Some Republican lawmakers are seeking to end a tool used by government agencies to conduct warrantless surveillance on foreign targets, The New York Times reported Monday.
At question is the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That provision, initially approved in 2018, allows intelligence officials to freely collect the data of targeted foreigners abroad.
However, it also controversially permits those communications to be collected on domestic soil and under circumstances where an American citizen is on the other end.
While congressional leaders on both sides have threatened the White House that they will not renew the provision unless significant changes are made, some are calling for even more extreme measures.
"You couldn't waterboard me into voting to reauthorize 702," Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a member of the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, told the paper.
"These 702 authorities were abused against people in Washington [D.C.] on Jan. 6, and they were abused against people who were affiliated with the BLM [Black Lives Matter] movement, and I'm equally aggrieved by both of those things," he added.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who heads the House Judiciary Committee and its weaponization panel, demonstrated a similar hesitancy over the provision but did not completely write it off.
"There's no way we're going to be for reauthorizing that in its current form — no possible way," Jordan said. "We're concerned about surveillance, period."
Some Democrats, like Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, are working with more moderate Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee to reform the section before reauthorization its approaches.
Among the restrictions being talked about are limits on when databases can be used for information about Americans and requirements that warrants be obtained in certain instances, according to the Times.
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