Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act--Motion to Proceed--
Floor Speech
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as I discussed earlier this week, critical national security authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are set to expire in 2 days. Today, I would like to briefly address the newest red herring being raised in opposition to reauthorizing section 702.
The reauthorization that passed the House contains scores of important reforms to the FISA process that will enhance accountability at the FBI and protect the rights of American citizens. It also included a necessary fix to the way we authorize the government to lawfully collect communications from foreigners located overseas for a specific intelligence purpose.
As part of the standard judicial oversight of the 702 process, the intelligence community has been restricted in what kinds of technology counts as ``electronic communications service providers'' under the statute. When section 702 was written, the internet was in the Dark Ages compared to how it exists today. Clearly, social media and internet communications usage has changed dramatically since the earliest days of Twitter and so have the technical mechanisms by which massive packets of data transit the internet.
As the internet evolved, the FISA Court did not allow the DOJ, on its own, to expand the definition of a provider to meet the new realities of contemporary technology. This created a critical, unintended gap in our collection ability against overseas foreign targets.
Here is the good news: The House did on a strong bipartisan basis what legislatures should do. In fact, a majority of the majority and a majority of the minority voted to change the statute to make sure that our collection ability on foreigners overseas reflects the reality of modern communication. It was a simple fix to update the law to respond to technological change.
But to listen to the Chicken Littles on the left, the sky is falling. The ACLU says this will expand warrantless surveillance and strongly implies that it will do so against Americans as they go about their daily lives.
Demand Progress--an activist arm of Arabella Advisors--says ``everyone is a spy'' under this provision.
Well, excuse me if I don't take my cues from liberal court-packers. This could not be further from the truth. The House bill's simple fix does nothing--nothing--to change who gets targeted by section 702: foreigners overseas whose communications are likely to return important intelligence.
The FISA appellate court affirmed this in a decision that predated the legislative fix, saying:
Under section 702 the Government is prohibited from intentionally targeting any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States.
Even foreigners located in the United States. Even foreigners operating illegally in the United States.
The court went on, saying:
Customers using WiFi access provided by a cafe or library, for example, would not be targeted under Section 702, regardless of whether the Internet connectivity being provided is considered an ``electronic communications service.''
Let me say that again. They ``would not be targeted under Section 702,'' nor, contrary to the fears of some of our colleagues, would U.S. persons be at risk of drone strikes as they surfed the internet on public internet networks.
Nothing has been expanded. Section 702 still rightly only applies to foreigners overseas. All that the House did was fix a dangerous loophole that would have allowed our foreign adversaries to escape the reach of our intelligence services.
Trust but verify, right? Well, this bill helps us do precisely that. It includes significant reforms that dramatically enhance transparency into how section 702 is used by the intelligence community. It includes important reforms to prevent misuse of the authority and require accountability for any such misuse, including new civil and criminal penalties.
I would urge my colleagues to look at the facts of this latest fearmongering crusade, to soberly examine the same classified material our House colleagues read that explains this provision in detail, to reject hyperbole and lies, and to take action to secure the homeland. Border Security
Mr. President, now on a different matter, ``[W]e do have a plan to address migration at the southern border. We're executing it . . . and we're starting to see the results.'' Well, those were the words of the Secretary of Homeland Security after the Biden administration had been in office for 8 months, but in the past 3 years, they have taken on an altogether greater significance.
The administration's ``plan to address migration''? It turns out their plan was exactly what then-Candidate Biden pledged on the debate stage: to surge migrants to the border.
How they did execute it? By slashing the previous administration's commonsense border security policies. No more ``Remain in Mexico.'' No more border wall construction.
As Secretary Mayorkas bragged back in 2021, the Biden administration had repealed so many border enforcement tools that ``it would take so much time to list them.''
How about that last part: ``[W]e're starting to see the results.'' Since this administration took office, the surge in illegal arrivals at the southern border has set and broken new alltime records several times over.
CBP personnel have worked overtime to contend with a humanitarian and security crisis. Yet, for years, the Biden administration's top concern about the border was not calling it a crisis.
Again: ``[W]e do have a plan to address migration at the southern border. We're executing it . . . and we're starting to see the results''--results, indeed, in the form of a tragic, painful, and unnecessary crisis.
Today, it falls to the Senate to determine whether and to what extent Secretary Mayorkas enabled and inflamed this crisis.
Under the Constitution and the rules of impeachment, it is the job of this body to consider the Articles of Impeachment brought before us and to render judgment.
The question right now should be how best to ensure that the charges on the table receive thorough consideration, but instead, the more pressing question is whether our Democratic colleagues intend to let the Senate work its will at all.
Tabling Articles of Impeachment would be unprecedented in the history of the Senate. It is as simple as that. Tabling would mean declining to discharge our duties as jurors. It would mean running both from our fundamental responsibility and from the glaring truth of the recordbreaking crisis at our southern border.
I, for one, intend to take my role as a juror in this case seriously, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
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