Meredith Lee Hill @meredithllee a fair amount of skepticism still from some Rs on Speaker Mike Johnson's emerging FISA backup the Higgins language has been “massaged” beyond all recognition, per sources Now just appears to restate what current law is related to targeting US persons. GOP leaders will continue talks through the night. Quote Meredith Lee Hill @meredithllee · 2h NEW - Speaker Mike Johnson tells @politico he’s “targeting tomorrow” for release of an updated FISA extension He is racing to try to head off the Senate
House Republicans revolted twice in the small hours of Friday morning, ultimately sinking the bill. Shortly after 1 am ET, a dozen Republicans joined nearly every Democrat to kill a leadership-backed amendment that would have extended Section 702 for five more years. The amendment contained a provision that was in essence a fake warrant requirement. It would have prohibited government officers from “intentionally” targeting Americans' communications without a warrant—conduct that is already banned by the statute. It also offered the government a warrant path if agents had probable cause to suspect the subject is an agent of a foreign power—an authority that already exists independent of the Section 702 program and adds functionally nothing new to the law.
i reported on this last week & typed "fake warrant requirement" as a placeholder. after some discussion, we ended up leaving that description because it's the cleanest and most accurate. the amendment appeases some lawmakers or arms them w/ media-friendly language, but functionally it does nothing.
![Congressional report text:
This goes further than the President's plan in that it
prohibits the bulk collection of all tangible things and not
just telephone records. Section 501(b)(2)(A) of FISA will
continue to require the government to make ``a statement of
facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that
the tangible things sought are relevant to an authorized
investigation. . . .''\30\ The USA Freedom Act requires the
government to provide a specific selection term as the basis
for the production of the tangible things sought, thus ensuring
that the government cannot collect tangible things based on the
assertion that the requested collection ``is thus relevant,
because the success of [an] investigative tool depends on bulk
collection.''\31\ These changes restore meaningful limits to
the ``relevance'' requirement of Section 501.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:l5sbumoynt7yzpjipsfsgczg/bafkreib2bzrqvjfgeow5w734azwgkfa52emgoujrycnvhb5h22u5ab4rq4)
