Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this legislation.

First, let me emphasize again that, as the chairman said, section 702 is our single most important intelligence authority. We use it every day to protect the Nation from threats ranging from China and Russia to terrorist plots, fentanyl traffickers, and much more. It cannot be allowed to expire.

It is also true that the 702 program requires substantial reform. We have done this before, and we are doing it in this base bill.

I would also make a critical point here, which is that this is arguably our most heavily scrutinized and overseen intelligence authority. It is approved--and I am going to say this twice--every single year and has been since 2009 by Federal judges, Federal judges who crawl all over this program looking for constitutional violations and looking for violations of law, and since 2009, they have recertified this program.

It is also overseen by the Congress. The chairman and I see problems with the program. It is overseen inside by the Attorney General. It is the most scrutinized intelligence collection program that we have.

The bill before the House today is the product of very serious oversight, resulting in a base text that preserves the value of 702 while putting in place more than 50 significant reforms aimed at preventing its misuse, those misuses that were detailed and that the chairman referred to, which, by the way, are down to the tune of 90 percent. This bill would codify those reforms and require that the FBI continue to follow those rules.

This legislation contains the most significant reforms to 702 ever. Among many other proposals, this bill will continue the progress already made, which I referred to, by the Biden administration and others to ensure compliance.

The bill would ban queries conducted to find evidence of a crime and cut by 90 percent--90 percent--the number of FBI personnel that can approve U.S. person queries.

That is what we give up if we don't pass this bill.

We will consider several amendments to the bill, most of which I will support. However, I am opposed to the Biggs amendment. It is an extreme and misguided proposal that seriously undermines our national security.

I understand the instinct. There is no way to collect intelligence on foreign emails and texts without having some Americans on the other side of this. This bill puts in place protections to make sure that the abuses of the past don't continue into the future.

I would add that I understand the concern. Federal judges crawl all over this program every single year, and not one Federal judge--not one--has found constitutional issues with U.S. person queries.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the PCLOB, proposed a warrant that is much less extreme than the one in the Biggs amendment. The PCLOB--and by the way, this proposal was split on the PCLOB--proposed that only in the event that a U.S. person query produces information, only in that event, which is about 2 percent of all queries, would a warrant be required.

The Biggs amendment would require a warrant for every single U.S. person query that the government makes inside information that it already has.

The narrow exceptions included in this amendment will also not work. You don't need to take that from me, Mr. Chair. Talk to anybody in the government who uses this program.

We don't know if a query is about something that is an exigency until we know what is in the information that that query would turn up.

Enacting this amendment would make us far less safe. We will lose the ability to disrupt terrorist plots, identify spies, interdict fentanyl, and much more, not because it was constitutionally required but because we simply chose not to look.

As Jake Sullivan said this week: ``The extensive harms of this proposal simply cannot be mitigated.''

I would point my colleagues, particularly on my side of the aisle, to the President's extraordinarily strong Statement of Administration Policy in which he reiterates the damage that will be done by this amendment should it pass.

Mr. Chair, with a lot of what we do here, the consequences don't appear immediately. If we turn off the ability of the government to query U.S. person data, then the consequences will be known soon, and we will audit why what happened happened. The consequences will be known soon, and accountability will be visited.

Once again, Mr. Chair, I urge Members to vote for the underlying bill and to oppose the Biggs amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). The Speaker Emerita is the single longest serving member of the Committee on Intelligence ever. She is a member whose, as my Republican colleagues regularly remind me, progressive bona fides are unchallengeable and who came to this institution to fight for civil liberties.

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Crow), who, prior to coming here, defended this Nation's security at risk to his own life in the uniform of the 75th Ranger Regiment.
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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Houlahan).

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Goldman).

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of this bill that includes an absolutely essential national security program. However, I will support this bill only if the amendment that would impose a warrant requirement on queries regarding American citizens fails.

First, a warrant is simply not needed because the query in question is not a new search. It simply identifies any contacts or communications with Americans within the universe of information that was already lawfully obtained from the original search, and that original search can only be of foreign nationals on foreign soil.

I spent 10 years as a Federal prosecutor and obtained hundreds of search warrants. Based on that experience, I can say with confidence that requiring a warrant would render this program unusable and entirely worthless.

Based on the information available to law enforcement, it would be impossible to get probable cause to obtain a search warrant from a judge in a timely manner. Additionally, even if it were possible, the time required to obtain a search warrant from a judge would frequently fail to meet the urgency posed by a terrorist or other national security threat.

A warrant requirement is unnecessary and unworkable and I, therefore, urge my colleagues to oppose the Biggs amendment.

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his terrific work in the face of very real challenges and his commitment to bipartisanship.

This is a critical and bipartisan effort, and it is one that he and I and many others have spent thousands of hours on. As we close out debate, two things are very clear: Number one, this authority must be reauthorized.

I have heard too many Members saying that I will vote to reauthorize it so long as I get this amendment passed. If you are serious about keeping the American people safe, if you are serious about what you said, which is that this must be reauthorized, vote for final passage. This is our single most important tool to keep Americans safe.

Secondly, the Biggs amendment is an extreme amendment, and I understand the instinct.

As I mentioned before, the PCLOB, the President's Civil Liberties Oversight Board, proposed something that would require, in very limited circumstances, a judicial amendment. This amendment is far more extreme than that one, and it is not driven by constitutional concerns. Not a single Federal court after years and years of scrutiny has identified a Fourth Amendment issue.

This is a policy choice, and I would say to those friends of mine on my side of the aisle, maybe you have spent more time on this collection authority than I have. I have probably spent 2,000 or 3,000 hours, so maybe you have spent more. I am willing to concede that. Maybe you know better than I do, but I would ask you to listen to the people who use this every single day at the Department of Justice, at our intelligence community. I would ask you to read the last paragraph of the administration's statement of administration policy, which concludes with the line: ``Our intelligence, defense, and public safety communities are united: The extensive harms of this proposal simply cannot be mitigated.''

We are Article I. You have probably done a lot of work. Maybe you know better on the Biggs amendment. We will find out. Pass the Biggs amendment. Do what the SAP says would badly damage our safety. We will find out.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, I thank both the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee for this important debate.

I sat here and listened to the Judiciary Committee's support for the warrant amendment, and the entire argument is constructed on the foundation of the notion that U.S. person queries violate the Constitution. That is the argument.

I am not a lawyer, so I tend to defer to my good friends on the Judiciary Committee, but I am likely to defer more immediately to the people who are charged with defending our constitutional rights in the Federal courts. I am going to quote from the PCLOB report here, a statement made by the FIS court in April of 2022: ``All three United States Circuit Courts of Appeals to consider the issue [the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits] have held that the incidental collection of a U.S. person's communications under section 702 does not require a warrant and is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.''

I am not a lawyer, but I am inclined to defer to three separate circuits.

So my friends on Judiciary point to the PCLOB. The gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal) quoted the chair of the PCLOB. She did it right. She was quoting the Chair of the PCLOB in her personal capacity. The PCLOB had profound misgivings with their own warrant requirement, which was far narrower than the Biggs amendment warrant requirement.

The two Republican members of the PCLOB wrote a rebuttal of the PCLOB's proposal, and I will just quote this. The Republican members--I would suggest that I am always amazed by the Chairman of Judiciary's alignment with his party. The Republicans said that: ``FISC preapproval would most negatively impact the most important and urgent queries--the ones that show a connection between foreign targets and U.S. persons, the ones that the FBI must review as quickly as possible.''

Please vote against the Biggs amendment.

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas and the gentleman from Virginia. I support this amendment and will be recommending a ``yes'' vote on this amendment to the minority caucus.

I surprised the gentleman from Virginia in asking for a minute, because I think it is very important that this Chamber not believe that this is an argument between civil rights and denigrating civil rights.

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chair, again, I think I surprised the gentleman from Virginia in saying that I will recommend a ``yes'' vote on this amendment because I think it is very, very important that this not become a debate between civil rights and perhaps those who are less concerned about civil rights.

I will yield to no one in my defense of the civil rights incorporated in our Bill of Rights. I am the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. I spend my days marinating in the depredations that the Chinese would visit upon us, but I voted against the TikTok ban because I felt it had, and courts have held that it has, First Amendment equities at stake.

This amendment is a good one. ``About'' collection, first of all, is not undertaken today by the IC; it is too technically difficult and too risky. There is too much of a risk that communications that are not about a target to an American get swept up in this ``about'' collection.

I will be adamant and stand with the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits in saying that the Biggs amendment is not addressing constitutional issues, but this is an important amendment that I support.

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