Extension of Authorities of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, it is nice to have the gentleman from Maryland on the pro-warrant side of this conversation this go-round.

I will note that there was a significant amount of abuses by the previous President with respect to the amount of focus on the American people using FISA and the abuses therein.

I hope we can achieve a bipartisan consensus here on how we reform this regardless of who is in the White House and regardless of who controls Congress. We need to do that in defense of the Constitution.

The reason I rise in opposition is because this body, this House, spoke and sent a bill to the Senate that has reforms that our Intelligence Committee chair worked on and a number of people worked on. We had reforms on there to stop the central bank digital currency. We sent it to the Senate, and they didn't even give it a vote. They didn't even put it on the floor for consent. They just said: Stuff it. We are going to send you a 45-day extension.

By the way, 45 days, which takes it to June 12, which some of us several weeks ago said: Let's do a 60-day extension and let's sit down and work, like the gentleman from Maryland said. That is what we ought to do.

We should go to committee. We should have a full-throated debate in committee. We should amend it. We should have a debate about warrants. We should have a debate about protecting the American people from the abuse of power by government.

My colleague from Texas, my friend over here, Mr. Cloud, he came into a meeting and he said the intel community never walks in, ever, saying: We have all of this power to collect information. Oh, we are going to give it back.

That never happens. The only way that happens is if we act, if this body acts, the people's Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, the question I would ask is: How much warrantless surveillance, how much spying on American citizens should we allow? How much? How much is acceptable? Because right now we know for sure there is warrantless collection of information on the American people.

We have other issues we have got to deal with: the kill switch, surveillance in automobiles, central bank digital currency, tracking what we spend, how we spend it, and what we can buy.

This body ought to be defending the people of the United States against the power of government being used against us. Under no circumstances should we allow technology to breach the wall that the Fourth Amendment created that the government is not supposed to go through to get into your personal business, to get into your homes, to look at your information, and to breach the privacy that you are guaranteed to not have the Fourth Amendment break.

I rise in opposition to this. We should move forward and actually try to get actual debate on this. But I do not accept what the Senate is doing to step over what the House did earlier. The Senate should take up that bill and pass it.

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, the reason I asked for the gentleman to yield to me is precisely the response we just heard.

Do you know what really the problem is, Mr. Speaker?

People want to get home to fundraisers. People want to get home to dinners. People want to go back to their districts and go on trips. They have codels.

Meanwhile, the American people are wondering: What on Earth is happening in this town?

Mr. Speaker, the American people are wondering: What on Earth is happening when they look at this body and see what we failed to do.

We are continuing every single day to drive this entire country into bankruptcy: $40-trillion debt, government spying on the people, failure to stop government spying on the people, kill switches in cars, and failure to stop sugar drinks going to children on the SNAP program voted by both sides of the aisle.

We go home, and the American people say: What are you doing?

Well, here we sit, and the response here is: Please let us get on our flights so we can go home and be away for 10 days while the country suffers because this body doesn't do its job.

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