The House is expected to vote as soon as Wednesday afternoon on a measure to reauthorize a powerful surveillance tool for three years — a day before its statutory authority is set to expire — after Republican leadership muscled through a resolution that set the guidelines for floor debate. Congressional leaders are scrambling to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act before its statutory authority expires Thursday, with House Republican leaders hoping to overcome deep-seated concerns from privacy advocates in their own party. Securing enough GOP support for the rule, which outlined the guidelines for floor debate, was a major step forward in Speaker Mike Johnson’s push to renew Section 702. But the reauthorization measure still faces an uncertain path forward, in both the House and the Senate. In the House, it remains unclear whether conservative privacy advocates will vote for a three-year reauthorization proposal that does not include a warrant requirement for certain searches, a long-time sticking point for Section 702 critics. “With FISA, it’s not everything that I want,” Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said in an interview Wednesday. “I cannot guarantee I will be a yes on FISA, because I don’t have a very solid warrant requirement there.” She signaled that the House proposal is better than renewing Section 702 with no changes, something the Senate could send over to the House. Republican privacy hawks have long demanded the establishment of a warrant requirement for when FBI officials want to search for American information swept up in the program. But House GOP leadership has not budged on the issue, repeatedly declining to include such a provision in reauthorization proposals. Instead, in an apparent bid to flip privacy-minded GOP holdouts, House Republican leadership attached anti-central bank digital currency legislation and other oversight changes to text that would reauthorize the spy authority for three years. That text would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, a bill fueled by privacy concerns associated with the technology. That language passed the House last year as its own bill. But the Senate has not taken action on the legislation, and there are reports that language could face stiff opposition in that chamber, if it were to arrive at all. The Senate would have to pass a Section 702 renewal before it could head to the president’s desk. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in an interview that the House should not “gum” up a Section 702 reauthorization measure with other legislation. The Trump administration has previously pushed for a reauthorization with no changes, also known as a clean reauthorization. Section 702 allows the U.S. government to collect digital communications of foreigners located outside the country. But the program 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 intelligence community in the past has fiercely opposed a warrant requirement. GOP privacy advocates have shown a willingness to buck the Trump administration and House leadership on the issue. Earlier this month, in a stunning setback for Johnson, Republican privacy hawks banded together with Democrats to torpedo reauthorization proposals that did not include a warrant requirement for searches associated with American information. Savannah Behrmann contributed to this report.
