if you thought our civil liberties were safe with Tulsi Gabbard as the backstop, which was the last proposal, you will love the idea of Bill Pulte being the guardian of our privacy and the protector of our civil liberties.

Bill Pulte's appointment, which has been derided not just in our party but by Senators Thune, Tillis, and Cassidy, just to name a few, confirms our worst fears of the President's plans to abuse FISA section 702 for the purposes of domestic political surveillance, harassment, intimidation, and persecution.

Indeed, we know the FBI is currently abusing FISA based on the FISC opinion from March that remains inexplicably classified. Instead of implementing in good faith the modest reforms we passed 2 years ago, the FBI created a system to review Americans' data in violation of the minimal, self-administered, self-policing guardrails we required.

We can say with some confidence that the FBI has no idea how many U.S. person queries they ran last year, how many times they spied on the communications of American citizens, and we should be able to explain these serious deficiencies to our constituents.

Mr. Speaker, if we allow the President to turn FISA into an instrument of domestic political control, we will be ignoring everything we have already learned about the long history of abuse of this program, which my friend Mr. Jordan has helped to bring to light: past improper searches swept in Members of Congress and staff of both parties, campaign activists and donors, and Black Lives Matter activists.

President Trump certainly believes FISA provides the technology, methodology, and opportunity to spy on political opponents. On April 10, 2024, he posted: ``Kill FISA, it was illegally used against me, and many others. They spied on my campaign.''

``Kill FISA,'' he said. These allegations may or may not be true, but the President is certainly right that this program has been badly abused in the past.

The majority, yet, still shows no evidence of seeking to impose a judicial warrant requirement for queries of U.S. citizens. They have shown no interest in building a probable cause requirement into the statute. We have seen no evidence that they want to impose any judicial oversight at all, although that

was the Framers' major commitment, that they wanted to make sure that there would be a judicial magistrate interposed between the government and the rights of the people.

That is the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. We need to stand by that, and we need a real process to make sure that we come up with real legislation that honors it.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I don't know what personality potshots the distinguished gentleman is referring to. Of course, that is against the rules of the House, and if you think you have an objection, you should go ahead and object based on personalities. I haven't heard a single one mentioned.

In any event, when section 702 of FISA sunsets on June 12, if that is the will of the majority, the government surveillance activities will continue unchanged. Everything that has already been authorized and certified is already in motion, and current FISA authorizations will continue unaffected, at least through March 17, 2027.

In any event, I know that the gentleman said that we are approaching the 250th anniversary of the country. Yes, that is something we have known about for 250 years, and the majority has known for many months about this deadline and can't seem to get it together.

We don't have the opportunity to help them because they will not reach out to us and talk to us about it. I restate our commitment to try to help them get through this, but we are not going to continue to kick the can down the road with them indefinitely.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), the very distinguished gentleman and a great champion of the Constitution and civil liberties.

Mr. Speaker, we thank you for your trenchant remarks, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me just say, we gave the majority an extra week. We supported that unanimous consent. Everybody Member of this body supported that. They never consulted us. They never talked to us, despite all kinds of promises to do so.

I had GOP colleagues telling me, on the Judiciary Committee, they were never consulted. Nobody ever talked to them about it.

Then we gave them 45 days. They said they just needed 45 days, and they would definitely talk to us. We would be able to meet. After 1\1/ 2\ months, we heard nothing from them.

We have been begging them to sit down, because I believe there is a robust, bipartisan majority in this House to support the needed reforms and making sure that we interpose the voice of a judge before the personal communications of American citizens are invaded by the Government.

I think that we have got a vast majority on that side, but nobody from leadership seems to be talking to anybody who is concerned about this.

Now they say: Oh, well, just give us another week.

No, we are not interested in that. We have given you lots of time. You are not consulting us. You are not negotiating in good faith. So maybe the threat that we are not going to support you will finally get you guys serious about it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

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

Mr. Speaker, can you tell us how much time we have remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, my friend, the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, flippantly says: What is another 3 weeks after we have kicked the can down the road this far?

Where is the passionate, stalwart defender of American civil liberties and right to privacy we have come to admire and esteem? The Fourth Amendment protects the rights of all Americans. It does not have a ``unless it is just for another 3 weeks'' exception.

Congress must act to protect the rights of Americans. We agreed to 1 week. We agreed to 45 days. Enough of this disorganization and chaos. If there is a serious proposal on the table, we are all ears. We will sit down, and we will work on this. We want to reauthorize section 702, and we want to make it safe for the constitutional rights and liberties of the people.

We also know, Mr. Speaker, that section 702 explicitly allows any current authorizations to continue until their expiration dates, even if the statute sunsets. Therefore, there is no reason we cannot protect both the Fourth Amendment rights of the people and the authorities that keep us safe.

If Speaker Johnson will just allow us to do so, I believe that the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees can come together and get this done.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I believe there is a robust, bipartisan majority. I think it is ridiculous that we even need to say it, but I do believe there is a robust bipartisan majority that will stand with the Constitution, that will make sure we are interposing the proper independent judicial magistrate between the government and searches of the private rights and the persons and things protected by the Fourth Amendment.

We need to protect the rights of the people and the Constitution. We can do that. We need to protect our national security with section 702. We can do that. We can harmonize them. All it takes is old-fashioned legislative deliberation and compromise.

I am certain we can do it, but we haven't had any effort by the GOP leadership to look to this body, both Republicans and Democrats. Where do they look? They look to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But we are an Article I for a reason. We are the legislating branch, not the President. We have got the power to declare war. The President has forgotten that. We have got the power to appropriate. We have got the power to tax, and we have got the power to pass this legislation on section 702.

We don't have to wait on hand and foot for the White House to tell us what to do. Let's just sit down. Let's hammer out a great legislative compromise that will take us not for another 7 days or 42 days or 45 days. How about we do it for the next 5 years? If we build a search warrant requirement into it, I bet we could do it for the next 10 years.

Let's live up to our constitutional responsibilities and legislate together.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 9238) to amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members

may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 9238.

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

Mr. Speaker, FISA section 702 will expire on Friday. This bill extends the program until July 2.

The 702 program is critically important to our national security. More than 60 percent of our intelligence presented to the President, to the Commander in Chief, every single day is derived from 702.

With the World Cup about to begin this week, we cannot be left without this critical tool every day. The 702 program helps keep us safe here at home and advance our interests abroad.

This temporary extension will ensure that there is no disruption to the program while we find a path forward on reauthorization.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I think that might be the first time that I heard my friend and gentleman from Maryland agree with the President, as he smiles.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford), the distinguished chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a good friend who is doing a great job.

Mr. Speaker, I will point out to the gentleman from Kentucky, that is not the question today. The question today is: Can we go another 3 weeks, 21 days, and try to figure out what makes sense on protecting the privacy rights of Americans?

That is a simple question. I don't think 3 weeks is too much to ask. For goodness sakes, this program has been around forever. We did 56 reforms to it just 2 years ago.

I think the question is probably just: Can we go another 3 weeks and figure it out and maybe have those discussions that the ranking member was talking about? I know he and I have talked about what makes sense. That is the question in front of us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott), who serves on the Intelligence Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think we are ready to close if the ranking member can wind up his remarks. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I would just remind my friend from Maryland, the ranking member, of a couple things. I said initially, in light of the 56 reforms we did a couple years ago to this legislation, I was willing to go for a short- term reauthorization, 18 months. Remember, that was the original package. I was willing to go for that, particularly at a time when we, like it or not, are in a conflict, military operation, in Iran. I thought that made sense, in light of the reforms we have done.

Second, he said that I had said earlier what is another 3 weeks. Well, he just talked about hammering it out. I didn't say what is another 3 weeks. I said: We can take 3 weeks to continue to hammer it out and figure it out. That is all we are asking.

While we are hammering it out and figuring it out, we maybe want not to let the program go completely dark, not because--because the guys on the Intel Committee, even Mr. Himes, understands how important this is.

Finally, I would say this. When he says: ``Where is my friend from a few years ago?'' if I remember right, we could have had the warrant requirement maybe 2 years ago because I remember what the vote was. It was 212-212. All it would have taken was one more ``no'' vote then to vote ``yes,'' and, shazam, we pass it.

You can criticize all you want, but those are the facts.

Now, the question again is real simple: Can we go another 3 weeks--I think we can--and hammer out a deal, which I am willing to do with the gentleman from Maryland and the folks on the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, here is what we know: We are in an elevated threat level with FIFA World Cup games beginning this week, America's 250th birthday and related celebrations coming up this summer, Iran and its proxies are targeting U.S. military personnel daily, and the 25th commemoration of the September 11 terrorist attacks will be coming up.

We know that FISA 702 is the most important foreign intelligence authority to detect and mitigate national security threats.

This week, the World Cup kicks off, and 45 countries descend upon the United States for World Cup games, which just so happens to be the week that Democrats have actively chosen to disallow this critical national security tool from being renewed and allow it to go dark.

Democrats have chosen to compromise national security and the safety of Americans to play, essentially, political chicken with an essential national security tool. This is unserious, very dangerous behavior on the part of congressional Democrats.

Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about the policy. Instead, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about personalities. They are concerned about personalities. They are not concerned about the policy.

I know, because they are really smart, that they understand that the DNI has no 702 query authority. Either they know that to be true and, yet, continue on this personality conflict issue, or they don't know that the DNI doesn't have 702 query authority. In either case, it is wrong.

We are not debating the underlying policy here. We are debating personalities, and that is a real shame.

Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Mark Warner are all members of the Gang of Eight. They have all been read into the threats, as I have. They know the highest levels of national security threats, above every other Member of Congress, and they are all willing to let this program go dark and subject the American people to all manner of threats that might materialize here in the absence of this program.

That is an abdication of their constitutional responsibilities. It is shameful is what it is, for Gang of Eight members, who understand what is at stake, who have been read in at the highest levels, who understand the importance of 702, who know that 60 percent of the Presidential daily brief is derived from 702, for them to say ``no'' because they don't like the individual in question who doesn't even have 702 query authority. So let's go ahead and take this program hostage to make a political point because they don't like President Trump either.

That is what this has devolved into. It is an absolute shame. If this authority lapses starting on Saturday, we move into uncharted territory. It is unclear how providers will respond to statutory expiration, especially the lapse in liability protection and how uncertain this will impact foreign intelligence that is critical for policy and security decisions.

Once this authorization expires, the clock starts ticking. The implications get worse every single day.

While the 702 database would remain available to search, the data in that database will become increasingly out of date with potential provider noncompliance with orders, litigation by providers or outside groups, and even reticence by agency personnel to continue implementing an expired authority for fear of personal liability.

Enough is enough. Let's just get past the personalities, if we can, recognize the need to take care of the people in this country, and to secure our country. That is one of the things that we are supposed to do in this institution, is to protect the American people. Let's do that, take the personality potshots offline because if we want to do that, we have plenty of material to work with. Yet, let's just focus on the policy here, get this done, and move forward.

Mr. Speaker, I want the American citizens to know that, as was said earlier, April 17, with hundreds of people on the floor of the House of Representatives, we did, by UC, adopt a 1-week extension. That was true.

We then did a 45-day extension, and now we are asking, yes, for 21- day extension. And sometimes things take longer than we would like for them to.

I want to defend my friend Tulsi Gabbard, who was attacked by the gentleman from Maryland. Tulsi was the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. She was the vice chair. She was elected unanimously to that position as the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. She maintained friendships, because everybody knew she was a serious Member of Congress, up to and until she became an appointee of President Trump as DNI, and then, all of a sudden, everything I have heard from Democrats about her has been bad.

She was elected unanimously to the vice chair position of the DNC. She is a good woman. She cares about this country, and you should show her a little more respect than you do.

I want the American citizens, if you are watching this, to know, it is very simple. There is a lot going on in the world. Say what you want to about it with Iran. The bottom line is, the risks are elevated. The risks are elevated. Some of us think the President did the right thing. I realize some of you think he did the wrong thing, but the risks are elevated.

We have got the World Cup that is about to happen. Thousands and thousands of people are coming into this country, some of which actually want to do us harm. Do you know who is going to be making sure that we keep the ones out of this country that want to do us harm? It is going to be Customs and Border Protection checking statuses when they come in through the border. I am glad that we got that funded.

I want to leave you with this. If you are watching this, we, as the Republicans in the House, are also disappointed that we have not gotten to a resolution after the 1-week extension, after the 45-day extension.

We are simply asking for another 21-day extension to make sure that this authority does not expire.

Mr. Speaker, I would just ask that we abide by commonsense and the rule that we first do no harm by taking down a valuable national security tool that the United States of America needs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this clean reauthorization of an unconstitutional program that is being used to spy on Americans without warrants. This would be the third temporary, clean extension of this unconstitutional program, and I find myself on the unfortunate opposition to the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction, the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).

I want to read some of his quotes from last year. This is an article in The Washington Post that he so eloquently wrote: ``One year from now, Republicans and Democrats in Congress will have a chance to reaffirm our commitment to the Constitution and better protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance. This will be one of the most important debates we will have this Congress, and it is vital that we begin working now to protect Americans' constitutional rights.''

He goes on to say: ``Our fidelity must always be to the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment is one of the foundations of American civil liberties. It is part of what makes our country great and makes us the envy of the world. We must continue to protect and enhance it. Passing a warrant requirement for section 702 will do just that.''

He goes on to tweet later or earlier than that: ``The same people who spied on President Trump's campaign are now fighting against a warrant requirement in the new FISA bill.'' ``Makes you wonder.''

I find myself disagreeing with the chairman in this debate but agreeing vehemently with him last year and the year before when he pointed out that this program is unconstitutional and there is only one way to fix it: require warrants, judicial warrants.

We saw the President's administration tweet this week that we shouldn't trust these liberal judges in Washington, DC, to hamstring the Secretary of Defense. Well, that is not what we are talking about. Number one, we are not talking about a constraint on the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War. We are talking about a constraint on the FBI to spy on Americans.

We are not talking about liberal judges since 8 of the 11 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges were appointed by Republicans.

By the way, most of them aren't even in DC.