The House of Representatives voted this week to extend the controversial FISA Section 702 surveillance program for another 90 days, marking the second such extension this month and prompting privacy advocates to describe the situation as “the legislative equivalent of renewing a gym membership you’re not sure you want but don’t have time to cancel.”
“The program is vital to national security,” said a spokesperson for the House Intelligence Committee, declining to elaborate on which specific threats were being monitored but confirming that it was “a lot of them” and that they were “very concerning” and that asking follow-up questions was “very much a thing you can do, just not here, not now, possibly not ever.”
Privacy advocates pushed for reforms that would require the government to obtain a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications, a suggestion that intelligence officials described as “well-intentioned but naive,” “logistically complicated,” and, in one unguarded moment during a Senate subcommittee hearing, “honestly kind of annoying.”
The Senate’s path forward remains unclear, with lawmakers divided between those who want stronger oversight, those who want fewer restrictions, and a bipartisan bloc who simply want to go home and are willing to vote for almost anything to make that happen.
Section 702 allows the government to collect communications of foreign targets — with Americans’ communications sometimes swept up in the process, a phenomenon officials call “incidental collection” and civil liberties groups call “the entire point of our objection.” Both descriptions are technically accurate.
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