amid the unrest on college campuses the US house yesterday passed a bill to Define anti-Semitism for the Federal Department of Education by adopting the controversial International Holocaust remembrance alliance's definition the vote was 320 to 91 with heavy support from Democrats to codify the definition into Title 9 so that colleges and universities can enforce federal anti-discrimination laws and in effect address reports of rising anti-semitism at College demonstrations Washington DC correspondent Ben hulac joins me with more details on the bill and a piece he's written about a reauthorized surveillance law giving the government more access to personal data Ben good to see you as always I want to start first with what the alliance uses as a definition uh and what came up on the floor about why that's so controversial I broadly expanded the definition of anti-semitism to include criticism of the state of Israel as a nation and the controversy here stems from the likelihood that this could and will squelch debate and free speech on places like college campuses um some house Democrats one in particular stuck out to me Jerry Nadler of New York who is also Jewish said criticism alone of Israel and I'm roughly paraphrasing that does not amount to discrimination that is not anti-semitism so it's a fine line between uh what is hate speech and what is free speech and that's really the core of the controversy here and yet a lot of Democrats supported this bill how did New Jersey delegation vote everyone well of course Donald Payne has died but everyone uh say for Andie Kim and Bonnie Watson Coleman voted for the bill and uh actually walked just past Bonnie Watson Coleman's office recently about half an hour ago she's a poster outside that says um I oppose anti-Semitism and islamophobia and that's that's really the core here it's possible to do both and that's really what him and and she uh have have couched their votes on what about in the Senate does it stand a chance there the Senate has a lot to do this was really not on the docket uh it probably from this perspective at this point it probably doesn't stand much of a chance it's it's really a messaging bill in a lot of ways this is a way to uh show the country at a time when college campuses have been royed by demonstrations that the house is doing something that Congress is doing something but of course Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called for Israel and citizens of Israel to vote out the Prime Minister there Benjamin Netanyahu o over his uh the ongoing war in Gaza on Gaza so theoretically yes it could it could become law but there are a lot of things to do there's a budget that needs to be passed yeah uh FAA needs to be reauthorized there's a farm bill this was not a high on the agenda yeah uh okay well then let me switch gears to something that did get done uh which was reauthorizing the foreign intelligence surveillance act what's different now about this because there was a lot of talk it's reminiscent of the 911 era uh what's different in this act right this is sort of generation uh there a few Generations removed from Patriot Act which was really a foundation for fisa um and in particular section 702 which is a program that allows us intelligence agencies to collect data on foreign Nationals now what's new here is that Congress has expanded and the president signed into law a broad expansion that allows uh these intelligence agencies to has a broader net it used to be before this became law that if the FBI say wanted information on a Us official a US individual who'd been communicating with a foreign National they would they would go to someone like Verizon or Google to demand those companies turn over their data on this person now potentially anyone who any company that is really connected to a a Wi-Fi router could be subject to the government coming and knocking on its door and saying hey we'd like uh this this digital information on person X I'm a Starbucks a coffee shop some type of business that's enabling me to get free public Wi-Fi they could be asked to hand over their data and have access to this information correct correct now the caveat here there are some um entities that were exempt like hospitals I believe were exempt but it's there's sort of a a triangulation going on so you still have to be communicating with a foreign individual to have your data potentially searched but that's really the nature of the internet of Modern Life we are on WhatsApp uh emailing calling abroad um this it is essentially a broader fishing net a broader uh approach to Gathering us intelligence um that again is connected to foreign data but data is data is ubiquitous but but also this this idea of having a warrantless surveillance program which as I understand it and as you reported was a sticking point for the folks uh who didn't vote for it correct so Frank bone uh in particular voted against it along with Jeff Andrew Chris Smith both Republicans Bonnie Watson Coleman uh Democrat and both New Jersey Senators voted against it the core demand from from all of these members is a warrant they would like to see a warrant for the government to force the government to obtain a warrant when it wants to look at the data the private digital lives of American citizens that has been a a rising issue for I would say a decade plus and there's a lot of agreement there from the leftwing of the democratic party and the rightwing and a lot of push from privacy groups civil liberties groups folks like the ACLU who want uh who view this current program as a violation of constitutional rights against illegal searches that's the core issue all right Washington correspondent Ben hulac for us you can check out his full piece on our website njs spotlightnew dorg thanks Ben happy to talk