In a scramble to avoid a lapse in one of the U.S. intelligence community’s most powerful tools, Congress on Thursday approved a six-week extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s warrantless surveillance program. The short-term measure, which the House sent to President Donald Trump’s desk after the Senate cleared it earlier in the day, keeps the so-called Section 702 authority in place until June 12 while lawmakers work to bridge sharp differences over privacy safeguards and the inclusion of a cryptocurrency ban in a longer-term bill.
The vote, 261 to 111 in the House with many Democrats joining the Republican majority, reflected deep unease on both sides of the aisle with the program’s current structure. Under Section 702, the CIA, National Security Agency and FBI may collect communications from foreign targets without a warrant — but critics warn that the program routinely scoops up Americans’ messages and emails, a practice they say violates Fourth Amendment protections. “A short term infringement of the Constitution is still an infringement of the Constitution,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said on the House floor. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said he would not oppose the extension only because it would give lawmakers time “to work together across the aisle to implement meaningful reforms.”
The Senate leadership’s immediate hurdle is not the warrant debate but a House-passed three-year renewal that arrived carrying a ban on central bank digital currencies. House GOP leaders added that provision to flip Republican holdouts and clear a procedural blockage, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) made clear the add-on would not fly. “I told Speaker Johnson that what they sent us, we weren’t going to be able to process over here,” Thune said. He expressed hope that the extension to June 12 would create room for a deal: “We’ll get to work in earnest and try to find something you actually are able to do a long term extension of the authorization with.”
Thursday’s stopgap is the second short-term extension this month. Earlier in April, lawmakers approved a patch that expired on April 30 after a chaotic late-night session, leaving the program in limbo once again as the May 1 deadline approached. Intelligence officials have for weeks pressed Congress for a multi-year renewal, arguing that any interruption would degrade the country’s ability to track foreign threats. President Trump has also urged lawmakers to reauthorize the provision without delay.