GOP gambles with vote on controversial surveillance bill

House Republicans on Thursday will try to reauthorize a key but controversial counterterrorism tool, despite a split among lawmakers that could end up sinking the bill.

Dozens of members are expected to vote for a bill-gutting amendment to underlying legislation reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows intelligence officials to spy on communications of non-citizens outside of the U.S.

The amendment, sponsored by Reps. Justin Amash, R-Mich. and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., is named the USA Rights Act, and it would strictly limit the way intelligence officials can collect communications involving Americans, going far beyond the moderate limitations to the program included in the underlying bill.

For example, Amash's plan would end “abouts” collections, which go beyond searches based on the sender fields in emails and allow searches of the contents of messages. It would also stop so-called reverse targeting of Americans who are caught up in the surveillance of foreign communications, and bolster requirements for search warrants.

Passage of the amendment would essentially kill the underlying bill, which reauthorizes the spy tool with more moderate changes written by the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. Procedurally, passing Amash's language would morph the bill into a version he and his supporters like, at which point GOP leaders would probably yank the bill from the floor, or if it somehow passed, the Senate would be unlikely to take it up in that form.