The House on Wednesday approved the renewal of the nation’s warrantless spy powers in a 235-191 vote that cleared the chamber with support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The bill, which would renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), still has to clear the Senate, another challenging hurdle before the powers expire on April 30. Section 702 of FISA allows the government to spy on foreigners located abroad, but it has long generated calls to include a warrant requirement before reviewing any information collected on Americans who communicate with overseas targets. The measure passed by the House on Wednesday includes modest reforms to the program, including allowing a larger pool of lawmakers to review information presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It extends Section 702 for three years — longer than the 18-month request initially made by President Trump. But those changes were not enough to win over privacy hawks on both sides of the aisle, a dynamic likely to replay itself in the Senate. This year also saw a greater number of Democrats who opposed renewing Section 702, with many arguing the Trump administration could not be trusted not to abuse the powerful spy tool. While 147 Democrats voted to renew Section 702 in 2024, this year just 42 did. And while 88 Republicans opposed FISA when it was last considered, this time just 22 did – a sign of Trump’s influence on the issue.
Love that these stories provide vote counts but no method to check how your representative voted.
It’s not this one. The vote total doesn’t match.
Weird. Searching the site, there’s only a handful of votes registered today. One of them does match the vote total, but it’s entirely unrelated:
Bill Title & Description: Fallen Servicemembers Religious Heritage Restoration Act
Vote Type: Yea-And-Nay
Status: Passed
Votes yea: 235
nay: 191
Eta: Yeah, this site shows a picture of the vote totals, labeled “S 1318”
But checking the House website, “S 1318” was the one referenced above, not the FISA vote.
Ugh. That’s it. Here’s the text. They erased a bill to fix the graves of American-Jewish servicemembers to pass FISA.
Resolved, That the bill from the Senate (S. 1318) entitled “An Act to direct the American Battle Monuments Commission to establish a program to identify American-Jewish servicemembers buried in United States military cemeteries overseas under markers that incorrectly represent their religion and heritage, and for other purposes.”, do pass with the following
AMENDMENT:
Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert:
SECTION 1. Short titles; table of contents. (a) Short titles.—This Act may be cited as the “Foreign Intelligence Accountability Act” and the “Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act”.
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2026142?Page=2&Date=04%2F29%2F2026
I hadn’t actually clicked into it to read the text. I wouldn’t think I would have to.
What. The actual. Fuck.
i don’t think you really do tho.
“I’m convinced that this has been fixed,” House Rules Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who voted against FISA renewal in 2024, said Tuesday.
Oh it’s “fixed” all right. If the entire GOP is suddenly like “oh this is fine now that Trump’s in charge” it definitely means “the fix is in.”
Section 702 of FISA allows the government to spy on foreigners located abroad
And they try to gaslight the world to just trust their closed source products and or centralized services with security and privacy.
