FISA Reauthorization BLOCKED…For Now PART 1
There is a lot of confusion over votes that have just taken place around a bill known as FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which many are claiming was just blocked – this isn’t the full truth.
There was a vote held on a resolution that would have allowed FISA to come to the floor of the House of Representatives in order to be reauthorized, but this time around, it also contained six amendments to it, three other pieces of legislation, as well as a warrant requirement.
“Rules for thee but not for me.”
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene:us: (@RepMTG) April 10, 2024
Congress knows that the FBI abuses FISA so badly to spy on hundreds of thousands of Americans that Congress basically wrote in its own warrant requirement for Congressmen.
The American people deserve the same.
I’m voting NO. https://t.co/1QQb1S62LL
In a unique turn of events, 19 Republicans voted alongside Democrats to stop the FISA reauthorization, as well as the additional amendments, from coming to the floor. This is unusual seeing as Democrats typically vote in favor and Republicans vote in unison against.
So why the shift in voting patterns?
According to Representative Thomas Massie:
“Many of us who are adamantly opposed to warrantless surveillance voted for the resolution, wanting to get a recorded vote on warrants, and recognizing the Speaker can otherwise suspend the rules and bring anything to the floor without a resolution, like he did with the omnibus.”
“Tactically, whether the 19 did the best thing or not is TBD.
They may have just stopped our only chance to have a vote on whether the government needs a warrant to spy on you. That vote might not have passed, but everyone would have had to go on the record for the world to see.”
Before anyone goes and gets angry over Republicans voting alongside Democrats, first understand that this happens all of the time in Congress.
Secondly, these 19 Republicans did so for very specific reasons and chose a different set of tactics in order to hold their colleagues and in extension, federal agencies, to account.
The result of the votes cast have made way for the following:
1) A suspension of the rules to pass an even worse FISA
2) Allows them to make concessions and improve the rules for the bill
3) Gives them the ability to now say they don’t need a new bill to keep FISA going, or
4) Let’s the senate move first on FISA
Here’s the speech I gave on the floor today, encouraging folks to vote for the resolution to bring the warrant requirement amendment to the floor today, and to vote against FISA if that amendment did not pass. The resolution to allow this did not pass.pic.twitter.com/xX4S3v2wZ5
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 11, 2024
Continue Reading: Part Two of “FISA Reauthorization BLOCKED…For Now”
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