A bipartisan amendment to FISA to prohibit warrantless surveillance of Americans' online browsing and search histories failed in the Senate by one vote, 59-37
Congressional privacy hawks scored a critical victory on Wednesday that deepens the uncertainty about the fate of expired federal surveillance powers.
The stakes are timing as much as principle: the description notes the vote deepens uncertainty around already-expired federal surveillance powers, meaning any eventual reauthorization now has to clear a bloc willing to hold the floor over browsing and search protections.
First-order effects
Privacy hawks gain leverage over the reauthorization fight: with the amendment failing 59-37, the FBI and intelligence agencies cannot assume warrantless browsing and search access survives into any renewed FISA package.
Supporters of the amendment can immediately force a revote, as McConnell did after the near-identical 2016 defeat.
Second-order effects
Any Section 702 renewal bill now has to buy off this 37-vote bloc with explicit warrant protections for browsing data, raising the price of passage beyond the minimal-changes extension the House passed in 2018.
Advocacy groups and tech companies opposing warrantless access get a proven whip count, making them more likely to target the handful of switchable senators in future surveillance votes.
Third-order effects
If one-vote margins keep recurring across a decade of these fights — 2015's killed anti-mass-surveillance amendment, 2016's narrow rejection, today's 59-37 — the structural signal is that warrantless digital surveillance powers can no longer pass without attached privacy conditions.
The longer-term risk for the intelligence community is expiration rather than restriction: a program repeatedly renewed by thin margins becomes vulnerable to outright lapse, the scenario the related coverage shows materializing when the House later fails to extend Section 702 at all.
The trend: Congress is incrementally conditioning warrantless digital surveillance powers on privacy safeguards, with each narrow Senate vote shrinking the room for minimal-change reauthorization.
Mitch McConnell is forcing a Senate vote on his amendment to give Bill Barr warrantless access to Americans' browsing history. I've heard a lot of bad ideas in my lifetime, but this is one of the worst. Tune in as I explain why: https://www.pscp.tv/...
Fifty-nine members of the Senate just voted in favor of my amendment to block warrantless government surveillance of Americans' browser history. It failed by just one vote. McConnell is that much closer to giving Bill Barr the green light to spy on Americans' private information.…
Warner's comments here make it seem like at least a few of the “nays” were scared that an amendment to protect Americans' civil liberties would upset a hard-earned House compromise. But come on, grow a spine. That's not a compromise worth protecting. https://www.politico.com/... …
so nice to see members of both parties in the Senate set aside their differences to reauthorize mass surveillance authorities that put us on a path to fascist dystopia https://twitter.com/...
“The privacy-preserving amendment fell short by a single vote after several senators who would have voted “Yes” failed to show up to the session, including Bernie Sanders”, wtf?! https://www.vice.com/...
Warren voted to shoot down the provision that lets the government spy on all Americans' internet habits. So did Booker. So did Klobuchar. Sanders didn't show up. It failed by one vote. https://www.senate.gov/... https://twitter.com/...
For the record, I'm glad this failed and Wyden's been consistent on this issue. But I feel like I've got whiplash. I've been told to trust the Lynch/Comey DOJ blindly for years, but the Barr/Wray DOJ is now frightening? Perhaps we should be always be wary of govt spying. https://…
Bad take. The government can already get this information without a warrant if it first obtains a subpoena or a 2703(d) order. The issue in my mind is that this power is exercisable by secret FISA courts, not that it exists. https://twitter.com/...
“These amendments would pretty much guarantee the ability of an incumbent administration to spy on its political opponents without consequence” https://www.rawstory.com/...
AGREE “The Patriot Act should be repealed, set on fire and buried in the ground. It's one of the worst laws passed in the last century, and there is zero evidence that the mass surveillance programs it enables have ever saved a single human life.” -Evan Greer of @fightfortheftr h…
I would be upset by this anyway, but I'm more upset because of two senators who abstained from voting, allowing this amendment to fail: Patty Murray and Bernie Sanders. Guys. What the hell. https://twitter.com/...
Republicans: we can't have a list of gun owners because that would be like Nazi Germany. Also Republicans: watchu jerkin off to? https://twitter.com/...
Congress today is happily considering expanding government warrantless access to your browsing and search data. A Wyden amendment requiring a warrant fails to pass, because, you know, America. https://twitter.com/...