Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is pushing forward with a renewed effort to reauthorize a central U.S. surveillance authority after two previous votes failed. His bill, released Thursday, is largely unchanged from an earlier proposal that was defeated in a series of overnight votes this month.
The measure would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is set to expire on April 30. Section 702 permits U.S. intelligence agencies to collect the electronic communications of foreign nationals located outside the United States. Because some of the roughly 350,000 foreign targets communicate with Americans, calls, texts and emails involving U.S. persons can be incidentally collected and become available for review by federal agencies.
For nearly two decades, privacy-minded lawmakers from both parties have pushed to require court approval before federal law enforcement conducts targeted searches of Americans’ data obtained under the program. The absence of such a warrant requirement helped derail last week’s attempts to approve an 18-month extension and a separate five-year renewal.
Administration officials, as in prior administrations, argue that a warrant mandate would hinder law enforcement and jeopardize national security. Johnson’s latest bill would reauthorize Section 702 for three years but does not add a warrant requirement. Instead, it would require the FBI to provide monthly explanations to an oversight official about reviews of Americans’ information and would create criminal penalties for willful abuse, along with other adjustments.
On Truth Social last week, former President Trump urged keeping the program intact, writing that he would “risk the giving up of my Rights and Privileges as a Citizen for our Great Military and Country.” He said military contacts told him Section 702 is necessary to protect troops overseas and people at home and claimed the program has prevented many attacks.
Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel at the National Security Agency, said Johnson’s tweaks look like an attempt at compromise. “There’s not a lot of really substantive changes to the statute, but some gestures are made to people who are worried about privacy and civil liberties,” Gerstell said. “It seems like a pretty reasonable compromise that is going to be satisfactory to the national security agencies and yet at the same time represents some gesture to the privacy advocates.”
Privacy advocates disagree. Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice wrote on X that the bill is “a straight reauthorization with eight pages of words that serve no serious purpose other than to try to convince members that it’s NOT a straight reauthorization.”
A bipartisan reform deal remains elusive. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told NPR that lawmakers were working toward a bipartisan solution and that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had been in contact with Johnson. Himes said he and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., were negotiating a proposal intended to preserve and reform the program so it could be reauthorized with bipartisan support.
But Johnson’s new bill appears to fall short of that inclusive approach. NPR obtained a memo from Raskin urging colleagues to oppose the measure, saying it “continues the disastrous policy of trusting the FBI to self-police and self-report its abuses of Section 702 and backdoor searches of Americans’ data.” Raskin noted that FBI agents can still collect, search and review Americans’ communications without judicial review.
Current FBI rules require agents to receive annual FISA training and generally bar searches aimed at investigating ordinary criminal activity rather than foreign intelligence; such searches require supervisor or attorney approval. Still, some Republican hardliners who opposed Johnson’s earlier effort are not fully on board with the new plan. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a former Freedom Caucus chair, posted on X that “we’re not there yet,” arguing the intelligence community must be held accountable if it spies on Americans.
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet Monday morning, the first step toward moving Johnson’s renewal bill toward a floor vote.