The US House of Representatives will attempt on Thursday to pass a short-term extension of a powerful surveillance law amid controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s decision to install an inexperienced loyalist as the country’s top intelligence official.
Democrats have said they will block the move to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) in protest of Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte, a major Republican donor, as acting director of national intelligence.
Without congressional authorization, section 702 of Fisa, which was enacted in the wake of 9/11 and allows US intelligence agencies to intercept foreign communications without a court warrant, will lapse on Friday.
Congressional Republican leaders had been trying to forge a compromise on extending the law for three years with Democrats as well as members of their own party who have concerns about the law’s impact on civil liberties. But Democrats backed out of those talks after Trump named Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and heir to a home construction company fortune, to the top intelligence post.
In a Thursday morning statement, House Democratic leaders said they would oppose the reauthorization that Republicans plan to put on the floor, which would extend section 702 until 2 July.
“Bill Pulte has no relevant national security experience. Consequently, his appointment is in defiance of the law that requires the Director of National Intelligence to have ‘extensive’ national security experience,” said the statement, from Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, along with his deputies and the top Democrats on the House intelligence and judiciary committee. “The apparent motivation for his elevation is the demonstrated willingness of Bill Pulte to search government databases for alleged dirt on President Trump’s chosen political enemies.
“There is a path to reauthorizing Fisa, but it will require enacting meaningful reforms. We oppose this bill to kick the can further down the road.”
Republicans will attempt to pass the extension using a fast-track process that requires a two-thirds majority vote to succeed – a consensus they are almost certain not to win, given the Democratic opposition.
Failure to reauthorize the spy tool does not mean the surveillance program itself will go dark. The Fisa court issued a year-long certification authorizing section 702 collection through approximately March 2027, and the statute contains a provision allowing collection to continue under that order even if the law lapses.
A vote on extending Fisa failed in the US Senate last week, with all Democrats except John Fetterman of Pennsylvania opposing the effort, along with seven Republicans who cited civil liberties concerns.
That prompted the Republican chairs of the Senate intelligence and judiciary committees to send a letter to Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, asking the administration to prepare for a “potential significant gap in foreign intelligence collection”.
