Thomas Massie

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Hageman), my friend and colleague on the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Greene), my good friend.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Georgia.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker.

Mr. MASSIE. Did the gentleman address his remarks to somebody on this side of the aisle?

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Moore), my friend.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson), my friend and colleague.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Spartz).

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. We are here today to pass a rule that will bring up a program for a vote that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times, abused by the FBI's own standards hundreds of thousands of times. Every time they have used it, they have actually abused it because they have not followed the constitutional requirement in the Fourth Amendment. Today, if we pass this rule, we will have votes on six different amendments. Three of these amendments will expand the program, and three of these amendments will constrain the program. There are people who say this bill is fine as is, that it doesn't need any amendments. Here is the problem with that: If we believed that, why would we put exemptions for Congress in this bill? There are exemptions for Congress in the base bill of 702. What do they do? They say that if a Congressman is going to have their privacy violated with the 702 program by the FBI, the FBI has to notify Congress. It goes on to say in this bill that if the FBI is going to tell us that they are doing it for our own good, they have to get permission from the Congressman whose privacy is going to be violated. Why does that only apply to Members of this body? The Constitution provides that we should give these protections to everybody. The Constitution requires a warrant. That is one of the amendments that will be offered here today. In fact, the chairman and the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee--the committee of jurisdiction for this legislation, the committee that many years ago created the 702 program--have said that if the warrant provision is not adopted, they will not vote to renew this program. I applaud them for taking that stand because the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution says: ``The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.'' The FISA 702 program is clearly in violation of the Fourth Amendment. We can fix it, for the most part, with one amendment. There will still be other defects in the FISA program. I will just close by saying this: America is watching us today. They are going to watch the results of this vote. What will we do here today? Are we going to carve out exemptions for Congress? Are we going to protect ourselves but not the American people, or are we going to provide them with the protections that our Founding Fathers enshrined in our Constitution? We swore an oath to do that when we took these offices as legislators, and we need to follow that oath. That is why I urge adoption of this rule. I urge people to vote for the warrant amendment, and I urge people not to vote for the final bill if the protections of the warrant amendment are not there. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time and move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, today, we are voting on a resolution that will bring forward reauthorization of a program that has been abused for decades, the FISA 702 surveillance program. Before we vote on that program, though, this resolution that we are voting on now prescribes that we will bring forward an amendment to require warrants. If you want to spy on Americans, if you want to use this database as a back door to look at the private information of Americans, you would need a warrant if this amendment passes. Now, there are some people who say, oh, getting a warrant is too hard. It will slow us down. You will put America in danger. Listen, I have been in the SCIF, the classified area where they are supposed to tell us the problems with requiring a warrant, and they never have told us a single example of where getting a warrant would be a problem to national security. In fact, we have a provision in the warrant amendment that says in exigent circumstances you can skip that step. You will hear today that everything is fine, that we don't need the warrant amendment, that we have 53 reforms in this package. Here is the problem with those reforms: We rely on the same people who abused the system to enforce those reforms, and they still don't go to the constitutional level that is required in this country. Who doesn't trust those 53 reforms? Congress--the authors of this bill--doesn't trust those 53 reforms. Do you know how I know? Because they put in two exemptions for themselves in this bill. That is right: If the FBI is going to use 702 FISA to spy on Congressmen, they have to tell Congress. They even have to get permission from the Congressmen they are spying on if they say it is for the Congressmen's own good. Why do we have a provision in there that exempts Congressmen but not all of America? Americans deserve the protections that are enshrined in the Constitution. Nothing less should pass this House. This is an enormous database. They will tell you that we are just looking at intelligence that was gathered on foreigners. The problem is, they are collecting this intelligence in the United States, using service providers in the United States, using internet connections in the United States. They collect a lot of stuff here. Do you think the NSA employee who did a FISA search on a Tinder date was looking for information about Hamas? No. There is all kinds of information in there, and that is why it is being abused and why we need the warrant provision. I urge folks to vote for this rule so that they can vote for the warrant provision amendment. If that amendment doesn't pass, they shouldn't vote to reauthorize FISA.

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Madam Speaker, today we are setting a dangerous precedent. We are suspending the 3-day rule so that our constituents don't have time to see what is in this bill. We know a few things that are in it. We know it spends too much money. We know it has got money to groom our children, down to ages of 12, into being trans. We know it has got funding for facilities to do late-term abortions. Why would Republicans vote for that? It has got a dangerous cocktail that the swamp has always served, and we are drunk on it today. What is that cocktail? Earmarks and budget gimmicks with a chaser of the fumes from DCA, the smell of jet fuel at DCA. What are we going to do? As soon as we betray Americans by passing this bill, we are all going to the airport and going on recess for 2 weeks. This is not the way we should do the Nation's business. We need to preserve the 3-day rule. We need to follow our own rules. We need to bring these bills through committee and do regular order. Madam Speaker, I urge people to vote against this bill.

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my good friend from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert).

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove), my friend on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in actual opposition to the bill.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I know the sponsors of this bill are sincere in their concerns and in their effort to protect Americans. They have described the TikTok application as a Trojan horse, but there are some of us who feel that, either intentionally or unintentionally, this legislation to ban TikTok is actually a Trojan horse. Some of us are concerned that there are First Amendment implications here. Americans have the right to view information. We don't need to be protected by the government from information. Some of us just don't want the President picking which apps we can put on our phones or which websites we can visit. We don't think that is appropriate. We also think it is dangerous to give the President that kind of power, to give him the power to decide what Americans can see on their phones and on their computers. To give him that sort of discretion, we also think, is dangerous. People say that this TikTok ban will only apply to TikTok or maybe another company that pops up just like TikTok, but the bill is written so broadly that the President could abuse that discretion and include other companies that aren't just social media companies and that aren't, as some people would believe, controlled by foreign adversaries. Again, we are giving the President that discretion to decide whether it is controlled by a foreign adversary. There were some people who were legitimately concerned that this was an overly broad bill, and they got an exclusion written into the bill that I want to read. It says: ``The term `covered company' does not include an entity that operates a website . . . or . . . application whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.'' Why is this exception in the bill? Why did somebody feel like they needed this exception if the bill itself only covers social media applications that foreign adversaries are running? These and other questions we hope to answer in the course of this debate, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson), a data privacy champion.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop), who is my friend and fellow colleague on the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Greene).

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Robert Garcia), my friend on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.