Demand Progress

Washington, D.C. — On Thursday, the House failed to pass legislation that would have extended Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with no privacy protections until July 2. Yesterday, anti-privacy senators also objected to a deal that would have renewed FISA in exchange for adding popular, bipartisan warrant requirements. These failures mean that Congress likely won’t be able to renew the spying authority before it expires on Friday. Notably, in March, the FISA Court extended current 702 surveillance into 2027. 

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Hajar Hammado:

“Speaker Johnson keeps trying and failing to to jam through a no-reform FISA reauthorization, expecting different results—this time without even getting a simple majority of the House. If Johnson wants a FISA deal, all he has to do is allow amendment votes on privacy reforms. Adding warrant requirements to FISA is a path forward that has clear, bipartisan support. The only reason we’re up against the deadline now is that congressional leaders and the White House keep ignoring this obvious reality and obstructing privacy reforms from getting a fair vote.”

A robust set of resources on the need for privacy reforms for FISA are available here and here, and additional background, context, polling, reform demands, resources and other information is available here. A video on Pulte from Jessica Craven can be found here and a sample of the ways FISA has been used to wrongfully target protesters, journalists, politicians and others is available here.