Speaker Johnson Refuses to Confirm Matt Gaetz’s Claim About Deep State Program Authorization
Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) office has refused to confirm Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) claim that there will be no reauthorization, temporary or otherwise, of a deep state surveillance tool in the National Defense Authorization Act.
Breitbart News, as well as Wired, reported that Speaker Johnson and Democrat leaders are considering slipping a reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a defense bill that has little to do with government surveillance.
Section 702 is a law that allows intelligence agencies to collect communications of targeted foreigners. It also may lead to targeted surveillance of Americans’ private communications, which privacy advocates consider a run around the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for a warrant to search Americans’ communications. The law will expire at the end of 2023.
The Speaker’s office did not answer multiple requests for comment about Rep. Matt Gaetz’s claim that Johnson said there would be no Section 702 in the NDAA.
The controversy continued as Gaetz asserted that Section 702 would not be included in the NDAA, saying, “I love the folks at FreedomWorks – but this isn’t true. I spoke to @SpeakerJohnson and while there is still work to be done to hammer out the legislation, the plan is to run it as a SINGLE SUBJECT stand-alone bill.”
After Gaetz’s tweet, Breitbart News repeatedly inquired with multiple different staffers for Johnson asking for an on-record confirmation of what Gaetz claims Johnson told him. Multiple Johnson staffers would not provide such a statement.
Instead, a senior GOP leadership aide told Breitbart News, “The NDAA is not going to be a reauthorization of the FISA program. It is not going to include a full-year authorization of the FISA program.”
It is important to note that the leadership aide neglected to say if there would be a short-term extension of Section 702 in the NDAA. In other words, this senior GOP leadership aide in the House is openly saying it is certainly a possibility that the NDAA will include a short-term reauthorization of the FISA surveillance program–thereby effectively confirming the original reports from Breitbart News and Wired magazine. …
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/11/28/speaker-johnson-refuses-confirm-matt-gaetzs-claim-deep-state-program-authorization/