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House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Protections House Extends Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Safeguards
(about 2 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to extend the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, rejecting a yearslong effort by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to impose significant new privacy limits when it sweeps up Americans’ emails and other personal communications. WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to extend the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, rejecting a push by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to impose significant privacy limits when it sweeps up Americans’ emails and other personal communications.
The vote, 256 to 164, centered on an expiring law that permits the government, without a warrant, to collect communications of foreigners abroad from United States firms like Google and AT&T — even when those targets are talking to Americans. Congress had enacted the law in 2008 to legalize a form of a once-secret warrantless surveillance program created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The vote, 256 to 164, centered on an expiring law that permits the government, without a warrant, to collect communications from United States companies like Google and AT&T of foreigners abroad — even when those targets are talking to Americans. Congress had enacted the law in 2008 to legalize a form of a once-secret warrantless surveillance program created after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
The legislation approved on Thursday still has to go through the Senate. But fewer lawmakers there appear to favor major changes to spying laws, so the House vote is likely the effective end of a debate over 21st-century surveillance technology and privacy rights that broke out in 2013 following the leaks by the intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden. Hours before the vote, President Trump set off a last-minute round of turmoil as Republicans scrambled to secure enough support to extend the law without new privacy constraints.
Congress did, in 2015, vote to end and replace another program that Mr. Snowden exposed, under which the N.S.A. had been secretly collecting logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls in bulk. But reform-minded lawmakers who hoped to add significant new privacy constraints to the warrantless surveillance program fell short on Thursday. In a Twitter post Thursday morning, shortly after “Fox & Friends” aired a segment discussing the issue, Mr. Trump expressed skepticism about government surveillance — even though a White House statement issued on Wednesday night urged Congress to block significant new constraints on the N.S.A. program.
The vote was a victory for the Trump administration and the intelligence community, which opposed imposing major new curbs on the program, and for Republican leadership, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who had blocked the House from an opportunity to consider a less-sweeping compromise package developed by the House Judiciary Committee. They gambled that faced with an all-or-essentially-nothing choice, a majority of lawmakers would choose the status quo — and won. The legislation must still pass the Senate. But fewer senators appear to favor major change to spying laws, so the vote on Thursday in the House was the pivotal test.
Before approving the extension of the law, known as Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the House voted 233 to 183 to reject an amendment that proposed a series of overhauls. Among them was a requirement that officials get warrants in most cases before hunting for and reading emails and other messages of Americans swept up under the program. Effectively, the vote was almost certainly the end of a debate over 21st-century surveillance and privacy rights that broke out in 2013 after the leaks by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden.
Earlier on Thursday, President Trump contradicted his own White House and top national security officials in a Twitter post that criticized an important surveillance law just as Congress began debating whether to approve it. But less than two hours later, the president appeared to reverse himself, telling lawmakers to “Get smart!” The Senate began considering the newly approved House bill on Thursday afternoon; Senators Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, and Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, are expected to oppose the measure in the coming days. But Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, moved to essentially ensure that no amendments to the House legislation would be considered, and it appeared to be on a path to final approval when senators return to Washington next week.
Mr. Trump’s first tweet on the topic appeared to encourage lawmakers to support limiting the law. Mr. Snowden’s disclosures in 2013 ushered in a period of intense interest in surveillance. Civil libertarians and conservative skeptics of government power worked together to push for new limits, while intelligence and law enforcement agencies and their backers in Congress from across party lines — and in both the Obama and Trump administrations — tried to hold the line.
He was referring to an explosive and largely uncorroborated dossier that details claims about ties between Russia and Mr. Trump and his aides. The post-Snowden privacy movement secured its largest victory in 2015 when Congress voted to end and replace one of the programs that Mr. Snowden exposed, under which the N.S.A. had been secretly collecting logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls in bulk. But lawmakers who hoped to add significant privacy constraints to the warrantless surveillance program, too, fell short on Thursday.
The tweet enraged Republican leaders on Capitol Hill who have been trying to chart a course to renew it, more or less intact. Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Mr. Trump spoke by phone between the president’s two tweets, according to a senior Republican congressional aide. Asked about the president’s conflicting tweets, Mr. Ryan said Mr. Trump has always been in support of foreign surveillance. Before voting to extend the law, known as Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the House rejected an amendment that would have imposed a series of new safeguards. That proposal included a requirement that officials obtain warrants in most cases before hunting for, and reading, emails and other messages of Americans that were swept up under the surveillance.
“His administration’s position has been really clear from Day 1, which is: 702 is really important, it’s got to be renewed,” Mr. Ryan told reporters after the vote. Supporters of those changes contended that the overhaul was needed to preserve Fourth Amendment privacy rights in the internet era. But intelligence and law enforcement officials argued that it was unnecessary, and dangerous, to limit security officials from being able to freely gain access to information the government already possessed.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, asked Mr. Ryan to pull the bill from consideration, according to a senior Democratic aide familiar with the request. But Republicans, battling a last-minute push from conservative lawmakers, gambled on moving forward with a vote. Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican of California who leads the House Intelligence Committee, celebrated the outcome. “The House of Representatives has taken a big step to ensure the continuation of one of the intelligence community’s most vital tools for tracking foreign terrorists,” he said.
After it was approved, the American Civil Liberties Union said the legislation will give more spying power to the Trump administration. The program’s surveillance can be used for all foreign intelligence purposes. The sharpest points of the debate centered on when information about Americans that is gathered by the program can be used for criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism.
“No president should have this power,” Neema Singh Guliani, a policy counsel with the A.C.L.U., said in a statement. “Yet, members of Congress just voted to hand it to an administration that has labeled individuals as threats based merely on their religion, nationality or viewpoints.” Representative Justin Amash, the Republican of Michigan who sponsored the privacy measures, expressed disappointment but vowed to keep fighting.
Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate had counted on enough moderate Democrats and Republicans to stick together to extend the legal basis for the surveillance program, with only minimal changes. John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, was spotted in a House cloakroom talking to members before the vote in a last-minute lobbying push. “We had a bipartisan coalition who worked very hard to protect people’s rights, and we will continue to fight and continue to educate our colleagues about it,” Mr. Amash said.
Mr. Trump, who is known to watch Fox News while he is tweeting, posted his tweet shortly after a Fox News legal analyst appealed directly to the president during a Thursday morning segment about the coming House vote. The analyst, Andrew Napolitano, turned to television cameras and said, “Mr. President, this is not the way to go.” He added that Mr. Trump’s “woes” began with surveillance. The House bill that was approved on Thursday does contain a gesture toward requiring officials to obtain a warrant to read Americans’ emails that are collected under the program. But it is written so narrowly that it will not protect the overwhelming majority of citizens’ information that is queried in the warrantless surveillance repository.
By midmorning, in a follow-up tweet, the president appeared to step back from supporting the limits that his own administration has been encouraging lawmakers to reject. Specifically, a warrant would be required only if an F.B.I. agent wants to look at emails about a subject of an open criminal investigation for which there is no national security angle. It would not apply to security-related queries by any intelligence or law-enforcement agency, nor to requests from F.B.I. agents who are following up on criminal tips but have not yet opened formal investigations.
Matthew Olsen, a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said that while he had concerns about how the F.B.I. would distinguish between criminal and national security cases, the overall thrust of the bill was a positive step.
“Congress has made clear that it is lawful to search using U.S. person identifiers for information that could help stop terror attacks and catch spies without a warrant,” he said. “That is the way the intelligence community has been operating under 702, and that is the way it will continue to operate if this bill becomes law.”
But Mr. Amash expressed hope that Mr. Trump might yet intervene to push for more changes to the legislation in the Senate.
Just before debate began on Thursday, the president posted a statement on Twitter that suggested skepticism about the surveillance bill.
Mr. Trump wrote the message shortly after a libertarian legal analyst on “Fox & Friends,” Andrew Napolitano, appealed directly to him to go another route. Mr. Napolitano added that Mr. Trump’s “woes” began with surveillance.
The president’s tweet enraged Republican congressional leaders who have been trying to renew the 702 law more or less intact. Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Mr. Trump spoke by phone until he posted his next message, a senior Republican congressional aide said.
Fewer than two hours later, the president appeared to reverse himself on the issue in another statement on Twitter.
Despite the confusion, Republican leaders pushed forward, counting on moderate Democrats and Republicans to reject the proposed overhaul and pass the extension bill. John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, lobbied members in a House cloakroom before the vote.
Some of the most conservative Republicans in the House joined with some of the most liberal Democrats in the failed bid for more privacy protections. Ultimately, 58 Republicans joined 125 Democrats in voting for the overhaul amendment, while 55 Democrats joined 178 Republicans in rejecting it. On Twitter, Mr. Snowden observed that it would have passed had fewer Democrats broken ranks.
But Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said afterward that by rejecting the overhaul amendment, the House had avoided imposing “a crippling requirement in national security and terrorism cases.”
“We were certainly thrown into plenty of turmoil with the president’s tweets this morning and that made everything look quite speculative,” Mr. Schiff said. “I do think the underlying bill makes a sensible compromise.”