Massie grilled FISA for more than an hour. He found a congressional carve-out
Thomas Massie was 46 minutes into probing proposed changes to the law U.S. intelligence agents use to monitor foreign actors when he stumbled upon a revelation.
When regular Americans’ communication is picked up by FISA collection they may never know it, but if it’s a member of Congress, they’re made aware.
“It does include the queried member receiving notice,” acknowledged Rep. Mike Turner, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
It was a correction to an ambiguous statement made earlier in Tuesday’s House Rules Committee Hearing in which Turner claimed that only particular members of Congress would find out if one of their colleagues’ data was picked up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, according to proposed revisions being considered by Congress.
But it was Massie’s relentless line of questioning of his Republican colleague – stretching 69 minutes – that exposed the congressional carve-out that’s quickly become a flashpoint in the fight over the sweeping tactics law enforcement can use in tracking national security threats.
“I take objection with the fact that members of Congress get treated specially in this law over regular citizens,” Massie said.
FISA was designed to provide more tools to intelligence officers to eavesdrop on foreigners potentially up to no good: Hamas leaders, Russian spies, ISIS soldiers.
But the wide net inevitably captures Americans, whose information should be constitutionally protected from the dragnet if agents lack a warrant.
The problem is that Section 702 — the foreign surveillance portion of FISA — has been abused.
The FBI used it improperly 278,000 times in a single year, according to congressional testimony, scooping up information about Americans engaging in protests or invoking their right to free speech. The data collection fell blatantly beyond the mandate of tracking ill-intentioned foreigners.
“The abuses were horrific,” Turner said.
That intelligence overreach has sparked a call for revisions, including significantly limiting the number of agents who can access the data.
But Massie and a cast of other Republicans want the FISA reforms to go further: Requiring agents seek a warrant from a judge before accessing the information of Americans.
“I think it should be thrown in the garbage if there’s no warrant in it,” Massie said.
Turner argued that current law already requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant in such scenarios, but even some Democrats disagree with his assessment, aligning themselves closer to Massie.
“Under the FISA court now, they’re surveilling everybody, they’re surveilling Americans without probable cause and that’s why we have this amendment,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York.
The change that would alert elected representatives of their inclusion in FISA collection is seen by Massie as a sweetener to attract votes from such members who are tasked with renewing Section 702 before it sunsets April 19.
“There’s a little wink and a nod, ‘don’t worry, we got you covered,” the Kentucky congressman said. “That’s for you, Mr. Member of Congress. If you’re going to be targeted in this database, if we’re going to search for you or your house or your home address…or your phone number, we’re going to notify you.
”But we aren’t going to do that for the rest of America.”
He added, “I think that’s wrong.”
The Rules Committee, on which Massie sits, cleared the way Tuesday night for the FISA reforms to be considered by the full House.
As of Wednesday it was unclear if there were enough Republican House members that would support reauthorization of the national security tool without further amendments.
This story was originally published April 10, 2024 at 12:41 PM with the headline "Massie grilled FISA for more than an hour. He found a congressional carve-out."
