EXTENSION OF AUTHORITIES OF TITLE VII OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978

On 2026-04-30, Representative Keith Self (R-TX-3) delivered a floor speech titled "EXTENSION OF AUTHORITIES OF TITLE VII OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978" in the House. The speech addressed foreign policy and also covered trade policy, labor policy. It referenced legislation: S4465.

EXTENSION OF AUTHORITIES OF TITLE VII OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 76 (Thursday, April 30, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 76 (Thursday, April 30, 2026)] [House] [Pages H3322-H3326] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] EXTENSION OF AUTHORITIES OF TITLE VII OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978 Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 4465) to amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and for other purposes. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The text of the bill is as follows: S. 4465 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. EXTENSION OF AUTHORITIES OF TITLE VII OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978. (a) Extension of Repeal Date of Title VII.--Section 403(b) of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-261) is amended-- (1) in paragraph (1) (50 U.S.C. 1881 note), by striking ``April 30, 2026'' and inserting ``June 12, 2026''; and (2) in paragraph (2) (18 U.S.C. 2511 note), in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by striking ``April 30, 2026'' and inserting ``June 12, 2026''. (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall take effect on the earlier of the date of the enactment of this Act or April 29, 2026. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) each will control 20 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in actual opposition to the motion. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman from Maryland opposed to the motion? Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I do not oppose the motion. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie) will control the time for the opposition. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio. [[Page H3323]] General Leave Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on S. 4465. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Ohio? There was no objection. Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) and ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to control that time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Ohio? There was no objection. Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is not the outcome that any of us wanted for the FISA 702 program, but here we are. The 702 program is incredibly important for protecting our national security and advancing our interests abroad. This temporary extension will ensure that there is no disruption to the program while we work out our differences on a longer reauthorization. I urge all Members to support the legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The Senate just unanimously passed this 43-day extension. Yesterday I was struck by a point my colleagues from the House Intelligence Committee made here on the House floor that the FISA 702 authorities were too important to turn off. We agree. But I also know that we cannot turn off our constitutional values and principles. Nothing about protecting our safety should prevent us from protecting our rights. We can have both. When we talk about protecting civil liberties, we are not speaking of theoretical threats. We are talking of real violations perpetrated by the FBI, not just in 2022, but over the past year and still going on today. The March 2026 FISC opinion describing the FISC judge's concerns about the FBI's violations of FISA is still classified by an administration that seems intent on keeping the public in the dark as we debate this fundamental problem. We can say with some confidence that the FBI has no idea how many U.S. person queries they ran last year, how many times they spied on American citizens. We should not have to take this vote without being able to explain these serious deficiencies. We have a right to know how many times the communications of American citizens were accessed. Every day that goes by where the Trump administration and Kash Patel's FBI can circumvent our constitutional values to spy on American citizens is one day too many. I won't oppose this short extension but only because it is my fervent hope and determination that it will give us the time to work together across the aisle to implement meaningful reform. {time} 1550 It is long past time for Speaker Johnson to stop blocking Members of this body from coming together across party lines to work in good faith to strike a bipartisan deal on section 702 that is the support of a robust, bipartisan majority which believes that the program is important for foreign intelligence but must be made consistent with the essential constitutional values of our privacy rights under the Constitution. A significant majority of Members in this Chamber, Democrats and Republicans alike, want real reforms to protect Americans' privacy and civil liberties, not the paltry restatements of current law that have been offered to us so far. The vast majority of Members of this body and the American people want a Federal judge, not an FBI agent or an FBI lawyer, to stand between them and their private communications. That is the constitutional design. You go to a judge. You don't leave it to the executive branch itself to check its own behavior. The Speaker must allow the House to work its will. The Speaker must allow the House to serve the American people, to bring to the floor legislation that lives up to the spirit of the Fourth Amendment and ensures Americans are protected from their government as the Founders intended. So as a gesture of good faith, we will give a few-week extension here, but we would love the Speaker of the House to get serious and allow us to have meaningful, bipartisan negotiation and compromise. I have heard from so many distinguished Republican Members over there, including a number of former Federal prosecutors, who say: We can work this thing out. Let us do the people's business, and let's work it out. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to this clean reauthorization of FISA and, in particular, to this short-term authorization of FISA. A short-term infringement of the Constitution is still an infringement of the Constitution. How long has the Senate had to act on this? Is this an emergency? Is this something we haven't known about? No. I appreciate the work of my dear colleague and chairman of our committee, Mr. Jordan, on this issue for so many years of trying to get warrants before Americans are spied upon. In fact, my colleague on the other side of the aisle Zoe Lofgren and I, over a decade ago, were successful in passing an amendment to FISA, during the appropriations process, that would have prohibited funds to be used in the FISA program without a warrant. What happened to that amendment? It died in the Senate. They have had over a decade to work on this. What does FISA stand for? Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This, when it was originated, was never meant to be used to surveil Americans or to search through databases for their information. It was intended for foreign intelligence. But now it is used on Americans without a warrant. FISA databases have been used to query political activists, journalists, Members of Congress and their staff, and random romantic interests of FBI agents. We are told: Oh, don't worry. It is not being abused anymore. Maybe that is because they changed the definition of a query. So when they use the program anymore and abuse it, it is not a query by their definition so they don't have to tell you when they have violated the law. They are interpreting it differently. As a matter of fact, there is a secret interpretation of how this law is used by the FBI, so secret that you have got to go three floors underground to read about it. We can't tell the American public exactly how they are being spied on, but it is a particularly nefarious way. I think it is also unconstitutional. I know it is also unconstitutional. For this and many other reasons, I oppose this FISA reauthorization, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank my friend from Kentucky for his always unswerving leadership on behalf of constitutional values, privacy, and the civil rights and civil liberties of the people. The question here is how are we actually going to move the Speaker, who seems to be immersed in some combination of inertia, bureaucracy, and chaos, and the Senate, which doesn't seem to be living up to its traditional role in trying to reconcile our foreign policy and national security agenda with the constitutional values of the people? We are saying, let's give it a few weeks now. I hope that Chairman Jordan will echo my endorsement of us really getting together to have bipartisan negotiations and compromise on this. This is not a partisan problem. We have people on all sides of this on both sides of the aisle. The vast majority of the Democrats want to make sure that we have a program that protects the privacy rights and the civil liberties of the people. No, we do not trust Kash Patel to have conversations with Tulsi Gabbard as a successful substitute for the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. I am sure you don't trust whoever you would liken to Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard on our side. That is fine. That is partisan politics. That is why we want this to rest on [[Page H3324]] some level of 

Referenced legislation: S4465, S4465