ADVERTISEMENT

House Reaches Deal to Renew Spy Bill With Tight Senate Timeline

House Clinches Deal to Renew Spy Bill With Tight Senate Timeline

(Bloomberg) -- House negotiators reached a bipartisan agreement to extend provisions of a law authorizing surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists, said Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, backed by the panel’s new top Republican.

Lawmakers are trying to avoid a temporary lapse of the provisions this weekend or the need for a short-term extension. But the legislation faces opposition from lawmakers and outside groups concerned with civil liberties, as well as some Republicans and Democrats, which could undermine its chances of speedy passage.

“No one side is getting everything they want, but we believe it’s important to enhance transparency and privacy safeguards wherever possible,” Nadler and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said in a joint statement Tuesday. The House Judiciary panel’s new ranking Republican, Jim Jordan, also backed the proposal while calling it imperfect.

But one Senate Democrat strongly criticized the plan, and Nadler said an agreement hasn’t been reached with Senate Republicans. Even if Senate GOP leaders agree, efforts to pass the bill quickly could be complicated if two Republican senators stick to their pledge to oppose the effort.

Congress has until March 15 to extend sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, giving lawmakers little time to get a reauthorization bill through the House and Senate. The Trump administration is close to agreeing to the deal and is still reviewing the details, according to an official.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she expects to have widespread support for the bill in Wednesday’s House vote. Democrats are “pleased to have reached this strong, bipartisan FISA agreement, which strikes the balance between protecting Americans’ security and their civil liberties,” Pelosi said.

The House is scheduled to leave Washington Thursday afternoon, and both the House and Senate aren’t planning to be in session next week. Some lawmakers have raised concerns about Congress reconvening later this month due to the risk from the coronavirus that has infected hundreds of Americans.

Checks and Balances

At Tuesday’s Rules Committee meeting to prepare the bill for a House vote, Nadler said the measure was “by no means a perfect bill” but that it would “add more checks and balances” to government surveillance efforts.

Jordan of Ohio said: “I agree with the chairman, this bill does not go far enough.” But he said the bill does represent “real reform.”

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy supports the FISA deal, said a leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Nadler and Schiff said the measure would bar the government from restarting the two-decades old Call Details Records program, which authorized the secret mass collection of telephone call records. The government ended the program last year.

The bill would create added scrutiny of surveillance cases involving elected officials, and increase the penalties for making misrepresentations to the court that approves surveillance. It would prohibit use of the law to collect any records if a warrant would be required to obtain the same records for law enforcement purposes.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said the measure “falls far short of the meaningful protections for Americans’ rights that members from both parties have demanded.” Among other things, he said it wouldn’t prohibit the government from digitally tracking Americans’ internet browsing and search history without a warrant.

Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, a member of Republican leadership, said the Senate would likely go along with a bipartisan House bill if supported by the Trump administration. Attorney General William Barr has been leading the negotiations between both chambers, and President Donald Trump’s signature would be needed.

If the House has a bipartisan deal that’s “blessed by the attorney general, that would get us a long way,” Blunt said Tuesday.

‘Weak Sauce’

The main opposition comes from Republican Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah to a provision, known as Section 215, that allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect phone metadata and other material about Americans without court warrants. While this was always a concern for Libertarian-leaning lawmakers, the issue has become increasingly controversial among conservatives who say Trump’s 2016 campaign was wrongly put under surveillance.

Paul said on Twitter that the agreement was “weak sauce.”

“None of the reforms prevent a President of either party from a politically motivated investigation. Big Disappointment!” Paul wrote.

Lee told reporters earlier Tuesday that he hadn’t seen any FISA proposals that satisfy him.

By withholding their consent for a House-passed bill to move quickly through the Senate, Paul and Lee would force the measure through days of Senate procedure, all but precluding the possibility of passing it through both chambers this week.

Shuttle Diplomacy

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said if a few senators block an extension this week they do so “at their own peril.” Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and close Trump ally, said he plans to discuss the issue with Barr.

Although the task of renewing FISA authorization in the past has fallen to the director of national intelligence, this time Barr has taken the lead in negotiations between House and Senate lawmakers, White House officials and Trump.

Barr and his top aides have been conducting shuttle diplomacy in recent days, meeting with key lawmakers and communicating proposals to the White House. Trump is still seen as a wild card, however.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has advocated for FISA reform, said the bipartisan House deal falls short of the changes needed to protect Americans.

“This proposal will continue to allow secret courts to issue secret orders and the federal government will continue spying on Americans without the kind of oversight and adversarial process that all Americans should expect of our government and our courts,” Christopher Anders, ACLU deputy political director, said in a statement.

--With assistance from James Rowley and Chris Strohm.

To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Laurie Asséo

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.