About 40 minutes after it ended, the Senate voted to approve the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which serves as a key tool the government uses to gather intelligence on foreign affairs using electronic communications coercion. Service providers.
The upper chamber voted 60-34 to approve the reauthorization. The provision expired less than an hour after midnight on Friday, and unless the renewal is approved immediately, the expiration means companies will not be forced to comply with the government’s requests for surveillance assistance under the bill.
Without re-authorization of the FISA section, the government would have to seek a warrant to compel such assistance, a lengthy process.
The measure now heads to the desk for President Biden’s signature.
“The stakes of such an outcome are serious,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warned his colleagues in floor remarks Friday afternoon before any vote on amendments or the final bill.
“The authorities in question today are, quite literally, the only defense against national security disasters,” he added.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., noted that the program “will not go dark” if it is not revived in time, as others have suggested. Instead, Durbin pointed to recent certifications granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which the Justice Department informed Congress would “generally be in effect for one year, expiring in April 2025.”
However, the DOJ warned Congress in a letter earlier this month not to allow this knowledge to slow down the Section 702 renewal process because companies “may stop or reduce cooperation with the legal process they receive.”
The DOJ said this occurred during a previous surveillance measure failure.
McConnell reiterated this warning on Friday, saying it was “up to the government to play a slow and painstaking game of whack-a-mole in court against an army of the nation’s most sophisticated lawyers.”
“And in the meantime, actionable intelligence will pass us by,” he speculated.
till about 6:00 p.m. On Friday, it seemed unlikely that the Section 702 FISA re-authorization would be voted on until next week, as several senators were reluctant to give up their debate time and asked for votes on their various amendments to the measure.
However, at 8:00 p.m., senators appeared to have reached an agreement on amendment votes and debate time, paving the way for a faster voting process.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., brought the compromise to the floor and announced that several roll call votes would take place. “Throughout the day, we persisted and persevered in the hope of reaching a breakthrough, and I’m glad we made it,” he said, adding that there was “great doubt” it would happen.
“We finally got the Senate to take the votes to fix the serious problems with FISA expansion and the House-passed 702 reauthorization,” wrote Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, X.
Bipartisan coalitions have grown on both sides of Section 702’s renewal, with some arguing the provision is a national security imperative and others sounding the alarm about what they believe violates constitutional protections.
Amendments from Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Roger Marshall, R-Conn., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Lee and Durbin were voted down before the final bill could be considered. “We cannot continue to sacrifice our liberties in the name of security. Instead of limiting FISA’s overreach, RISAA will dramatically expand it,” Paul said before votes on his amendments, which need 60 supporters to pass. “I urge my colleagues to support meaningful reforms that protect both national security and civil liberties.”
Army. Mark Warner, D-Va., spoke against consideration of amendments to the bill, citing the fast-approaching deadline. If any amendments are passed in the Senate, the bill will be sent back to the House, where they will have to approve it once again.
All the amendments failed to garner enough votes for passage and were therefore not added to the bill.
“Letting FISA expire is dangerous,” Schumer said before the vote.