Senate advances spy bill with privacy protections

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to reinstate a set of expired FBI tools used to investigate terrorism and espionage that lapsed this spring, adopting modest new privacy protections for Americans swept up in national security cases.

The lopsided vote, 8016, mostly brings to an end a debate in Congress over the nation’s surveillance laws that has been shaped by Republican indignation over disclosures of mistakes by the FBI in applications to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, during the early stages of the Russia investigation.

Despite reservations, President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill when it reaches his desk. But first, it will have to go back to the House, where lawmakers drafted a bipartisan compromise package in March and must now sign off on additional changes made by senators to limit the government’s powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

A House leadership aide said the chamber would not vote on the matter Friday, when lawmakers will briefly return to session to consider coronavirus-related legislation.

Like their House counterparts, civil libertarians on the left and the right in the Senate complained that the bill did not go far enough in protecting the rights of Americans.

The Senate first tried to pass the package in March, but with the pandemic limiting its activities and several senators demanding a full debate, its leaders were forced to delay.

Three key FBI tools expired for use in new investigations in the meantime, although the operational effect was limited because the tools remained available for new use in pre-existing matters.

Thursday’s vote would fully reinstate them. They include allowing the FBI to get a court order to obtain business records related to national security investigations and two rarely used special wiretapping authorities, including the ability to swiftly follow a suspect who frequently changes phone lines in an attempt to evade monitoring.

The Senate also backed the House’s decision to end legal authority for an expensive, dysfunctional and already defunct National Security Agency system that had allowed counterterrorism analysts to swiftly gain access to logs of Americans’ phone calls.