House sinks Johnson-backed FISA renewal after Trump push

More than a dozen House GOP privacy hawks have blocked the House of Representatives from advancing a Speaker Mike Johnson-backed bill to renew a controversial federal government surveillance tool known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

It comes hours after former President Trump posted on Truth Social, "KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME AND MANY OTHERS."

Nineteen Republicans voted against their party leadership to tank a procedural vote that would have allowed for the House to debate and then vote on the bill itself. The final vote was 193 to 228.

The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, a compromise bill between the House Judiciary Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, is aimed at curbing instances of abuse reported against Trump and others by instituting safeguards on who can access Section 702-collected data, particularly if it involves a U.S. citizen. It also would make it a crime to use backdoor loopholes to improperly access Americans' data.

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But conservative critics of Section 702 have argued the bill does not go far enough to safeguard Americans' data.

Among the GOP lawmakers who blocked the bill were: House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va.; Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.; Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.; Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La.; Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas; and Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., among others.

The fight has put Johnson in a difficult spot between the House Judiciary Committee and its allies, and the U.S. intelligence community and national security hawks in Congress. The former have cast Section 702 as a tool of exploitation and privacy