April 1, 2024
The Honorable Mike JohnsonSpeaker
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Hakeem Jeffries
Minority Leader
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker Johnson and Leader Jeffries:
We write to express our strong opposition to the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America
Act (RISAA), H.R.7320, and to urge you to oppose its consideration on the House Floor unlessmembers have the opportunity to vote on amendments that were critical components of thislegislation’s negotiated introduction. House Members across the political spectrum are eager tovote for legislation that reforms Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA),and moving forward with only a vote on RISAA would deprive them of that opportunity.
Blocking off votes on critical issues that have been central to the past year’s debate over FISA
would harm Americans’ privacy, as well as needlessly threaten Section 702’s future viability.
RISAA was introduced after a months-long discussion between the House Committee on theJudiciary and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) over theircompeting bills, the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act, H.R.6570, and theFISA Reform and Reauthorization Act, H.R.6611. These negotiations ultimately failed toproduce consensus legislation that both sides could support, but they did offer a path forward for
the House to consider reauthorizing FISA Section 702. That agreed upon path was to bring
RISAA to the floor — with the Judiciary and Intelligence committees both having theopportunity to offer three amendments for each side.
RISAA on its own, therefore, must not be mistaken as a compromise. Members of the Judiciary
Committee agreed to support it only if members had the opportunity to vote on key amendments,
including those to 1) close the backdoor search loophole that agencies use to perform warrantless
searches for Americans’ private communications in Section 702 databases, and 2) close the data
broker loophole that intelligence and law enforcement agencies use to buy their way aroundconstitutional and statutory protections for Americans’ sensitive information.
In total, more than three quarters of provisions in RISAA come directly from HPSCI ’s
legislation, and less than a quarter from Judiciary’s, even though the Judiciary Committee has
primary jurisdiction. Provisions taken from HPSCI’s legislation include:● Special privacy protections exclusively for members of Congress;● A sham “reform” of U.S. person queries that would have prevented the FBI fromaccessing Americans’ communications in only two instances in 2022, a year in which theFBI conducted 204,090 backdoor searches, and which would not cover any of the mostegregious known misuses of backdoor searches;● Codifications of existing procedures that have already proven unable to prevent
thousands of non-compliant searches each year, including wrongful queries on a U.S.
Senator, a state senator, and a state court judge who contacted the FBI to report civilrights violations by a local police chief; and● Provisions that would actually weaken accountability and oversight by the FISA Court
amici, whose ability to raise civil liberties issues would be limited.
And although some of RISAA’s other measures might improve FISA Title I and Title III
applications, these provisions are unrelated to the warrantless surveillance Section 702
authorizes, and in almost every instance are weaker than the parallel provisions in the Judiciary
Committee’s legislation, which was reported out of committee on a 35-2 vote.
As you are aware, the reforms proposed by the Judiciary Committee enjoy overwhelming
bipartisan support — not just in Congress, but also among the American people. Recent pollingby YouGov demonstrates that 76% of Americans support a warrant requirement for backdoor
searches and 80% support requiring agencies to get a warrant before purchasing sensitive
information about people in the United States from data brokers. Even more Americans supportrobust Congressional debate over new privacy protections.1 This level of support for surveillance
reforms is unsurprising given the repeated abuses of Section 702 and other under-regulated
surveillance authorities by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Intelligence agents have
performed tens of thousands of baseless backdoor searches of the Section 702 databases,including searches for:
● 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign;● Members of Congress;● A local political party;● Tens of thousands of people involved in “civil unrest” over a one-year period; and● The communications of protesters from across the ideological spectrum.
By hewing closely to HPSCI’s legislation, RISAA is carefully crafted to preserve the status quo,
not to enact the serious privacy protections for which most Americans and members of Congressare calling. We therefore urge you to oppose Floor consideration of any legislation, including
RISAA, that would reauthorize Section 702 without providing votes on key amendments,
including those to close the backdoor search and data broker loopholes.

1

https://demandprogresseducationfund.org/new-polling-as-mass-surveillance-debate-reaches-finalstages-in-congress-americans-demonstrate-overwhelming-support-for-increased-privacy-protections/Sincerely,Access Now
ACLU
Advocacy For Principled Action In Government
Americans for Prosperity
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
Center for Democracy & Technology
Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA)
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Color Of Change
Defending Rights & Dissent
Demand Progress
Digital First Project
Due Process InstituteElectronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)Fight for the FutureFree Press ActionFreedomWorks
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Government Information Watch
Muslim Advocates
Muslims for Just Futures (MJF)
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
New America's Open Technology Institute
Organization for Identity & Cultural Development (OICD.net)
Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability
Project On Government Oversight
Restore the Fourth
S.T.O.P. - The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project
Stop AAPI Hate
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