Massie Says FISA Fight Let Biden Spy On Americans Without Warrants
The Kentucky Republican tied a fight over FISA warrants to a broader warning about foreign access to intelligence involving Americans.
WASHINGTON - Rep. Thomas Massie said a 2024 House fight over FISA surveillance exposed Republicans who were willing to let President Joe Biden keep warrantless spy power over Americans, then connected that fight to concerns about Israel receiving intelligence involving Americans.
The submitted video shows Massie discussing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and a failed House amendment to add a warrant requirement. The clip is Massie's account and argument. It does not independently prove every claim made in the interview, including his claim about intelligence flowing to Israel.
The official record confirms the key legislative backdrop. The House Clerk recorded a 212 to 212 tie on Biggs of Arizona Amendment No. 1 to H.R. 7888 on April 12, 2024. The Clerk marked the amendment as failed. GovInfo's enrolled H.R. 7888 text shows the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act changed Section 702 procedures without adding the warrant requirement Massie supported.
The Story So Far
Section 702 allows the government to target non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information. The political fight comes when agencies search Section 702 databases using U.S. person query terms. Privacy advocates call that a warrant problem because Americans can be swept into intelligence databases even when the original target is foreign.
Massie describes that dispute in constitutional terms. The interviewer asks why lawmakers as different as Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, and Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, could end up on the same side of a surveillance fight. Massie answers that warrants were once a core position for Judiciary Committee members under Jordan's chairmanship.
"It was a condition of being on the Judiciary Committee when I joined, like you had to believe that we needed warrants on FISA or you couldn't be on the Judiciary Committee that he chaired."
Rep. Thomas Massie, in the submitted video transcript.
The Clerk's roll call shows the warrant amendment failed on a tie. The vote was 212 ayes to 212 noes, with 13 members not voting. The party breakdown recorded by the Clerk was 128 Republicans and 84 Democrats voting aye, while 86 Republicans and 126 Democrats voted no.
What Massie Said
Massie says the warrant amendment came down to Speaker Mike Johnson and enough Republicans who voted no. His framing is deliberately partisan in one respect: Biden was president at the time, so Republicans who opposed the warrant amendment, in Massie's view, allowed a Democratic administration to keep using surveillance power against Americans without a warrant.
"Enough Republicans voted to let Biden have the power to spy on Americans without a warrant."
Rep. Thomas Massie, in the submitted video transcript.
That quote compresses a complicated statute into a political charge. The official H.R. 7888 text does not say the government can simply spy on any American without judicial limits. It reforms query procedures, requires FBI approval layers for U.S. person queries, creates exceptions for threats to life or serious bodily harm, and includes other changes to Section 702 oversight. Massie's criticism is that those safeguards still fall short of a warrant requirement.
Massie then moves from domestic warrant protections to a claim about foreign access. He says intelligence from spying on Americans goes directly to Israel and argues that the question is whether the U.S. government makes it easier for a foreign country to spy on Americans. That claim is attributed to Massie here because the official sources attached to the article do not independently verify the specific Israel allegation.
What The Vote Shows
The April 12, 2024 roll call is the firmest record in the article. The Clerk identifies the vote as Biggs of Arizona Amendment No. 1 to H.R. 7888, records the question as agreeing to the amendment, and marks the result as failed. The total was evenly divided at 212 to 212.
That result matters because a tie vote defeats an amendment in the House. Massie's argument that the warrant push was one vote short is supported by the roll call's outcome. His political conclusion about which members enabled Biden's power is his interpretation of the vote.
The party split complicates simple partisan messaging. More Republicans than Democrats voted for the amendment, according to the Clerk. But 86 Republicans also voted no. On the Democratic side, 84 voted aye and 126 voted no. That split created an unusual coalition of civil-liberties conservatives and progressives on one side, with national-security Republicans and Democrats on the other.
GovInfo's enrolled H.R. 7888 text shows what Congress passed after the warrant amendment failed. The bill requires FBI personnel to get prior approval from a supervisor or authorized attorney for U.S. person queries of unminimized contents or noncontents obtained through Section 702 acquisitions. It allows an exception when the person conducting the query reasonably believes the search could assist in mitigating or eliminating a threat to life or serious bodily harm.
The Conservative View
Massie's view reflects the civil-liberties wing of the Republican Party. That faction argues that a constitutional right should not depend on which party controls the White House. Massie's quote about Biden is aimed at Republicans who might tolerate surveillance power when their own party expects to regain control, but object when the other party uses it.
The conservative warrant argument is straightforward: if the government wants to search intelligence databases for information about an American, it should get a warrant. Supporters of that approach say internal approval and after-the-fact oversight do not substitute for a neutral judge.
National-security conservatives answer that Section 702 targets foreigners overseas, not Americans as targets. They argue that a warrant mandate could slow investigations, reduce intelligence value and create legal friction in cases involving terrorism, cyber threats, hostage risks or foreign espionage. H.R. 7888's supervisor approval requirement represents that compromise position rather than Massie's warrant position.
The Progressive View
Progressive privacy advocates often land near Massie on this issue, even while disagreeing with him on many other policy fights. The Clerk's roll call supports that cross-party reality: 84 Democrats voted for the Biggs amendment. Massie's clip names Raskin as an example of an ideological opposite who could share the warrant concern.
Progressive supporters of warrant reform frame Section 702 as a backdoor-search issue. Their concern is that Americans' communications can be incidentally collected during foreign-intelligence targeting, then queried later by U.S. officials. From that perspective, the warrant line protects First Amendment activity, political organizing, journalism and ordinary privacy.
Other Democrats and civil-liberties skeptics of the amendment argue that foreign-intelligence tools operate in a different legal setting than domestic criminal searches. They can point to H.R. 7888's reforms as evidence that Congress tightened query procedures without imposing a warrant requirement that intelligence officials opposed.
Other Perspectives
Intelligence agencies and national-security committees generally argue that Section 702 is a high-value foreign-intelligence program. GovInfo's H.R. 7888 text reflects that institutional position by preserving the program while adding procedural restrictions. The bill does not adopt Massie's preferred warrant rule.
Foreign-policy hawks have another concern with Massie's Israel claim. Intelligence sharing with allies can be legal, routine and central to counterterrorism or regional security. But Massie's claim is more specific and more serious: he says information involving Americans goes directly to Israel in a way that raises a sovereignty and privacy problem. The current article attributes that claim to Massie because the provided official sources verify the vote and bill text, not the alleged intelligence-sharing path.
The public also has a practical interest beyond party labels. Section 702 debates determine how far the government can go when foreign-intelligence collection intersects with Americans' communications. The 212 to 212 vote shows Congress was exactly split over whether the warrant rule belonged in the reauthorization bill.
What The Bill Changed
GovInfo's enrolled H.R. 7888 text says FBI personnel must obtain prior approval for U.S. person queries from a supervisor or authorized attorney who can access the relevant unminimized information. That is a procedural control, not a warrant requirement. It keeps the decision within the executive branch rather than moving it to a court before the search.
The enrolled text also includes an emergency-style exception. A U.S. person query may be conducted without prior approval if the person conducting it reasonably believes the query could assist in mitigating or eliminating a threat to life or serious bodily harm. Supporters of the bill can point to that language as necessary speed. Critics can point to it as another example of internal discretion.
Massie's argument is that the final bill left the constitutional issue unresolved. The vote record supports the narrow claim that the warrant requirement failed by a tie. The broader claim that the final system gives Biden or any president too much power is a political and constitutional interpretation.
By The Numbers
- April 12, 2024: the date of the failed Biggs warrant amendment vote, according to the House Clerk.
- 212 to 212: the final roll call total on the amendment.
- 128: Republican votes for the amendment, according to the Clerk.
- 84: Democratic votes for the amendment, according to the Clerk.
- 86: Republican votes against the amendment, according to the Clerk.
- 126: Democratic votes against the amendment, according to the Clerk.
- 139 seconds: the length of the submitted source video preserved with this article.
What People Are Saying
"Well, the president told him to."
Rep. Thomas Massie, in the submitted video transcript, referring to his claim about why Jim Jordan supported the position he describes.
"It came down to a tie vote where Mike Johnson was the deciding vote."
Rep. Thomas Massie, in the submitted video transcript.
"That's what this is really about is do we allow foreign country to spy? Does our government make it easier for a foreign country to spy in Americans?"
Rep. Thomas Massie, in the submitted video transcript.
The Big Picture
The verified core of the story is the House vote. The warrant amendment to H.R. 7888 failed 212 to 212, according to the Clerk, and the enrolled bill preserved Section 702 while adding internal approval requirements for U.S. person queries. That record supports Massie's claim that the warrant side lost by the narrowest possible margin.
The contested portion is Massie's explanation of motive and his Israel claim. Those points should remain attributed to him unless additional primary records or on-record statements verify them. The article should not treat the video as proof that intelligence involving Americans is being routed to Israel in the manner Massie alleges.
The policy fight continues because both sides are arguing from recognizable risks. Warrant supporters warn about domestic privacy and executive abuse. Section 702 defenders warn about losing speed and intelligence reach against foreign threats. The 2024 vote shows those arguments split the House almost perfectly in half.
