Republican leaders in the US House of Representatives are working to temporarily extend the National Security Agency’s expiring internet surveillance program by tucking it into a stopgap funding measure.
The month long extension of the surveillance law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, would punt a contentious national security issue into the New Year in an attempt to buy lawmakers more time to hash out differences over various proposed privacy reforms.
Lawmakers leaving a Republican conference meeting said it was not clear whether the stop gap bill had enough support to avert a partial government shutdown or whether the possible addition of the Section 702 extension would impact its chances for passage. It remained possible lawmakers would vote on the short term extension separate from the spending bill.
Absent congressional action is the law, which allows the NSA to collect vast amounts of digital communications from foreign suspects living outside the United States, will expire on December. 31.
Earlier in the day, House Republicans retreated from a plan to vote on a standalone measure to renew Section 702 until 2021 amid sizable opposition from both parties that stemmed from concerns the bill would violate US privacy rights.
Some US officials have recently said that deadline may not ultimately matter and that the program can lawfully continue through April due to the way it is annually certified.
US intelligence officials consider Section 702 among the most vital of tools at their disposal to thwart threats to national security and American allies. While The law allows the NSA to collect vast amounts of digital communications from foreign suspects living outside the United States the program incidentally gathers communications of Americans for a variety of technical reasons, including if they communicate with a foreign target living overseas.
Those communications can then be subject to searches without a warrant, including by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The House Judiciary Committee advanced a bill in November that would partially restrict the US government’s ability to review American data by requiring a warrant in some cases.
