{"id":51694,"date":"2026-05-01T01:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T01:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/51694\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T01:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T01:27:13","slug":"house-sends-45-day-extension-of-controversial-fisa-warrantless-spy-power-to-trumps-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/51694\/","title":{"rendered":"House sends 45-day extension of controversial FISA warrantless spy power to Trump\u2019s desk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"U.S.<\/p>\n

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks at a press conference with Rep. Clay Fuller and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 House lawmakers agreed to send the Senate\u2019s 45-day extension of the controversial\u00a0Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act\u00a0<\/a>(FISA) Section 702 spy program to President Trump\u2019s desk, thanks to a shocking number of reps who didn\u2019t vote.<\/p>\n

In a 261-111 vote, the House\u00a0approved the measure under suspension<\/a>\u00a0of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority. A whopping 58 House lawmakers\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0vote.\u00a0Rep. Kevin Kiley\u00a0(I-Calif.) and 94 Democrats backed the extension, and\u00a026 Republicans opposed it.<\/p>\n

The Senate had voted on the extension earlier in the day, Thursday, via unanimous consent after its leaders declined to take up a House version that would have included a three-year extension paired with a Central Bank Digital Currency ban to win over reluctant libertarian-leaning reps.<\/p>\n

\"House<\/p>\n

House Speaker Mike Johnson talks at a press conference with Rep. Clay Fuller and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Getty Images<\/p>\n

FISA Section 702 was set to expire at the end of the day Thursday.<\/p>\n

Section 702 lets US intelligence agencies conduct warrantless surveillance on non-Americans. But the program also means that inevitably, the US government will collect phone calls, emails, text messages, and other data from Americans communicating with foreigners.<\/p>\n

The Fourth Amendment protects US citizens from \u201cunreasonable searches and seizures\u201d and requires a warrant for such intrusions, leading to heated political fights over safeguards every time the legislation comes up for renewal.<\/p>\n

FISA renewal has grown increasingly contentious\u00a0over\u00a0recent years. The last time\u00a0it came up\u00a0in 2024, Congress enacted new\u00a0safeguards to\u00a0the program to address concerns about\u00a0it being abused.<\/p>\n

House Republicans had been eyeing smaller-scale reforms, including a provision that would enable a broader pool of lawmakers to view\u00a0Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court information.<\/p>\n

Most House Democrats opposed the original House\u00a0pass\u00a0doing the three-year extension due to stated concerns about\u00a0Trump abusing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen countless, countless instances where the intelligence obtained through Section 702 quite literally saved lives,\u201d House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) argued during the debate on the measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way to replace the value that Section 702 provides,\u201d he went on, adding: \u201cWe have seen no evidence that this administration is misusing Section 702, but nonetheless, we must remain hyper- vigilant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s vote completes \u201chell week\u201d for the House, the GOP leadership\u00a0managing\u00a0to pass a farm bill and budget resolution as\u00a0well\u00a0with razor-thin margins.<\/p>\n

The House is now set to break for a two-week recess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks at a press conference with Rep. Clay Fuller and House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[31802,18437,20756,31803,961,4657,19487,1736,478,12430,1078],"class_list":{"0":"post-51694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mike-johnson","8":"tag-clay-fuller","9":"tag-fisa","10":"tag-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act","11":"tag-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court","12":"tag-house","13":"tag-house-democrats","14":"tag-house-majority-leader","15":"tag-house-republicans","16":"tag-mike-johnson","17":"tag-speaker-of-the-house","18":"tag-steve-scalise"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116496724373169985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}