House Republicans unveil bill to address warrantless surveillance powers

House Republicans on Monday announced legislation to reform and extend the intelligence community's controversial warrantless surveillance powers ahead of their April expiration.

The House last year passed a temporary extension to Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA), which allows for the warrantless surveillance of foreigners abroad. The provision has drawn criticism over the potential to improperly gather American data during surveillance and for abuse by intelligence officials.

The House bill in question would limit the FBI personnel who can access the intel database made from surveilled material and require greater oversight on its use, The Hill reported. It would further require the FBI to notify lawmakers if they had been the subject of a query to the database and to seek their consent before gathering information for briefing them on foreign efforts to target them.

Section 702 was set to expire at the end of the year, though the House extended the deadline to April amid intense internal disagreements over scope of reform. Both the House Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee had offered competing bills to revise the surveillance powers. The Judiciary panel had sought the inclusion of a warrant requirement, which neither the Intelligence Committee plan nor the current legislation have included.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.