WASHINGTON, D.C. — A last-minute political grenade thrown by President Donald Trump has thrown the future of a critical U.S. surveillance law into doubt, according to reporting by POLITICO. Trump’s decision to name Bill Pulte, who has no national security background, as acting director of national intelligence has collapsed bipartisan support in Congress for a long-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire June 12.
Section 702 allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect communications data on foreign targets overseas. The program has been operating on a temporary patch since April while lawmakers worked toward a more permanent fix.
That fix appeared to be within reach, POLITICO reported. A bipartisan group of senators was closing in on a three-year extension that included new oversight and transparency requirements. Then the Pulte appointment blew it up. Democrats, already wary of warrantless surveillance sweeping up American citizens, pulled their support. A procedural vote early Friday failed, with nearly every Senate Democrat joining a small number of Republicans in opposition.
“I don’t think he thinks about the impact on us and the timing,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters, according to POLITICO. “Which is unfortunate because it really has had an impact. Quite honestly, I’m worried about what we’re going to do on FISA.”
Section 702
Section 702 was enacted by Congress in July 2008 as part of the FISA Amendments Act in response to the Bush administration’s warrantless Terrorist Surveillance Program and post-9/11 demands for broader counterterrorism authorities. It broadened the original 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by allowing the government to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance targeting non-U.S. persons abroad without individualized court orders for each target, while still operating under a specialized oversight framework.
Over time, courts and oversight bodies have upheld Section 702’s constitutionality, even as debates continue about incidental collection of Americans’ communications and subsequent queries of that data.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 updated the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to establish procedures for authorizing the collection of certain types of foreign intelligence information. It allows the attorney general and director of national intelligence to approve surveillance targeting non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States, while using that authority as a legal basis for programs such as PRISM disclosed in 2013.
(PRISM is the code name for a National Security Agency program that collects stored internet communications from major U.S. technology companies under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The program compels companies such as Google and Apple to turn over data when the government targets specific selectors, like email addresses, for foreign intelligence purposes.)
