The Senate reauthorized a controversial FISA spying program on Friday night in the face of days of hardened opposition, casting a flurry of votes in the hours before the law expired.
A bipartisan group of privacy hawks had refused to fast-track the legislation, which renews Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but they agreed to back down after party leadership offered a handful of votes.
Though each of the proposed amendments addressed perceived shortcomings of the law, none were adopted. The Senate passed the bill, which grants the government fresh authority to spy on foreign persons, in a 60-34 vote shortly after the midnight deadline.
The scramble marks a dramatic finish to a bitter saga that for weeks reignited debate over the proper limits of government surveillance. The holdouts, an unorthodox coalition of conservatives and progressives raising civil liberties concerns, could not stop the legislation but threatened to delay its passage until early next week.
The bill, which cleared the House last Friday, now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
Among their demands, the bill’s opponents wanted to force the government to obtain a warrant to search the data of U.S. citizens swept up in foreign surveillance. The renewal also generated controversy over new language that watchdogs warn could drastically expand the types of service providers required to cooperate with surveillance requests.
Votes on these and other amendments were allowed after days of negotiations, with none receiving more than 42 votes.
The standoff, which sharply divided the ranks of leadership – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supported the bill, while his No. 2, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), was opposed – mirrored the drama seen in the House.
Hard-line Republicans, upset about the lack of warrant requirement, tanked a procedural vote last week, forcing Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to shorten the reauthorization to two years, down from five, as a compromise.
The lower chamber subsequently voted on the warrant amendment, but it failed in a tie vote, 212-212.
The White House mounted a full-on offensive to prevent changes to the law. In particular, national security adviser Jake Sullivan dismissed the idea that the language on service providers, known as the Turner amendment, would expand the scope of who could be targeted.
The administration called the provision a “technical fix” meant to address changing technology, while Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) mocked the language as so broadly written that the government could enlist Americans’ cable guy to spy on them.
The secret court that oversees FISA extended the government’s 702 powers for another year earlier this month, so the program will not technically shut down in the coming hours, but the Justice Department had warned against even a temporary lapse, arguing the expiration creates legal ambiguity that could lead companies to refuse to cooperate.
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The bill does include modest reforms aimed at preventing past violations of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights, but privacy hawks regard them as inadequate.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), one of the conservative holdouts, denounced the updated legislation as containing “more problems than a math book” from the Senate floor on Friday. In recent days, he laid into leadership for what he called a contrived attempt to jam them with a last-minute deadline.
