House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that the House will consider temporarily extending the country’s warrantless surveillance powers, a key national security tool due to expire at the end of the year.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizes the U.S. government to collect data on foreigners outside the United States. The provision was added as an amendment to FISA in 2008 as part of post-Sept. 11, 2001, security upgrades. It is currently set to “sunset” on Dec. 31.
Some Republicans are against extending the program amid a degradation of public trust in the FBI and Justice Department, while others seek to reform and reauthorize it. The extension will come as a provision in the must-pass annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Mr. Turner expressed support for a temporary extension on Wednesday, citing the recent disruption of Congress caused by the ouster of the former House speaker and the process of replacing him, which was described as chaotic.
“Well, obviously, the House has been in chaos, and our legislative business has been disrupted. So, I think it’s an appropriate extension to give the House the ability to address 702. By extending it, we avoid the calamity of disruption,” Mr. Turner told reporters on Wednesday.
However, the compromise must still be incorporated into the bill’s text and secure approval in both the Senate and the House, expected to happen before lawmakers leave Washington for the New Year.
Critics have raised concerns about the potential abuse of the system by federal agencies to spy on Americans without a warrant or evidence of a crime. Despite this, proponents argue that the program is vital for countering threats from the Chinese Communist Party, Russia, terrorist organizations like ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hamas, and international drug cartels such as MS-13.
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, have advocated for a temporary extension, emphasizing the urgency of addressing the issue before the year-end break. Mr. Himes suggested that lawmakers could “air-drop the whole reform bill into the NDAA.”
“But what you can’t do is not have a temporary extension,” he told The Hill, adding that not finding a short-term solution would mean Congress wouldn’t do anything about it until after lawmakers break for Christmas and the New Year, “which is the period in which Americans get killed.”
The House Judiciary Committee has its own bill, with Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) indicating a potential vote next week if not superseded by a short-term measure. The Judiciary Committee’s bill includes the requirement of a warrant before federal agencies can query Section 702 data for information on Americans.
House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) opposed the extension, asserting that months of work with national security leaders had already produced effective reforms. He urged swift action from the speaker to resolve the matter.
“We’ve spent months on good reforms. That deal isn’t changing. You’re just prolonging a fight,” he said, reported The Hill.
On March 22, the House Intelligence Committee established a bipartisan working group to assess under what conditions Section 702 should be extended. Simultaneously, pressure to kill the provision is coming from people on both the left and the right who are concerned about a pattern of civil rights violations by federal agencies.
Mr. Turner, however, emphasized that an extension until April would provide lawmakers with the necessary time for a comprehensive legislative debate “on what we want to do and what we don’t want to do,” according to Politico.
Meanwhile, members on the Judiciary panel cleared their bill out of the committee with only two votes against it and with the support of its top Democrat, Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who noted that it had the “overwhelming bipartisan vote” in the markup process. That “says it all,” he added. That said, he has expressed that he doesn’t oppose a temporary measure, according to The Hill.
Critics have argued that Section 702 has been abused to obtain data without warrants, including on American citizens when they engage with foreign targets. The FBI faced accusations in 2020 and 2021 of misusing data obtained via the warrantless spy power granted by Section 702.
Conversely, some lawmakers have argued that requiring warrants would make the program unworkable.
According to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice, since 2006, the National Security Agency has secretly collected “the phone records of millions of Americans” in the United States via FBI requests.
Addressing these issues, Mr. Wray said that he has “ordered a whole host of changes to address unacceptable compliance incidents.”
