Privacy hawks and intelligence-focused lawmakers are expected to battle this year over the reauthorization of a powerful but controversial spy authority, with members at odds over privacy protections and no clear sign where Congress will land.
Lawmakers face an April 19 deadline to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act before it expires. But they disagree on how far Congress should go in providing privacy protections on American information that’s swept up under the program — and seem to have put the issue on the back burner for now.
Congress failed to pass a longer-term reauthorization in the final days of last year’s legislative calendar, with House Republicans clashing over proposals from the Judiciary and Intelligence committees. Instead, faced with the prospect of the authority expiring at the end of last year, lawmakers opted to use the fiscal 2024 defense policy bill to pass a short-term reauthorization through April 19, giving themselves more time to work on a longer-term reauthorization.
