The Senate passed a short-term extension of the surveillance court bill on Friday as Republican House lawmakers remained firm on their demands for warrants and safeguards against abuses.
The brief extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) Section 702, which runs until April 30, passed the Senate by unanimous voice vote, according to Axios. The move came hours after the House also agreed to the extension by unanimous consent Friday morning after House GOP hardliners sank a clean five-year FISA extension overnight.
“We were very close tonight,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the bill failed, according to The Hill. “There’s some nuances with the language and some questions that need to be answered, and we’ll get it done. The extension allows us the time to do that.”
Section 702, which has been the centerpiece of negotiations over FISA, allows intelligence agencies to collect and share any foreign communications that could be a risk to national security, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Because data can be collected without a warrant, Americans’ communication can also be monitored under the provision, the Brennan Center for Justice notes.
Republican holdouts reportedly were able to secure language about warrants in a new version of the bill, though it only codified existing law, according to Politico. Leaders repeatedly delayed votes on the bill as GOP hardliners dug in, demanding a provision to require warrants to secure data and prevent data brokers from selling info to the government.
Other members of Congress were concerned about the use of artificial intelligence in data collection if the extension did not include guardrails.
President Donald Trump pushed Congress for a clean extension of the provision on Wednesday, saying he would willingly surrender his rights and privileges in favor of it. The president also reportedly met with holdouts the day before, including members from the House Freedom Caucus, according to Politico.
“I am willing to risk the giving up of my Rights and Privileges as a Citizen for our Great Military and Country! Our Military Patriots desperately need FISA 702, and it is one of the reasons we have had such tremendous SUCCESS on the battlefield,” Trump wrote at the time.
The FBI invoked the section to conduct more than 200,000 warrantless searches of Americans’ information in 2022 alone, an April 2023 Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) report indicated.
The president’s 2016 campaign previously saw abuses of FISA warrants, using a now-discredited dossier, to monitor communications between campaign members. The FBI also reportedly abused the tool to spy on Americans in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
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