US Politics Live – Latest Updates
A contentious law granting the US government broad warrantless surveillance powers is set to expire next week, sparking intense debate within the White House and Congress. A scheduled vote on its renewal was canceled on the day it was planned.
A coalition of progressive Democrats and far-right Republicans is advocating for reform of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), while strong bipartisan opposition supports an 18-month renewal without changes, aligning with former President Donald Trump’s position. House GOP leaders advanced a clean extension of Section 702 on Wednesday after the chamber’s rules committee approved the measure Tuesday night. Although Republican leadership intended to bring the measure to the floor Wednesday, the vote was canceled amid dissent from privacy advocates within the party. Legislative action on the bill may still occur later as Republicans address internal disagreements.
On Wednesday, President Trump stated he is
“working very hard”with House Republican leadership to secure a clean extension of Section 702 this week.
“I am asking Republicans to UNIFY,”he wrote in a social media post. Trump described the law as an
“effective tool to keep Americans safe”and emphasized its
“extreme importance to our military,”particularly during the ongoing war in Iran. This marks a significant shift from his 2021 call to
“end Section 702”after accusing the FBI of abusing the law to surveil his 2016 campaign. The CIA has credited Section 702 with aiding in hostage rescues overseas and preventing a terror attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.
Section 702 Overview
Enacted in 2008, Section 702 authorizes national security agencies to collect and review communications such as texts and emails sent to and from foreigners outside the United States without a warrant. Communications involving Americans who correspond with foreign targets abroad may also be incidentally collected. The law includes a sunset provision requiring periodic reauthorization; the current deadline is April 20.
Hannah James, counsel in the Brennan Center’s liberty and national security program, explains,
“It’s intended to facilitate the surveillance of foreigners outside the U.S., but the government also uses it as a tool to spy on Americans without a warrant.”Intelligence agencies argue that imposing a warrant requirement would be impractical because some queries would not meet the legal standard, and for those that do, the process could be too slow.
Surveillance under Section 702 can continue through March 2027 even if Congress does not extend the law by then, as it operates through yearlong certifications approved by a special federal court overseeing intelligence agencies’ activities. The New York Times reported that the FISA court renewed its approval of the program for another year.
Shifting Political Winds
Congress last reauthorized Section 702 in 2024 via the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), which extended the program by two years with some modifications, including limits and mandatory audits for queries involving US citizens. Two years ago, a bipartisan amendment proposing a warrant requirement for Americans’ communications incidentally collected under FISA failed after a dramatic vote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson delayed this year’s reauthorization vote to mid-April following concerns raised by Republicans about warrantless surveillance. Several Republicans plan to oppose a procedural vote on Wednesday to advance the bill.
Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert, among several Republican holdouts, stated,
“I will not vote to extend Section 702 without reforms.”Johnson has indicated he is unwilling to accept amendments, asserting that
“adding amendments jeopardizes its passage. And it’s far too important.”
Johnson previously claimed that reforms adopted two years ago
“strengthened the law.”Privacy advocates disagree, describing these changes as
“insufficient”and warning that abuses will persist without a warrant requirement.
Critics highlight repeated violations of internal rules governing searches. The Department of Justice reported that the FBI conducted approximately 1,500 queries about Americans last year. Privacy advocates note this is a significant reduction from prior years but argue that the FBI’s use of a filtering tool has resulted in many searches not being counted. The FBI is required to track all US person queries.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) found in 2022 that compliance issues with the FBI’s querying procedures under Section 702 have been
“persistent and widespread.”FBI agents have used Section 702 to search communications of protesters, members of Congress, a state court judge, journalists, and political commentators.
Republicans remain divided. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, voted against extending Section 702 two years ago and wrote in a letter last April that without a warrant requirement,
“the government’s surveillance power will always be subject to abuse.”However, last month he, like Trump, supported a clean extension.
Some Democrats appear to be moving in the opposite direction. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the same committee, voted to renew the law in 2024 and opposed the warrant amendment then but now opposes renewal without reform. Raskin wrote in a letter to colleagues that he believes
“the safeguards put in place in 2024 have been badly eroded by the Trump Administration.”He added,
“These reforms relied on internal watchdogs to keep the intelligence agencies in line and on the Administration to accurately report its own abuses to Congress and the courts.”
Last year, Trump appointed members to the board of an independent agency tasked with ensuring federal counterterrorism and national security programs have appropriate privacy and civil liberties safeguards. Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the security and surveillance project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said,
“The canaries in the coal mine are dead.”
Fears of Mass Surveillance
The impending renewal of Section 702 coincides with the Trump administration expanding its surveillance capabilities. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the agency resumed purchasing sensitive location data, enabling the government to bypass warrant requirements to identify individuals and track their movements.
Travis LeBlanc, one of three Democrats dismissed from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, expressed concern that data collected on Americans through Section 702 may
“be shared more broadly across the government than we may know”and used for purposes unrelated to terrorism or national security. He worries about the administration’s broad definition of terrorism and its use of data to
“target protesters and deport immigrants.”
Privacy advocates emphasize the need for a warrant requirement. India McKinney, director of federal affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated,
“We are saying: do the hard and responsible thing and come to the table to put in real protections for Americans. That sort of thing requires debate and compromise.”She added,
“By just doing a straight up clean extension, you’re abdicating your responsibility to the people that you are elected to represent.”McKinney noted that the warrant amendment’s tie vote two years ago indicates
“there is clearly the political will to work on this,”but leadership is lacking.
Physics professor Xi, from Temple University, only discovered he was surveilled under a FISA order after being handcuffed. The Department of Justice accused Xi, an American citizen, in 2015 of wire fraud and sharing sensitive technology with Chinese scientists. Charges were dropped four months later. Xi remarked,
“This is not a joke. It’s not a game. They turned the lives of my family upside down.”
He added,
“If you ask me, there’s no such thing as privacy. If the government wants to know anything, they will know it. But if they want to surveil an American citizen, they should at least get a warrant.”
