Senate votes to extend surveillance law
WASHINGTON
The Senate early Saturday approved an extension of a warrantless surveillance law, moving to renew it shortly after it had expired and sending President Joe Biden legislation that national security officials say is crucial to fighting terrorism but that privacy advocates decry as a threat to Americans’ rights.
The law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, had appeared all but certain to lapse over the weekend, with senators unable for most of Friday to reach a deal on whether to consider changes opposed by national security officials and hawks.
But after hours of negotiation, the Senate abruptly reconvened late Friday for a flurry of votes in which those proposed revisions were rejected, one by one, and early Saturday the bill, which extends Section 702 for two years, won approval, 60-34.
“We have good news for America’s national security,” Sen. Chuck Schumer,
D-N.Y., the majority leader, said as he stood during the late-night session to announce the agreement to complete work on the bill. “Allowing FISA to expire would have been dangerous.”
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland praised the bill’s passage, calling Section 702 “indispensable to the Justice Department’s work to protect the American people from terrorist, nation-state, cyber and other threats.”
Before final passage, the Senate rapidly voted down a series of amendments proposed by privacy-minded lawmakers. Approving any of them would have sent the bill back to the House, allowing the statute to lapse for a more significant period.
“Any amendment added to this bill at this moment is the equivalent of killing the bill,” warned Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the chair of the Intelligence Committee.
While the program has legal authority to continue operating until April 2025 regardless of whether Congress extended the law, the White House sent a statement to senators Friday warning them that a “major provider has indicated it intends to cease collection on Monday” and that another said it was considering stopping collection. The statement did not identify them, and the Justice Department declined to say more.
The statement also said that the administration was confident that the FISA court would order any such companies to resume complying with the program, but that there could be gaps in collection in the meantime – and if a rash of providers challenged the program, the “situation could turn very bad and dangerous very quickly.” It urged senators to pass the House bill without any amendments before the midnight deadline.
But Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian-minded Kentucky Republican, rejected the rationale and said the Senate should be allowed to debate changes even if it would prompt a brief delay.
“This is an argument that has been forced upon us by the supporters of FISA who want no debate and they want no restrictions,” he said. “They want no warrants, and they want nothing to protect the Americans.”
In the end, the bill received the 60th vote it needed to pass just before midnight.
But in a twist, after all the urgency, the Senate kept the vote open for more than 40 additional minutes to accommodate Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who finally showed up in the nearly empty chamber and added a “no” vote.
The defeated amendments included a measure that would have required the government to get a warrant before viewing the contents of Americans’ communications swept up in the program. It was defeated, 42-50.
Privacy advocates have long sought some form of warrant requirement, which national security officials oppose, saying it would cripple the program’s effectiveness. A similar amendment in the House had failed just barely this week on a 212212 tie vote.
The Senate also rejected a proposal to eliminate a provision added by the House that expands the type of service providers that can be compelled to participate in the program. The measure is aimed at certain data centers for cloud computing that the FISA court ruled in 2022 fell outside the current definition of which services the statute covers, according to people familiar with the matter.