The fight over how to reform a key surveillance authority will continue for at least 43 days, after Congress opted Thursday for a short-term extension while it sorts out a host of concerns from lawmakers.
“If we’re going to get a chance to have a debate about reform, we can’t do that overnight,” Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NOTUS of the short-term extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the U.S. to spy on the communications of foreign threats abroad.
The House passed a longer-term FISA reauthorization bill with bipartisan support Wednesday. But lawmakers in all corners of the Capitol have issues with that bill, including whether it adequately protects U.S. citizens’ data from being swept up in federal agents’ searches for foreign threats.