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U.S. Senate leaders have been discussing plans to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) beyond its December 31 deadline by amending legislation set to pass this month.
A senior congressional aide told WIRED that leadership offices and judicial sources have revealed that discussions are underway about how to save the Section 702 program in the short term by attaching an amendment extending it to a bill. Much-needed law to expand federal funding and avoid a government shutdown. within a week.
The program, last expanded in 2018, is set to expire at the end of the year. Without a vote to reauthorize 702, the U.S. government will lose its ability to obtain annual “certifications” that require telecommunications companies to intercept calls, text messages and emails from abroad without receiving court orders or individual subpoenas.
Whether the authority is reauthorized before it expires on January 1 or not, actual surveillance will likely continue until spring, when this year’s certifications expire.
Extending the program by attaching it to another bill that Congress cannot avoid is a risky political maneuver that will cause significant upset among most House lawmakers and several senators who are working to reform the 702 program. A top priority of privacy hawks is to limit federal authorities’ ability to use data 702 collected “incidentally” about Americans. The 702 program collects communications from Internet service providers and the companies that conduct Internet traffic between them, the latter of which is intercepted less frequently but absorbs larger amounts of domestic communications.
An aide to Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he was firmly on the side of reformers and would not support extending 702 through a temporary measure. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did not respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
“The security of the United States and the rights of its citizens demand more than a short-term solution. Congress has had all year to examine and address this crucial policy issue,” says James Czerniawski, senior political analyst at the nonprofit Americans for Prosperity. “A short-term extension ends the critical reforms this program desperately needs to protect Americans’ civil liberties.”
While surveillance of U.S. calls is illegal and unconstitutional without a warrant based on probable cause, the government can collect them for specific national security purposes under procedures created to minimize your future access to them. The US National Security Agency, or NSA, which conducts electronic surveillance for the Pentagon, can only listen to foreigners abroad. However, those foreigners, many of whom are likely government officials and not necessarily criminals or terrorists, frequently exchange calls and emails with people inside the United States, and those calls are also charged.
