WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly missing its deadline, the Senate voted early Saturday to continue a crucial U.S. spying law after debates over whether the FBI should be limited from using the program to search for Americans’ data almost led to the law expiring.
The legislation passed 60-34 with support from both sides and would lengthen the program called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Actfor two more years. It now needs President Joe Biden’s approval to become law. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden “will promptly sign the bill.”
“Just in time, we are renewing FISA right before it ends at midnight,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said as voting on the final approval began 15 minutes before the deadline. “Throughout the day, we kept on trying to reach a breakthrough and eventually, we have succeeded.”
U.S. officials have stated that the surveillance tool, first authorized in 2008 and renewed several times since then, is crucial in disrupting terror attacks, cyber intrusions, and foreign espionage and has also produced intelligence that the U.S. has relied on for specific operations, such as the 2022 killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri.
“If you miss a key piece of intelligence, you may miss some event overseas or put troops in harm’s way,” Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said. “You may miss a plot to harm the country here, domestically, or somewhere else. So in this particular case, there’s real-life implications.”
The proposal would extend the program, which allows the U.S. government to gather foreign intelligence by collecting the communications of non-Americans located outside the country without needing a warrant. The reauthorization faced a long and difficult journey to final approval Friday after months of clashes between privacy advocates and national security hawks pushed consideration of the legislation to the brink of expiration.
Although the spy program was technically set to expire at midnight, the Biden administration had said it expected its authority to collect intelligence to remain operational for at least another year, thanks to an opinion earlier this month from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which receives surveillance applications.
However, officials had said that court approval shouldn’t be a substitute for congressional authorization, especially since communications companies could cease cooperation with the government if the program is allowed to lapse.
Hours before the law was set to expire, U.S. officials were already scrambling after two major U.S. communication providers said they would stop complying with orders through the surveillance program, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.
Attorney General Merrick Garland praised the reauthorization and reiterated how “indispensable” the tool is to the Justice Department.
“This reauthorization of Section 702 gives the United States the authority to continue to collect foreign intelligence information about non-U.S. persons located outside the United States, while at the same time codifying important reforms the Justice Department has adopted to ensure the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” Garland said in a statement Saturday.
However, even though the Biden administration urged and gave classified briefings to senators this week about the important role they say the spy program plays in protecting national security, a group of progressive and conservative lawmakers who were pushing for further changes refused to accept the version of the bill the House sent over last week.
The lawmakers had requested Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to allow votes on amendments to the legislation that would aim to address what they see as civil liberty loopholes in the bill. In the end, Schumer was able to make a deal that would allow critics to receive floor votes on their amendments in exchange for expediting the process for passage.
The six amendments did not ultimately get the necessary support on the floor to be included in the final passage.
One of the major changes opponents had suggested focused on limiting the FBI’s access to information about Americans through the program. While the surveillance tool only targets non-Americans in other countries, it also collects communications of Americans when they are in contact with those targeted foreigners. Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, had been promoting a proposal that would require U.S. officials to get a warrant before accessing American communications.
“If the government wants to spy on my private communications or the private communications of any American, they should be required to get approval from a judge, just as our Founding Fathers intended in writing the Constitution,” Durbin said.
In the past year, U.S. officials have revealed a series of abuses and mistakes by FBI analysts in improperly querying the intelligence repository for information about Americans or others in the U.S., including a member of Congress and participants in the racial justice protests of 2020 and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. member of Congress and participants in the racial justice protests of 2020 and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
But members on both the House and Senate intelligence committees as well as the Justice Department warned requiring a warrant would severely handicap officials from quickly responding to imminent national security threats.
“I think that is a risk that we cannot afford to take with the vast array of challenges our nation faces around the world,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Friday.
