Far-right Republicans in the House, including many members of the Freedom Caucus, revealed the price of their support for a controversial surveillance law this week: a ban on the unrelated and hypothetical possibility that the U.S. government might one day issue digital currency.
Twenty Republicans who opposed a procedural vote earlier this month flipped their position on Wednesday to allow a vote on a three-year extension of the law that allows government agents to search Americans’ communications without a warrant.
Not all the Republicans voted for the final version of the bill, which passed 235–191, but they were crucial in giving Johnson a hand on an initial procedural vote.
[
Related
Meet the Four Democrats Who’ll Decide If Trump Gets His Domestic Spying Law](https://theintercept.com/2026/04/27/four-democrats-fisa-domestic-spying-trump/)
The final bill drew the support of dozens of Democrats, who backed it despite the polarizing central bank digital currency ban. One of the most prominent backers was Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who gave a floor speech in support.
“We are spending some time now talking to those who want a bill that shows you can have both security and liberty.”
Now that it includes a digital currency ban, however, the House version of the law faces dim prospects in the Senate. The upshot of Johnson’s maneuvering may be that the Senate has the final say on surveillance reforms.
Longtime privacy champion Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told The Intercept that the versions of reauthorization on the table — one a three-year “clean” extension offered by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and the other the House version with the digital currency ban — were both “deeply flawed and unacceptable.”
Instead, he is pitching colleagues on requiring a warrant before government agents can search through foreign surveillance databases for the communications of Americans.
“We are spending some time now talking to those who want a bill that shows you can have both security and liberty,” Wyden said, “and they are not mutually exclusive.”
Extending Deadline
The high-stakes deliberations are happening against the backdrop of a looming deadline to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which underpins much of the National Security Agency’s global surveillance apparatus.
The law authorizes much of the most valuable surveillance populating intelligence agency reports. It has also been abused hundreds of thousands of times by officials at the FBI to scour through Americans’ communications.
[
Related
FBI’s Warrantless Search Ruled Unconstitutional in a Blow to Government Spying](https://theintercept.com/2025/01/27/fbi-government-spying-surveillance-702-fisa/)
Johnson tried and failed to secure an extension of the law with minor tweaks earlier this month. Conservatives joined Democrats in opposing that push, and Congress ultimately wound up passing a short-term extension of the law that expires Friday.
The deadline is manufactured, many reformers say. A secretive intelligence court has already granted the government yearlong orders allowing it to continue scooping up information from private providers.
The Senate was set to hold its own vote on the surveillance bill Tuesday but wound up postponing it. In a floor speech, Wyden chalked the delay up to skepticism from senators about the bill in its current form. He called for discussions about reforms.
The nature of those negotiations remained up in the air Wednesday. Some senators said it was possible that Congress would pass another short-term extension of the law.
On Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats, told The Intercept, “The last thing I heard is that there was going to be another extension to give us more time to figure it out and get the House to decide what they want to do.”
“Dead On Arrival” in Senate
Wyden and other reformers have long pushed for a warrant requirement before government agents can search NSA databases for information on Americans. They say the need for reform is only more urgent now that artificial intelligence has made combing through those databases easier than ever.
They are pushing back against long-held skepticism from members of Congress who contend that requiring agents to get a court order would be too unwieldy in practice.
[
Related
“Terrorist”: How ICE Weaponized 9/11’s Scarlet Letter](https://theintercept.com/2026/02/06/spencer-ackerman-9-11-terrorists-ice/)
In an email to colleagues, for example, Himes, of the House Intelligence Committee, said that he would vote to reauthorize FISA “because it is essential to keeping our country and our constituents safe from terrorists, cartels, spies, state-sponsored hackers, and other national security threats.”
Himes said on the House floor later that the process leading up to the vote on Wednesday was flawed.
“We are where we are, and it is a binary choice. And allowing this authority to expire, which I think we are close to, is not an option,” he said.
“The reality is we are further along in real reform than we have been since I have been in public service.”
Wyden expressed optimism, citing the bipartisan coalition that has so far stymied President Donald Trump’s demand for a clean extension.
“The reality is, we are further along in real reform than we have been since I have been in public service,” he said.
Whatever version of the law the Senate settles on, it likely will not involve a central bank digital currency ban. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has already described that idea as “dead on arrival.”
“That’s messing around with a very important national security issue,” King said of the ban.
Johnson Saves Face
Still, the ban gave Johnson a crucial boost in securing House passage of his own version of the FISA law. The ban on government-issued digital currency took aim at a boogeyman of the far right that is nowhere close to becoming reality.
[
Related
You Will Never Send Money Digitally Without a Private Company — If the GOP Gets Its Way](https://theintercept.com/2025/11/17/money-transfer-cbdc-digital-currency/)
For years, conservatives have fretted over the idea that the U.S. Federal Reserve could launch a digital currency that could be traded electronically. Currently, there is no way for ordinary Americans to exchange money through electronic means without the help of a private intermediary, such as PayPal or Visa. A central bank digital currency would give people an option to pass money without the for-profit companies involved.
The Federal Reserve never came close to implementing a digital currency under President Joe Biden, however, and one of Trump’s first acts upon taking office was to issue an executive order aimed at banning research into them.
While conservatives have raised concerns that a central bank digital currency could allow the government to surveil Americans’ every transaction, the issue is distinct from the foreign surveillance law that lays out the NSA’s powers.
Before the bill reached the floor, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, unsuccessfully attempted to strip out the central bank digital currency ban during a House Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday.
“Republicans are obsessed with random, fringe issues,” McGovern said, “instead of doing literally anything to bring down the cost of living.”
The post Mike Johnson Used Crypto Catnip to Get Freedom Caucus Support for Domestic Spy Law appeared first on The Intercept.
From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.