Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was also credited with helping stop a terrorist attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024.Show Caption
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives failed to renew a key government surveillance and counterterrorism law June 11, virtually guaranteeing the provision will expire for the first time since it was enacted.In a vote that was doomed from the start over Democrats' opposition to President Donald Trump's new acting spy chief, the chamber couldn't pass an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The vote was 198-218, with 19 Republicans crossing the aisle to vote against it and seven Democrats voting for it.For nearly two decades, the statute has authorized U.S. spy agencies to collect the communications of foreigners – and, privacy hawks argue, sometimes Americans. Intelligence authorized by the provision makes up the bulk of the president's daily security briefing, lawmakers say. It has been credited for stopping numerous terrorist attacks, including on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024.The measure's failure virtually guarantees that Section 702 will expire Friday, June 12. Yet FISA surveillance operates under yearlong certifications approved by a special court. That means existing surveillance authorities could continue through March 2027 without further authorization, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said it's an "untested question" exactly how the statute's expiration will impact existing intelligence-gathering. "Unfortunately, a lot of these questions will be litigated in court," he said. "We didn't want to roll those dice, given what's at stake here, which is the lives of Americans."Still, top lawmakers have been sounding the alarm about the lapse. Republican Sens. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a June 5 letter to get ready for a "potential significant gap in foreign-intelligence collection."And Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters this week that the prospect of the law going dark could endanger Americans ahead of major events this summer."We have a lot of big events going on around the country right now. We have the FIFA World Cup, we have the American 250 events, Freedom 250 events," he said. "It would be a very dangerous time to allow us to not have that important national security tool."In recent days, Democrats in both chambers of Congress have said the only way they can get behind a FISA renewal is if Trump fully removes Bill Pulte, his temporary pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.Pulte, a federal housing official, is a Trump loyalist with no background in national security."To arbitrarily throw somebody into this position without any experience, it's a national security threat," Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters June 10. "You're going to give him the keys to 18 intelligence agencies? What could go wrong?"Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.
