President Donald Trump has signed off on a short-term extension of a controversial legal provision that allows the government to surveil Americans’ digital data without a warrant.
After the House and Senate cleared a 10-day extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Trump signed the measure on Saturday, just two days before the provision was set to lapse on Monday.
Section 702 is a 9/11-era U.S. law that authorizes the government collection of foreign intelligence by targeting non-U.S. persons abroad, including by requiring U.S. companies to provide certain communications tied to suspected terrorists.
While the extension will prevent a lapse in the provision until April 30, a longer-term extension of Section 702 in its current form may prove more difficult. Despite Trump’s calls for an extended renewal of the law, a bloc of Republicans and Democrats has pushed back against the law, arguing that it should include additional safeguards to protect Americans’ data.
As it is currently written, the law explicitly prohibits the targeting of Americans under Section 702. However, the FBI conducted up to 3.4 million warrantless searches of Section 702-related communications, according to an Office of the Director of National Intelligence report.
Republicans and Democrats have said that a renewal of the law must include additional safeguards to prevent those warrantless searches. A recent bipartisan effort from Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would require the government to obtain a Title I FISA order or warrant before accessing the content of Americans’ communications, and expand the role of the FISA Court amici while adding internal review requirements to restrict agencies’ ability to buy Americans’ data from brokers.
That effort aligned with requests from more than two dozen privacy and civil liberty organizations that called for tighter privacy protections. The Center for Democracy and Technology, a member of the two dozen organizations, later endorsed Lee and Durbin’s proposal.
Trump, however, has encouraged Republicans to vote for a longer-term extension of Section 702 without reforms. In a Truth Social post last week, Trump wrote that he is “asking Republicans to UNIFY, and vote together on the test vote to bring a clean Bill to the floor.”
“I am willing to risk the giving up of my Rights and Privileges as a Citizen for our Great Military and Country!” he added.
Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., attempted to advance a proposal to extend Section 702 with minimal reforms for five years but was shut down by a bloc of Republicans. GOP leaders later attempted to move forward an 18-month extension that Trump has supported, but 20 Republicans rejected the second proposal.
It is unclear what will happen to the provision next, and whether an extension that doesn’t meet the Republicans’ demands will pass.
In a statement made April 16, members of the Congressional Black Caucus led by Rep., Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said that, “Any reauthorization must include requiring law enforcement to obtain judicial warrants before accessing Americans’ data, closing the ‘data broker loophole,’ banning warrantless backdoor searches of Americans’ private communications, and repealing the ‘visa vetting provision,’ which could be used to target immigrant communities.”
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, introduced a Section 702 amendment of his own last week to prevent data brokers from selling information to the government – similar to the protections introduced by Lee and Durbin.
“Passing a clean Section 702 reauthorization without any reforms to protect the Fourth Amendment right to privacy would be a major disservice to the American people,” Davidson said in a statement. “We live in a digital age, and cell phones are now extensions of our homes; they store our personal conversations, location data, banking information, and health records.”
“Our personal devices deserve the same constitutional protections as our homes,” he added.