{"id":16258,"date":"2024-03-01T00:46:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T00:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/01\/conservative-groups-are-pushing-speaker-johnson-to-reform-controversial-spy-program-fisa\/"},"modified":"2024-03-01T00:46:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T00:46:28","slug":"conservative-groups-are-pushing-speaker-johnson-to-reform-controversial-spy-program-fisa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/01\/conservative-groups-are-pushing-speaker-johnson-to-reform-controversial-spy-program-fisa\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative groups are pushing Speaker Johnson to reform controversial spy program FISA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A group of conservative policy organizations are urging House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to not reauthorize the controversial surveillance program Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and are pushing the Republican leader to oppose including reforms in any upcoming must-pass legislative vehicles such as a continuing resolution or omnibus package.<\/p>\n

In a letter to Johnson sent Thursday, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), FreedomWorks, Taxpayers Protection Alliance and Conservative Partnership Institute said \u2018it is critical that Congress does not attempt to force a reauthorization of this authority into a must-pass legislative vehicle, and once and for all finally have a standalone vote on this topic.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018A standalone vote on Section 702 ensures focused scrutiny and accountability, safeguarding Americans\u2019 privacy and maintaining the country\u2019s national security. Shoving it into a must-pass continuing resolution avoids a transparent and open process on how to reform a deeply flawed program,\u2019 AFP\u2019s senior policy analyst James Czerniawski told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the House Rules Committee was set to vote on the measure to renew Section 702 of FISA, which would have advanced it to the House floor for a possible vote later in the week, but Johnson pushed that vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the letter, the groups slammed the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) for allegedly negotiating in \u2018bad faith\u2019 after it and the House Judiciary Committee \u2018agreed to a floor process the week of Feb. 12th to consider a base reauthorization bill, but with the opportunity for both committees to offer amendments, the contours of which were understood by both parties.\u2019<\/p>\n

The letter also claims that on the eve of the Rules Committee hearing, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, \u2018inexplicably released a cryptic Dear Colleague claiming a serious and urgent threat to national security requiring review by Members of the House in a classified setting.\u2019<\/p>\n

That warning, reportedly, was the intelligence related to Russian nuclear capabilities in space which could threaten satellites, including potentially knocking out U.S. military communications and reconnaissance.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 13, HPSCI voted 23-1 to make information about a destabilizing foreign military capability available to Members of Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Turner and Ranking Member Jim Himes, D-Conn., issued a bipartisan notification \u2014 what\u2019s known as \u2018a Dear Colleague letter\u2019 \u2014 urging their colleagues to review this classified information in the secured room on Feb. 13. The language of the Dear Colleague letter was cleared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 14,\u00a0reports of the Dear Colleague letter surfaced, which prompted Turner to issue a statement around 11:30 a.m. about a \u2018serious national security threat.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview with \u2018Meet the Press,\u2019 Turner emphasized\u00a0that he believed that the Biden administration was sleepwalking its way into an international crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The letter criticized Turner\u2019s disclosure, adding that \u2018both the White House and Senate Intelligence Committee have made statements suggesting serious concerns regarding the risk of disclosure of sources and methods because of Chairman Turner\u2019s Dear Colleague and subsequent press release.\u2019<\/p>\n

The groups asserted that \u2018the reauthorization of Section 702 has been top of mind for Members of Congress for over a year now and HPSCI\u2019s sole focus and engagement on this issue during this time is evident. It is highly suspect that as the House was on the verge of considering a vehicle for reauthorization, rather than helping to facilitate a carefully negotiated floor process for considering a powerful surveillance tool, HPSCI instead spent its efforts on a non-urgent matter and in the process may ultimately have jeopardized national security.\u2019<\/p>\n

But a spokesperson for HPSCI told Fox News Digital that Turner \u2018does not play politics with national security.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Section 702 of FISA has been both credited with preventing terror attacks on U.S. soil and accused of being a vehicle for spying on U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n

It lets the government keep tabs on specific foreign nationals outside the country without first obtaining a warrant to do so, even if the party on the other side of those communications is an American on U.S. soil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Turner has also advocated for FISA reforms and put forth his own reforms. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But the groups told Johnson in its letter Thursday that while the genesis of HPSCI was originally intended to rein in and provide oversight of an unaccountable Intelligence Community found to be violating Americans\u2019 rights, they claim it has \u2018unfortunately morphed into merely a rubber stamp\u2019 of Intelligence Community activities, \u2018unwilling to even have a debate on how to hold the Intelligence Community accountable for their rampant and repeated abuses of the Section 702 authority.\u2019<\/p>\n

It is critical that Congress does not attempt to force a reauthorization of this authority into a must-pass legislative vehicle, and once and for all finally have a standalone vote on this topic. We stand ready to work with Congress to advance a solution that accomplishes the security and Americans\u2019 civil liberties,\u2019 they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of conservative policy organizations are urging House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to not reauthorize the controversial surveillance program Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and are pushing the Republican leader to oppose including reforms in any upcoming must-pass legislative vehicles such as a continuing resolution or omnibus package. In a letter to Johnson sent <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}