Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that authorities under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 should be allowed to expire.

This resolution states that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the authorities under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 should be allowed to expire at the end of 2023. (Section 702 establishes procedures for collecting foreign intelligence when communications travel through the U.S. communications infrastructure.)   

[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 577 Introduced in House (IH)]

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118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 577

 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that authorities 
under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 
                      should be allowed to expire.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 11, 2023

 Mr. Gaetz (for himself, Ms. Greene of Georgia, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Massie, 
   Mr. Crane, Mr. Rosendale, Mr. Biggs, and Mrs. Luna) submitted the 
   following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the 
    Judiciary, and in addition to the Permanent Select Committee on 
    Intelligence, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
  Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall 
           within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that authorities 
under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 
                      should be allowed to expire.

Whereas section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 
        U.S.C. 1881a) was added by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (Public Law 
        110-261; 122 Stat. 2438);
Whereas the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 extended section 702 
        authorities until December 31, 2023;
Whereas absent congressional action, section 702 authorities will sunset at the 
        end of the year;
Whereas the Intelligence Community has not been forthright about its use of 
        section 702 authorities over the 15 years that section 702 has been 
        authorized;
Whereas both Houses of Congress have repeatedly sought to exercise their 
        constitutional, article I authority to conduct oversight of executive 
        branch use of section 702 authorities, and the Department of Justice, 
        including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has repeatedly and 
        over multiple Congresses, failed to produce lawfully requested documents 
        and witnesses to both Houses of Congress;
Whereas what information Congress has related to section 702 authorities is 
        often obtained from news reports, whistleblower materials, and even when 
        produced is often heavily redacted;
Whereas what data Congress have on section 702 practice are often incomplete, in 
        part due to the Department of Justice itself failing for 21 months to 
        comply with the plain language of section 112 of the FISA Amendments 
        Reauthorization Act of 2017, mandating that the agency keep a count of 
        its section 702 queries of United States person data, until two Federal 
        courts held that they were required to do so;
Whereas this Congress is aware of multiple abuses of the section 702 data 
        collection process through released court decisions and aggregated data, 
        which in itself is an adequate basis to sunset the program;
Whereas the National Security Agency acquires more than 250,000,000 internet 
        communications every year pursuant to section 702;
Whereas the FBI itself has conducted 702 queries with callous disregard of the 
        privacy rights of Americans, as evidenced by a redacted Foreign 
        Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinion of April 21, 2022, 
        including--

    (1) by conducting queries using 6,800 Social Security numbers;

    (2) by running a batch query in June 2020 of unminimized FISA 
information using identifiers of 133 individuals arrested ``in connection 
with civil unrest and protests between approximately May 30, and June 18, 
2020'' without ``any specific potential connections to terrorist related 
activity'' known to those who conducted the queries;

    (3) by conducting a batch query for over 19,000 donors to a 
congressional campaign;

    (4) by ``regularly'' querying queried unminimized FISA information 
using identifiers of individuals listed in local police homicide reports, 
including victims, family members, witnesses, and suspects with no evidence 
of criminal activity;

    (5) by conducting batch queries consisting of 23,132 separate queries, 
using presumed United States-person query terms, and running said queries 
against unminimized section 702 information, although the FBI analyst 
conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence related to 
the query terms used; and

    (6) by conducting ``in excess'' of 278,000 noncompliant queries of raw 
FISA-acquired information;

Whereas that FISC court opinion concluded that ``[a]cross the FBI, the 
        government has reported queries of raw FISA-acquired information as `a 
        part of routine baseline checks in order to determine whether there was 
        any information regarding the subject [of the query] in FBI holdings,' 
        without a specific factual basis to believe the query was reasonably 
        likely to return foreign intelligence information or evidence of a 
        crime.'';
Whereas current oversight work of the 118th Congress does evidence that this 
        pattern of abuses, in particular by the FBI, are not incidental, but 
        rather a pattern of behavior warranting the sunset of section 702;
Whereas even FISC Judge James E. Boasberg in a 2018 ruling observed that a 
        ``large number of [702] queries evidence[ed] a misunderstanding of the 
        querying standard--or indifference toward it'';
Whereas numerous American intelligence, law enforcement, academic, and civil 
        liberties groups have expressed sustained concern over the law and 
        practice of section 702 collection;
Whereas there is no indication that traditional FISA authorizations, requiring a 
        warrant, are not up to the task of protecting American national security 
        while also protecting American civil liberties;
Whereas traditional FISA authorities are more protective of American civil 
        liberties, including--

    (1) by requiring close involvement of article III judges;

    (2) by requiring approval both of the Attorney General and a judge;

    (3) by requiring an attestation that ordinary methods of information 
collection would not work, prior to having a warrant approved; and

    (4) by having time limits on surveillance; and

Whereas no government component has ever provided evidence that section 702 has 
        produced better outcomes than traditional FISA: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the authorities under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act of 1978 should be allowed to expire at the end of this 
calendar year.
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