House approves short-term extension of key surveillance law after dealing GOP leadership pair of floor defeats
By Ellis Kim, CNN
(CNN) — The House agreed early Friday morning on a short-term extension of a critical foreign surveillance program after dealing Republican leadership a pair of embarrassing floor defeats on a longer-term reauthorization.
The measure to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act through April 30 now goes to the Senate for passage. The program is set to expire in three days.
Republican leaders believed Thursday night that they had struck a deal with conservative holdouts who harbor deep and longstanding concerns that Section 702 infringes on Americans’ privacy rights. The deal would have extended the nation’s spy powers for five years but with some changes to the program.
The House rejected the substance of the deal during an early Friday morning vote – then later blocked a procedural vote to advance an 18-month, clean extension of the program.
The Trump administration had all week thrown its support behind a clean extension, with President Donald Trump repeatedly imploring Republicans on social media this week to back an 18-month reauthorization. GOP leaders and the White House were also engaged in lengthy talks with conservative holdouts.
But those negotiations were not enough to win over some of the GOP’s privacy hawks. The deal leadership negotiated with holdouts failed on the floor, and 20 Republicans later helped block the 18-month clean reauthorization from advancing.
While leaving the House chamber on Friday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that the 10-day extension gives lawmakers more time to hammer out their differences.
“We were very close tonight,” Johnson said. “There’s some nuances with language and some questions that need to be answered, and we’ll get it done. The extension allows us the time to do that.”
The speaker called FISA a “critical national security tool” and told reporters, “What we’re trying to do is thread the needle of ensuring that we have this essential tool to keep Americans safe, but also safeguard our constitutional rights and making sure that the abuses of FISA in the past are no longer possible.”
“There are many different opinions on how to do it and it’s very difficult to make it perfect, but we’ll get it done,” Johnson said.
CNN previously reported, citing current and former officials, that with just days to go before the lapse, US national security officials have scrambled to prepare for potential blind spots in intelligence collection amid the US’ delicate ceasefire with Iran.
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