Wyoming
Hageman Votes Against Bill To Allow Warrantless Spying On Americans
Wyoming U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman voted Friday against continuing to allow the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct searches of Americans’ information without a warrant.
Hageman voted against a bill reauthorizing a part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) known as Section 702, which national security officials say is critical to fighting terrorism.
Despite her vote, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act still passed 273-147.
When an amendment failed that would have required the FBI to get warrants before surveilling American citizens, Hageman said House Resolution 7888 lost all ability to prevent the federal government from spying on Americans. The amendment died on a 212-212 tie.
“I refuse to support legislation that violates our Constitutional rights,” Hageman said in a Friday press release after the vote.
In a C-SPAN interview Thursday, Hageman said it’s important that Section 702 be reauthorized, as she believes it’s an important tool for American security. But she only wants this done if it comes with necessary reforms to protect American citizens from undue intrusions.
Section 702 allows the government to collect from U.S. companies like AT&T and Google the messages of foreigners who have been targeted for foreign intelligence or counterterrorism without a warrant, even when they are communicating with Americans, which is the source of most of its controversy.
Hageman has constantly criticized some of America’s intelligence agencies for what she sees as an abuse and overreach of their powers to target people these organizations see as political adversaries.
“The reality is that the FBI and other agencies have been abusing Section 702,” she said.
Weaponization
Some of the issues Hageman has publicly addressed include the FBI and DOJ’s pressure campaign on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic, the targeting of certain Catholics, people attending school board meetings, and the charges brought against former President Donald Trump.
This week, Trump implored lawmakers to “kill” FISA, complaining that government officials had used it to spy on him.
The office of the Director for National Intelligence found that in 2021, the FBI conducted 3.3 million queries into U.S. citizens without warrants. By 2022, the FBI was still conducting hundreds of warrantless queries per day. Last May, the Washington Post reported that in 2020 and early 2021, the FBI conducted more than 278,000 searches of the 702 database, which violated DOJ rules and often lacked national security connections.
Some of the searches on Americans have included queries on Black Lives Matter protestors and people suspected of participating in the U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021.
According to The New York Times, national security officials argue removing the ability to surveil Americans without warrants could hinder their program as they typically spy on Americans early on in investigations to learn more about their phone numbers or email accounts in connection with a suspected foreign spy or terrorist before there is enough evidence collected to issue a warrant.
The Times also reports that the FBI has since tightened its system to reduce the risk of queries that violate its own standards, changes the bill will codify into law, as well as adding reporting requirements and limiting the number of officials with access to raw information.
“Hopefully, we can get to the place where we have the necessary reforms to make sure that the FBI and Department of Justice cannot do what it’s been doing over the last several years,” Hageman said.
Specifically, Hageman said she wants a warrant requirement for all surveillance of Americans, an effort also supported by some Democrats like Zoe Lofgren of California.
As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Hageman has already helped bring reforms on this issue such as legislation addressing what she sees as abuses of FISA, while still allowing it to be used to detect international threats.
She said the real hurdle has been finding agreement between this committee, the House Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence, and the overall intelligence community.
Bigger Picture
But Hageman also stressed on C-SPAN that she finds the overall debate about surveillance rights extremely worthy and a valuable piece of a larger conversation about how far the power of intelligence communities can extend in relation to American civil liberties and the U.S. Constitution.
“I land on the side of civil liberties,” she said. “I want to make sure we’re protecting the constitutional rights of American citizens.”
Hageman said Thursday she is confident the issue will be resolved before Section 702 expires.
But even if Section 702 is allowed to expire April 19, Hageman said she’s not concerned, and believes America’s intelligence agencies will still be able to do their jobs despite lacking the guarantee of a future database to conduct warrantless surveillance searches. Last week, the FISA court granted a government request authorizing it for another year through April 2025.
Under the law, surveillance activity can continue as long as there are active court orders allowing it, even if it expires itself.
Some far-right members of Congress like Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, R-Georgia, have called for the removal of House Speaker Mike Johnson over his push to resolve the issue.
In an effort to salvage a compromise, Johnson on Friday put forward a shorter extension proposal for Section 702, from five to two years, a move that appeared to win over many Republicans with the possibility that Trump may be president again at that time.
Hageman said on C-SPAN she still fully supports the speaker and doesn’t find this division significant.
“The fact is Republicans don’t ever walk in lockstep, that’s one of the reasons we’re Republicans,” she said. “We’re very independent-minded and independent thinkers. I think that’s in contrast to a lot of Democrats.”
The bill will next move on to the Senate for consideration.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at Leo@CowboyStateDaily.com.
Wyoming
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Wyoming
Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
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Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
Wyoming
Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers
Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.
The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.
“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”
Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”
Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”
Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.
Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.
Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.
“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”
The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.
Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.
Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.
Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.
“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.
Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”
Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.
For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.
Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.
In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.
“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”
But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.
“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.
While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.
“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”
As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.
“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”
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