Reaffirm the Principles of Liberty By Dismantling the Surveillance State

Floor Speech

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Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I am grateful, indeed, for the opportunity to address one of the most consequential issues facing our great Republic: the Federal Government's warrantless surveillance of the American people.

For years, Americans have watched headline after headline exposing the intelligence community's abuse of its authority, and I thought I would share just a few of those.

Most recently, John Brennan admitted that there is a legion of deep state operatives in DOJ and CIA who are resisting Trump's orders. Why is that important?

It is because they are the ones who violate the warrant requirement, as well.

House approves reauthorization of FISA 702, warrantless spy powers, and yet when you go and read it, we have problems still. We still have problems. Why do we know that? Because the FISC, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, has issued a report. It is classified. Former DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard wanted to declassify that secret but critical court document but was denied. Actually, in my opinion, that needs to be released before we ever take a vote on FISA again.

I will just leave it there on those headlines and get back to this.

President Trump has an agenda. He won the popular vote in a landslide. In my home State, he got 160,000 votes more than the Democrat. How did he do it? Because the people wanted him to get his agenda through, but it is being sidestepped and avoided.

Who are the people that are causing the problem, according to John Brennan? It is the same people that spied on President Trump's campaign previously. They abused FISA. The abuses are not hypothetical. They are not ancient. They didn't just happen in 2016. They are ongoing. That is what Tulsi Gabbard and the FISC court have discovered, and we need to discover that, as well.

Section 702 has been used to search the communications of protesters across the political spectrum, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, Members of Congress, congressional staff, journalists, and ordinary Americans who did nothing wrong.

Now, it has come to my attention that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has this opinion that is sitting there. It details significant government compliance failures under section 702. We need that to be declassified. The American people, this great Republic, need to know what their government is doing.

The opinion must be declassified in order for us to know what we are doing in Congress to take a vote on this. Without transparency, the American people and their elected Representatives cannot have a meaningful, fact-driven debate about the future of this powerful authority.

Reports indicate the opinion will show persistent, systemic violations of the law, including U.S. person queries that directly violate the oversight requirements Congress established in the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, just from a couple of years ago.

One filtering tool tied to these violations has been shut down, but similar tools remain in use. This is exactly why I have consistently pushed for a warrant requirement for U.S. person queries.

The Fourth Amendment is not ambiguous. It says, ``no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause''--not sometimes, not when it is convenient, not unless the intelligence community thinks it takes too long.

We keep hearing the same tired argument: Getting a warrant is too hard. Getting a warrant takes too long. That is simply false. The work we have done in my bill, H.R. 7816, the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act, ensures that is the case.

H.R. 7816 includes targeted, practical exceptions for imminent threats, cybersecurity emergencies, and consent situations. It protects Americans and preserves the government's ability to act quickly when lives are on the line. Anyone claiming otherwise either hasn't taken the time to read the bill, has read some propaganda, has accepted the intelligence community's narrative, or simply does not want reform.

As we in Congress keep negotiating what FISA and section 702 reform should look like, we seem to be forgetting that my bill is already the negotiated bill. We worked with a wide range of Members and stakeholders. We built a bipartisan coalition, and last Congress, we reached a 212-212 vote on my warrant requirement, one vote away from passing. It was sitting at 212-211 for a long time, and then someone came in and cast a ``no'' vote.

This is fundamentally the same bill. The work has been done. The consensus exists. The excuses have run out. Meanwhile, the intelligence community continues to assure us that: This time, we will follow the rules; this time, we will respect the Constitution; and this time, we will stop violating Americans' privacy.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard that promise for a decade and more. The latest FISA court opinion, the one they are trying to keep classified, proves those promises are empty.

President Trump's administration took historic steps to increase transparency across government, and I appreciate former Director Gabbard's stated commitment to declassify this FISC opinion.

The commitment must be honored. Declassification is essential to restoring trust, strengthening accountability, and ensuring every branch of government operates within constitutional limits.

At the end of the day, this debate comes down to a simple principle: If you want to spy on Americans, you have to get a warrant. That is not radical. That is not partisan. That is the Constitution.

Benjamin Franklin warned that those who trade essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither. For too long, Washington has done exactly that: traded away constitutional privacy for the illusion of security.

We are told that, without warrantless surveillance, America will be less safe. That is wrong. We can have both liberty and safety. It is the government's job to protect both, not force Americans to choose between them.

We cannot allow a legacy going to our grandchildren where they will end up growing up in a country where mass surveillance is normal and constitutional protections are optional. Congress has a responsibility right now to stop that future from becoming a reality.

Let me just add this: When we talk about CBDC, it is the last leg of the stool of surveillance. If CBDC were to become a reality, with the mass surveillance that is in FISA right now, guess what. It wouldn't be too long before we started looking like our main foe internationally, the Chinese. They surveil everything.

Do you know what? The U.K. surveils everything, as well. They watch everything.

What CBDC would do would allow them to shut down the entire banking system or your microbanking system and control you. It could be abused so quickly, so thoroughly, and so completely.

I will tell you that I am grateful for the bipartisan Members who have joined me in this fight. We have a lot of them. We may not agree on much, but we do agree on this: The Constitution still matters. It is real. In just 13 years, we will be celebrating its 250th.

If the government wants to search Americans' communications--which is what they want to do, and it is what they are doing--it must get a warrant. That is the requirement of the Constitution that I took an oath to protect and defend.

Mr. Speaker, and my friend from Texas, Mr. Self, I thank you for this. I would say this: Be careful. There are some illusions out there. There are some false prophets coming forward to tell you that they are going to fix this problem, but they are offering a false doctrine. There should be no hope in that. We should put no faith in that.

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