Law House takes FISA renewal off the floor and back to committee after Trump says he would veto it

[Lead]

More developments. Senate passed this with an amendment that provided more outside representation for FISA courts but also included government being able to access internet history without a warrant. This went back to the house for a second vote which seemed inevitable as it had a majority the first time around with little change but Trump tweeted he would veto the bill if it reached his desk.

This prompted the bill to be moved back to go back to conference committee between Senate and the House to craft changes to the bill. Not sure yet what the sticking points are that made Trump come out in opposition but this still leaves the door open for internet browsing without a warrant piece to be modified or removed. It fell short in an amendment by 1 vote in the Senate before they passed their version of the bill.
Trump seems to clarify part of his opposition to the bill dealt with the Russian probe and that the FBI abused FISA privileges in the past.


Seems like it's all over the place at the moment as Pelosi wanted this to go through, a lot of the democrats in Congress didn't, a faction of GOP congressmen aligned with Trump no longer did.

More details from Politico:

The latest rupture began over a proposal by Wyden to block the FBI from collecting the web browsing data of Americans. Wyden’s plan failed by a single vote in the Senate, but Lofgren negotiated with House leaders to bring it up for a House vote when the chamber considered the broader bill.

But Lofgren also negotiated a deal with House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff to tweak the language to narrow the restrictions on the FBI, a deal that infuriated Wyden and left him and other progressives calling for the defeat of the measure.

Opposition from the left resulted in an unusual alliance with Trump allies who opposed the FBI’s request for FISA reauthorization over claims it was abused to monitor figures on Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Some proponents of the current FISA bill — including conservative Republicans who have long sought to rein in government surveillance powers — said that the fierce backlash demonstrated the potential power of the reforms.

House Democrats withdraw foreign surveillance bill as Trump veto pledge threatens passage
MSNBC

House Democrats withdrew a bill Thursday to reauthorize foreign surveillance powers as Republicans united to oppose the Senate-passed proposal.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced he would pull the legislation Thursday morning after the chamber failed to pass it on Wednesday. As the House considered the measure Wednesday, President Donald Trump pledged to veto it.


“At the request of the Speaker of the House, I am withdrawing consideration of the FISA Act,” Hoyer said in a written statement. “The two-thirds of the Republican party that voted for this bill in March have indicated they are going to vote against it now. I am told they are doing so at the request of the President. I believe this to be against the security interest of the United States and the safety of the American people.”

In a letter to colleagues Thursday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats want to go to conference committee negotiations with the Senate to reach a deal on a bill.

*Please note I'm moving prior OP content to the 2nd or 3rd posts so if the original post has "likes", the poster(s) may have been doing so for something prior to the current version.

 

[Lead]

Two amendments came up when looking to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act:
-One (from Senators Leahy / Lee) giving further protections to targets of the Act which passed
-Second one (from Senators Daines/ Wyden) adding new restrictions on surveillance of internet search history which did not pass, being short a single vote with four Senator's absent who would've supported it (Murrary, Sanders, Sasse, Alexander)

Vote on the Senate version should happen today and then be sent to the house. Not sure if that gives any hope of that other amendment still making it into the bill

Senate votes to increase legal protections to targets of surveillance court
CNN

The Senate on Wednesday passed an amendment to provide additional legal protections to targets of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants and nearly approved new restrictions on the federal government's power to search internet history in a sign of bipartisan frustration over surveillance authorities under the FISA law.

The amendment votes occurred ahead of the Senate's expected passage Thursday of a bill to reauthorize three FISA surveillance authorities that lapsed in March.
The Senate easily approved an amendment from Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont that added additional protections in the FISA court for targets of surveillance warrants, 79-11. An amendment from GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon was defeated by the narrowest of margins, falling one vote short of the 60 needed to pass, 59-37. The senators' amendment would have restricted the searches of browser and search history under FISA's Section 215, which grants federal authorities the ability to obtain tangible things under the FISA law in national security investigations.
Of the four senators who missed that vote -- Sens. Patty Murray of Washington state, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee -- at least one would have voted in favor. Murray's spokeswoman confirmed she backed the amendment, but was flying back to Washington, DC, from Washington state.

In win for privacy hawks, Senate adds more legal protections to FISA bill
The Hill

The Senate on Wednesday approved more legal protections for some individuals targeted by a shadowy surveillance court.

The 77-19 vote, which will add language to a House-passed bill, marks a victory for privacy hawks who have raised red flags about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court for years.

But it also adds a snag to getting the bill to Trump's desk. Because senators voted to amend the House bill, once it is passed by the Senate, which is expected to happen on Thursday, it will have to be sent back to the House to be passed for a second time.

The proposal, from Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), would increase the role of outside legal experts in FISA court hearings, including allowing them to weigh in on some FBI surveillance requests.

Senate privacy hawks score a win that delays surveillance renewal
Politico

Senators voted 77-19 — well over the 60-vote threshold — to adopt a bipartisan amendment bolstering legal protections for targets of federal surveillance. The move means that Congress' attempt to reauthorize key sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will detour back to the House, where it could face more delays or tinkering at the hands of privacy advocates and Republicans.

It’s also unclear if President Donald Trump would sign the legislation, even though Attorney General William Barr helped negotiate it. Trump has railed against the Obama administration's use of FISA to surveil supporters of his campaign in 2016, and has complained on Twitter about the bill's House-backed version.
FISA is a Watergate-era law that serves as the foundation for national security probes and governs federal surveillance, both domestically and of Americans abroad. Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) offered the amendment that lawmakers adopted Wednesday.

 

[Lead]

It passed 80-16. Going back to the house now for another vote.

Senate passes FISA renewal bill, sends it back to the House
Poltico

The Senate approved legislation Thursday to renew a handful of key domestic surveillance powers, but only after civil libertarians attached language that the Justice Department warns would "unacceptably degrade" national security.

Now the bill goes back to the House for possibly more tinkering, leaving a cloud over its chances for swift final approval.

The USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020 passed the Senate by an 80-16 vote more than two months after the House approved it by a wide, bipartisan margin. But Thursday's vote came a day after Senate privacy hawks successfully amended the bill to expand legal protections for certain groups of individuals targeted by federal surveillance — a change that DOJ labeled unacceptable.

“We appreciate the Senate’s reauthorization of three expired national security authorities," department national security spokesman Marc Raimondi said in a statement. But he said the amended bill "would unacceptably degrade our ability to conduct surveillance of terrorists, spies and other national security threats.”

President Donald Trump, who has accused a government "deep state" of misusing its spying powers, also has not indicated whether he would sign the bill.

So the Senate version is going back to the House now. Some are hoping the house provides an amendment similar to the one which failed in the Senate by a single vote to get protections from the federal government being able to do surveillance on internet browsing history without a warrent

On Thursday, she specifically cited the Wyden-Daines amendment, saying that "it’s now the House’s responsibility to curb this violation of Americans’ rights. I know it's still within our grasp as lawmakers to push for the significant privacy reforms we need."

Other House members also seem itching for a fresh surveillance fight.

“Although I am pleased that the Lee-Leahy Amendment passed, I oppose the bill without further amendment. If permitted by House rules, I will offer amendments,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said in a statement to POLITICO. He and Lofgren co-sponsored an alternative renewal bill to the one the House passed.

The Senate voted to let the government keep surveilling your online life without a warrant
Vox

During the coronavirus pandemic, many of us have vastly increased the time we spend online and moved many of the activities from outside of our homes to the confines of the internet. In the middle of this — and with this shift in mind — the Senate voted on Wednesday not to protect Americans’ internet browsing and search history data from secret and warrantless surveillance by law enforcement. The measure needed 60 votes to pass. It got 59.

The outcome is especially frustrating since four senators didn’t vote on the amendment at all, and at least one would have voted yes. Lamar Alexander couldn’t vote because he’s quarantined. Two others — Ben Sasse and Bernie Sanders — didn’t respond to request for comment on where they were during the vote. An aide told Politico that Patty Murray would have voted yes had she been there, but the senator was not in Washington, DC, when the vote occurred. In the end, the result didn’t come down to party — there were plenty of Republican and Democratic votes on both sides — but attendance.

The vote was for an amendment to the controversial Patriot Act, which would have expressly forbidden internet browsing and history from what the government is allowed to collect through the approval of a secret court. Currently, there is no such provision, which means there’s nothing stopping the government from doing so. The government has an established history of using this method to collect certain types of data about millions of Americans without their knowledge.

*Please note I'm moving prior OP content to the 2nd or 3rd posts so if the original post has "likes", the poster(s) may have been doing so for something prior to the current version.

 

[Lead]

Here's the vote breakdown on that second piece (limiting the governments access to people internet browsing history) that did not pass and was short a single vote:

YEAs ---59
Baldwin (D-WI)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Booker (D-NJ)
Braun (R-IN)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Cassidy (R-LA)
Coons (D-DE)
Cortez Masto (D-NV)
Cramer (R-ND)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Daines (R-MT)
Duckworth (D-IL)
Durbin (D-IL)
Enzi (R-WY)
Ernst (R-IA)
Gardner (R-CO)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Grassley (R-IA)
Harris (D-CA)
Hawley (R-MO)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Hirono (D-HI)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Kennedy (R-LA)
King (I-ME)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lee (R-UT)
Loeffler (R-GA)
Markey (D-MA)
McSally (R-AZ)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Moran (R-KS)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murphy (D-CT)
Paul (R-KY)
Peters (D-MI)
Reed (D-RI)
Risch (R-ID)
Rosen (D-NV)
Rounds (R-SD)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Scott (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Sinema (D-AZ)
Smith (D-MN)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Sullivan (R-AK)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-NM)
Van Hollen (D-MD)
Warren (D-MA)
Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---37
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blackburn (R-TN)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Capito (R-WV)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Collins (R-ME)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cotton (R-AR)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Fischer (R-NE)
Graham (R-SC)
Hassan (D-NH)
Hyde-Smith (R-MS)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnson (R-WI)
Jones (D-AL)
Kaine (D-VA)
Lankford (R-OK)
Manchin (D-WV)
McConnell (R-KY)
Perdue (R-GA)
Portman (R-OH)
Roberts (R-KS)
Romney (R-UT)
Rubio (R-FL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Toomey (R-PA)
Warner (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wicker (R-MS)
Young (R-IN)

Not Voting - 4
Alexander (R-TN)
Murray (D-WA)
Sanders (I-VT)
Sasse (R-NE)

 

[xcvbn]

Democrats sure do love their illegal search and seizure- they hate the 4th amendment as much as Republicans do!

Fucking scumbags all of them. And Bernie you lousy fuck could have stopped this by simply showing the fuck up!

 

[Lead]

Democrats sure do love their illegal search and seizure- they hate the 4th amendment as much as Republicans do!

Fucking scumbags all of them. And Bernie you lousy fuck could have stopped this by simply showing the fuck up!

I mean, 59 voted to add the amendment but it needed a 3/5 majority. I find these bills you really see a different split that isn't party related. Can't remember the last bill it was but it was similar to this vote where there was a huge party split for both Dems and GOP.

 

[TheOneAboveAll3]

Without a search warrant. Of course all politicians and the republicans Party lord and savior Trump would be immune to this. Is Trump going to bitch about this on twitter and go on a rant about a deep state again?


https://www.yahoo.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-pushing-senate-pass-200955192.html

 

[Fawlty]

Without a search warrant. Of course all politicians and the republicans Party lord and savior Trump would be immune to this. Is Trump going to bitch about this on twitter and go on a rant about a deep state again?


https://www.yahoo.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-pushing-senate-pass-200955192.html

Can you please provide anything resembling a source here? Like a link to the proposed legislation, or any articles about it from reputable outlets? I have no doubt Mitch would do just about any godawful thing, but yo.

ed: this appears to be an expansion of the "Patriot Act"

jfc

 

[Dr J]

 

[TheOneAboveAll3]

A bunch of crooked snakes the lot of them that voted Yeah. They are the ones who web history should be looked at. Start With Trump and work your way down to moscow Mitch.

 

[Joe]

Where the hell was bernie?

 

[Fawlty]

How is this touted as a win for privacy hawks? Reads to me like a court is being weakened and an executive agency is being emboldened.

 

[Lead]

Where the hell was bernie?

Bernie and Sass haven’t commented yet from what I read. Murray was on a flight at the time.

 

[Lead]

How is this touted as a win for privacy hawks? Reads to me like a court is being weakened and an executive agency is being emboldened.

I believe it’s been a criticism before that there wasn’t enough representation of the person who would be surveilled when the court made decisions. It’s not a vast improvement but definitely something people didn’t like about those courts.

 

[Fawlty]

I believe it’s been a criticism before that there wasn’t enough representation of the person who would be surveilled when the court made decisions. It’s not a vast improvement but definitely something people didn’t like about those courts.

It's just a provision to allow amicus briefs, no?

 

[Lead]

It's just a provision to allow amicus briefs, no?

The amendment that passed, seems so. The hill article:

The proposal, from Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), would increase the role of outside legal experts in FISA court hearings, including allowing them to weigh in on some FBI surveillance requests.

"The friend of the court provisions, amicus curiae, I'm describing provides the opportunity for the FISA court to hear from a fresh perspective, a neutral, trusted perspective, one that comes with some expertise," Lee said from the Senate floor.

 

[Lead]

Senate passes FISA renewal bill, sends it back to the House
Poltico

The Senate approved legislation Thursday to renew a handful of key domestic surveillance powers, but only after civil libertarians attached language that the Justice Department warns would "unacceptably degrade" national security.

Now the bill goes back to the House for possibly more tinkering, leaving a cloud over its chances for swift final approval.

The USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020 passed the Senate by an 80-16 vote more than two months after the House approved it by a wide, bipartisan margin. But Thursday's vote came a day after Senate privacy hawks successfully amended the bill to expand legal protections for certain groups of individuals targeted by federal surveillance — a change that DOJ labeled unacceptable.

“We appreciate the Senate’s reauthorization of three expired national security authorities," department national security spokesman Marc Raimondi said in a statement. But he said the amended bill "would unacceptably degrade our ability to conduct surveillance of terrorists, spies and other national security threats.”

President Donald Trump, who has accused a government "deep state" of misusing its spying powers, also has not indicated whether he would sign the bill.

So the Senate version is going back to the House now. Some are hoping the house provides an amendment similar to the one which failed in the Senate by a single vote to get protections from the federal government being able to do surveillance on internet browsing history without a warrent

On Thursday, she specifically cited the Wyden-Daines amendment, saying that "it’s now the House’s responsibility to curb this violation of Americans’ rights. I know it's still within our grasp as lawmakers to push for the significant privacy reforms we need."

Other House members also seem itching for a fresh surveillance fight.

“Although I am pleased that the Lee-Leahy Amendment passed, I oppose the bill without further amendment. If permitted by House rules, I will offer amendments,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said in a statement to POLITICO. He and Lofgren co-sponsored an alternative renewal bill to the one the House passed.

The Senate voted to let the government keep surveilling your online life without a warrant
Vox

During the coronavirus pandemic, many of us have vastly increased the time we spend online and moved many of the activities from outside of our homes to the confines of the internet. In the middle of this — and with this shift in mind — the Senate voted on Wednesday not to protect Americans’ internet browsing and search history data from secret and warrantless surveillance by law enforcement. The measure needed 60 votes to pass. It got 59.

The outcome is especially frustrating since four senators didn’t vote on the amendment at all, and at least one would have voted yes. Lamar Alexander couldn’t vote because he’s quarantined. Two others — Ben Sasse and Bernie Sanders — didn’t respond to request for comment on where they were during the vote. An aide told Politico that Patty Murray would have voted yes had she been there, but the senator was not in Washington, DC, when the vote occurred. In the end, the result didn’t come down to party — there were plenty of Republican and Democratic votes on both sides — but attendance.

The vote was for an amendment to the controversial Patriot Act, which would have expressly forbidden internet browsing and history from what the government is allowed to collect through the approval of a secret court. Currently, there is no such provision, which means there’s nothing stopping the government from doing so. The government has an established history of using this method to collect certain types of data about millions of Americans without their knowledge.

Here's who voted for the passage of it. Far more than the split above on the internet browsing amendment (highlighting some notable politicians for easy browsing):
YEAs ---80
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blackburn (R-TN)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Blunt (R-MO)
Booker (D-NJ)
Boozman (R-AR)
Braun (R-IN)
Capito (R-WV)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Cassidy (R-LA)
Collins (R-ME)
Coons (D-DE)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cortez Masto (D-NV)
Cotton (R-AR)
Cramer (R-ND)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Daines (R-MT)
Duckworth (D-IL)
Enzi (R-WY)
Ernst (R-IA)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Fischer (R-NE)
Gardner (R-CO)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Harris (D-CA)
Hassan (D-NH)
Hawley (R-MO)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Hyde-Smith (R-MS)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnson (R-WI)
Jones (D-AL)
Kaine (D-VA)
Kennedy (R-LA)
King (I-ME)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Lankford (R-OK)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lee (R-UT)
Loeffler (R-GA)
Manchin (D-WV)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Moran (R-KS)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murphy (D-CT)
Perdue (R-GA)
Peters (D-MI)
Portman (R-OH)
Reed (D-RI)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Romney (R-UT)
Rosen (D-NV)
Rounds (R-SD)
Rubio (R-FL)
Schumer (D-NY)
Scott (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sinema (D-AZ)
Smith (D-MN)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Sullivan (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Toomey (R-PA)
Van Hollen (D-MD)
Warner (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wicker (R-MS)
Young (R-IN)

NAYs ---16
Baldwin (D-WI)
Brown (D-OH)
Burr (R-NC)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Durbin (D-IL)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Hirono (D-HI)
Markey (D-MA)
Merkley (D-OR)
Murray (D-WA)
Paul (R-KY)
Schatz (D-HI)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-NM)
Warren (D-MA)
Wyden (D-OR)

Not Voting - 4
Alexander (R-TN)
McSally (R-AZ)
Sanders (I-VT)
Sasse (R-NE)

 

[bobgeese]

Surely they would never abuse these powers....

 

[Lead]

Surely they would never abuse these powers....

It's amazing during times like this, they are still finding ways to gain more power. Right after 9/11, most people expected it but during a time like COVID where everyone is paranoid about government overreach or surveillance, this is just casually going through without too much talk.

 

[bobgeese]

It's amazing during times like this, they are still finding ways to gain more power. Right after 9/11, most people expected it but during a time like COVID where everyone is paranoid about government overreach or surveillance, this is just casually going through without too much talk.

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/...ey-admits-i-was-wrong.3765325/#post-141295499



Trust the government, they always have your best interest in mind.