Providing for Consideration of H.R. Extension of Authorities of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place? A 5-year reauthorization--5 years--and Republicans threw it together on the back of a napkin in the back room in the middle of the night.

There have been real bipartisan discussions about adding civil liberties and safeguards. Some Members support them, and some oppose them. Just about everyone agrees that this is serious stuff, the kind of debate that Congress ought to have in the open. Instead, Republican leadership just jammed us.

Does anybody actually know what the hell is in this thing? It is 11:30 at night. The bill was changed just minutes ago--just minutes ago--and they had to post a corrected version already. That is how sloppy all of this is.

Let me be crystal clear to my colleagues across the aisle. This is too damn important to do it this way, way too important--no hearings, no markups, no real process, no transparency, no time to read it, no time to vet it. Yet, we are told that there are major reforms in this bill. There is no real explanation, no real accountability, and basically no time for anybody to figure out what the hell is going on.

Now, we are all supposed to act like this is normal. Give me a break. We will have to live with this for 5 years. The American people have to live with this for 5 years. Democrats and, quite frankly, a whole lot of Republicans, too, have barely had enough time to read the text, let alone understand any of its implications.

I bumped into a handful of Republicans on the way up here. They asked me: What is going on? What changes have been made? What is in this bill? Your own Members don't know what the hell you are doing.

This mess did not come out of nowhere. Republicans knew for months that the April 20 FISA deadline was coming. They knew they had a vote problem before the Easter recess. Instead of staying here and doing their jobs, or spending the district work period trying to work it out, they kicked the can down the road and made this mess even worse.

Now, everybody can see the chaos. It is out in the open. They barely got a rule out of the Rules Committee. Three Republican Members in the Rules Committee had to skip the vote just so the rule could be reported out. That is how divided this Republican Conference is.

Donald Trump had to jump in and tell Republicans to ``unify'' just to drag this thing forward. That is how pathetic this has all gotten.

We are standing here more than 36 hours after we were supposed to debate this rule--36 hours--with a bill dumped on the House and the American public in the middle of the night as the deadline looms.

I have to tell you that this is not leadership. This is not legislating. This is not governing. This is not a functioning majority. This is a disaster. This is incompetence. This is incompetence.

After all the chaos and all the delays and all the backroom dealing, we are still left with the same question: What the hell is going on here?

Mr. Speaker, this process is embarrassing. This majority is incompetent. If this is how Republicans handle something as serious as national security surveillance, then they have no business being in charge.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I want the American citizens to know we have had an honest debate over the balance between security and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Sometimes that debate takes a little longer than we wish it would. I wish my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would read this document, the United States Constitution, just as we as Republicans read it and take it seriously.

Foxx), the chair of the Rules Committee.

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Mr. McGOVERN.

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, this process stinks. She thanks all of her colleagues for coming together to try to work out this deal. As far as I can tell, it is a handful of people in a back room somewhere who put this together. Some of this is handwritten. This was not the result of everybody participating in an open and transparent process. This is a backroom deal.

It is 11:40, and people are going to see this for the very first time. Some of us, myself included, were hoping that we would have a serious warrant requirement in section 702. I talked to a lot of my very conservative Republican colleagues, and they agree with me that that was something that they thought was important.

This so-called warrant requirement in this draft that you just gave us has nothing to do with section 702. It is already the law that if the FBI has probable cause, they can go to court and seek a warrant.

What we are trying to solve is a different problem. Section 702 takes in a massive amount of U.S. person information, and nothing in this bill stops the government from searching it or requires them to go to a judge.

The gentleman from Georgia, who the chairwoman says knows everything about everything, let me ask: Is there anything new in this bill that requires a warrant to query U.S. persons in section 702?

That is a question.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield for an answer.

Let me answer it since I am not getting an answer from the people in charge. The answer is no. The answer is no.

If anybody here is voting for this because they think that this issue has been resolved, please know it hasn't. If you vote for it, you are a cheap date because it doesn't solve the problem that we have had many discussions about.

We found this out in the 50 minutes that we had to read the text. Again, we just got this bill. Who knows what else we will find in a day or a week when experts have a chance to analyze it? Again, this is an important matter.

The privacy of American citizens is an important matter. The national security of our country is an important matter, and you are just piecing this together in a couple of minutes and saying: Take it. Trust us. We just pieced this together in a back room, just take it.

Well, we are not. This is a lousy process. This reflects the incompetence of the leadership of this House. It is a disgrace.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thought the gentleman was going to answer my question.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Will the gentleman yield? Because that is already in the law.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. No, it is not.

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Mr. McGOVERN. It is.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. It is not.

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Mr. McGOVERN. It is.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. It is not.

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Mr. McGOVERN. It is.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. You can debate that on your time.

Mr. Speaker, there are significant changes here.

One of the other changes that they have not mentioned is that any query against a United States person by the FBI--and this is a new accountability measure--must be reported to the Civil Liberties Protection Officer within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Any query that the FBI does on a United States person must be reported with a justification for the query, not to the Justice Department but to the Civil Liberties Protection Officer within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. Speaker, let me say this about 702. First of all, 702 is not a law enforcement tool. It is an intelligence tool. It is designed to protect Americans in this country from terrorists. That is what it is designed for.

The FBI is actually prohibited from querying 702 data for evidence of a crime. It is an intelligence tool and not a criminal tool. The FBI can only access FISA 702 data if the foreign section 702 target is relevant to an existing, open, predicated, full national security investigation. We are talking about terrorism and narcoterrorism.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the continued discussion on the rule. I thank my colleague, the chair of the Intelligence Committee, Rick Crawford, for the work that he has done on it. Many people on our side have worked diligently to accommodate people and to make sure that we are doing the things that we need to do to protect Americans and to protect their civil liberties.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this is all so damned frustrating because, basically, what the gentleman has done is kind of restated current law. The big reform that he is bragging about is that the administration has to report something to the administration. I mean, give me a break.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman how many other people on his side want to restate current law.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, it is no accident that at midnight we are debating this. This is intentional. Again, this bill was kind of pieced together in a back room somewhere here in the Capitol Building with a handful of people. Here we are, and no one knows what the hell is in it.

I mean, the gentleman from Georgia is basically reading talking points that, quite frankly, are a restatement of current law that don't address any of the issues that many of us had with this legislation that we were trying to work out in a bipartisan way. We have been debating some of these issues for years.

When the gentleman says that his side has been working in good faith with us, this is good faith? We just got the text of this minutes ago. We were told to be on the floor at 11:30, and let's begin this debate with major changes in the text.

That is good faith? Boy, you and I have a different idea of what good faith is. I think good faith was some of the conversations that were ongoing leading up to this moment. You tossed that out the window like it doesn't matter.

Again, this process stinks. This is not the way you should be bringing important legislation to the floor.

Let me just say to my friends on the Freedom Caucus: I don't know. You know, I disagree with you on most things, but every once in a while, we find areas of agreement, oftentimes on issues of privacy protection and protecting and upholding civil liberties.

I appreciate when we can come together on that. I thought that that is what we were doing. That is what we were trying to get to. I am looking for some of my Freedom Caucus friends to defend this, so maybe there is something here that I don't see, but they are not here defending this.

The bottom line is there is nothing new in here to protect people in section 702. There is no warrant requirement that you need to go get a warrant from a judge in section 702. That is what we were asking for. That is what we were fighting for. That is not in this. Don't try to sell a bill of goods that somehow this legislation does something it does not. It fails in that regard. It fails in that regard.

You control everything, so you can bring bills up at midnight and have these debates and say whatever you want to say, but you should be ashamed of this process.

Again, this is not a sense of Congress resolution. This is an important matter. It is important not just for our national security, it is important for the privacy of American citizens to make sure that information gathered on them is not misused.

Unfortunately, most of the American public at this point is asleep, so they are not even paying attention to any of the things that we are saying here today because, again, it is midnight when you are bringing this up.

I would just close by saying this is a lousy way to run a Congress. My friends on the other side of the aisle who are trying to defend the indefensible, quite frankly, should be ashamed of themselves. People should vote against this rule, certainly. This is not the way we should bring legislation to the floor, and they should vote against the underlying bill.

Every time I think I can't get more disappointed with the way Republicans are running this place, you come out with something like this. Again, the gall and the incompetence is stunning. Again, shame on my Republican friends.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia.

Again, 702 is not a law enforcement tool. It is an intelligence tool that is designed to protect the citizens of the United States of America.

There are additional constitutional protections in here. The FBI can only access FISA 702 data if the foreign section 702 target is relevant to an existing, open, and predicated full national security investigation. That is currently the law. That is currently the law.

We are talking about terrorism, and we are talking about narcoterrorism. The FBI is currently prohibited from querying for evidence of a crime. It is not a law enforcement tool. It is an intelligence tool. It is an intelligence tool that has been very effective for our intelligence community, our Department of Defense, and the others that are here to protect the United States of America.

Additional protections that we have added--and, again, they didn't read this. I want to read it to you again, though. Page 5, ``United States Persons,'' line 10: ``Any information concerning a United States person acquired under section 702 may not be used in evidence against that United States person pursuant to paragraph (1) in any criminal proceeding if such information was acquired in violation of subsection (o) of such section.'' Subsection (o) is the warrant provisions of the language.

Mr. Speaker, this week the House can advance H.R. 8035 and extend FISA 702 under this rule.

This extension, supported by the President, reflects the urgency and importance of FISA.

Since 2008, Congress has always reauthorized section 702 with bipartisan support. When reforms were previously needed, Congress delivered them with RISAA, 56 reforms in a bipartisan manner.

Thanks to the work of many, additional reforms will be voted on tonight in the amendment.

Letting section 702 expire would be a setback. It would be irresponsible. It would put Americans at risk. It would provide an immediate advantage to our adversaries who seek to harm the United States. This authority is vital, and it is time the House finishes this work. Amendment Offered By Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment to the resolution.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

A recorded vote was ordered.

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