The Senate passed a short-term extension of a key spy authority on Friday, sending to President Donald Trump a patchwork agreement intended to give House lawmakers more time to work out a deal over the privacy protections and other issues. The measure, passed by voice vote in the Senate, would extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act through April 30. Senate passage came hours after the House passed the measure. The program allows the U.S. government to collect digital communications of foreigners located outside the country. But Section 702 is controversial because it also sweeps up the communications of Americans and allows the FBI to search through data without a warrant, using information such as an email address. The statutory authority for the program was set to expire Monday without congressional intervention. The 10-day extension was an off-ramp for Republican House leadership, after initial plans to pass a longer-term "clean" reauthorization imploded on the House floor, with privacy hawks in both parties wanting to see further privacy guardrails in the bill. The short-term patch will ensure the government can continue to take in information from electronic communication service providers, as part of a program that U.S. intelligence agencies say is indispensable to U.S. national security. In particular, those spy agencies argue that the authority protects critical U.S. infrastructure, helps foil terrorist attacks and assists authorities in identifying foreign actors targeting people in the U.S. But the program has been marred by controversy for many years, both because it allows searches through data using an American’s name and phone number, but also because of high-profile cases of past misconduct. Privacy advocates in both parties have for years pushed for a warrant requirement for when FBI officials search for information on Americans swept up in the program. Those efforts have been resisted by national security hawks.
