With the April 30 deadline looming to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), lawmakers are rolling out competing proposals as a bipartisan bloc holds firm against renewal without reforms.
After two failed votes for a longer-term extension of Section 702, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., introduced his own plan on Thursday to extend the provision, which authorizes the collection of certain intelligence by the government.
On the Senate side, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., introduced their bipartisan proposal with substantial reforms last month.
All of those plans aim to make changes – whether big or small – to the 9/11-era U.S. law that authorizes the federal government to collect foreign intelligence by targeting non-U.S. persons abroad, in part obtained through a requirement that U.S. companies provide certain communications tied to suspected terrorists.
Sometimes, U.S. citizens’ private communications gets swept up in that data collection, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a report. Although Congress bans the collection of domestic communications, the FBI ran millions of searches involving Americans’ information, and other intelligence agencies ran thousands more, according to the report.
Earlier this month, Johnson attempted to advance a proposal to extend Section 702 with minimal reforms for five years but was shut down by a bloc of Republicans calling for greater changes to protect Americans’ data. A different 18-month extension that President Donald Trump supported was introduced but similarly was rejected.
Johnson’s new proposal offers few changes from the one he spearheaded just weeks ago, but it has received new approval, notably from Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio. The lawmaker has historically opposed Section 702 extensions that omit more stringent privacy protections.
“Collectively, this set of reforms provides robust privacy protections for American citizens. Congress should bank this win and reauthorize Section 702,” Davidson said in a post to X.
Johnson’s proposal includes monthly reviews of every FBI search involving Americans’ data by a civil liberties officer, new penalties for FBI employees who violate search rules, and more explicitly reinforces that Americans cannot be targeted under Section 702.
Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the center’s security and surveillance project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, called the latest proposal “the same type of empty-calorie proposal that failed last week.”
“There is nothing in this bill that would have prevented the abuses of FISA 702 we’ve already seen – snooping on lawmakers, protesters, and campaign donors – and there is nothing that would stop even worse abuses in the future,” Laperruque said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., introduced their plan Thursday afternoon to protect against warrantless searches from the federal government. Their Surveillance Accountability Act would require warrants for most forms of digital surveillance, closing gaps that have allowed authorities to access data from tech companies, banks, and data brokers without court approval.
It also bans warrantless use of tools such as facial recognition and location tracking, with limited exceptions. The bill further creates a new pathway for Americans to sue federal officials who violate their privacy rights.
“The Bill of Rights is not a suggestion, and Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless searches conducted by the government are not optional,” Massie said in a statement. “Warrantless searches are unconstitutional, and this does not change when the data the government seeks is in digital formats or held by a third party.”
The House Rules Committee will hold a hearing Monday where Johnson’s newest proposal has the potential to advance.
In the meantime, Section 702 is currently operating on a short, 10-day extension signed by President Donald Trump on April 18.