The White House expressed support on Wednesday for the “clean reauthorization” of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA, a law that establishes procedures on how the government can collect electronic communications.
“We support the clean reauthorization and the administration believes it’s necessary to protect the security of the nation,” an administration official told Reuters.
Reauthorization of a key intelligence-gathering program, elements of which are vested in Section 702 of FISA, has become a top priority for intelligence officials this year. The law is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2017 unless Congress approves its reauthorization.
President Trump’s Director of Intelligence nominee Dan Coats told lawmakers on Tuesday that the program is “designed to go after foreign bad guys,” disputing claims that the government is focused only collecting Americans’ data.
Bulk data collection by the U.S. government became a contentious topic in 2013 after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked information that shed light on government surveillance. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who has argued against domestic spy programs on the grounds that they violate rights to privacy and civil liberty, previously forced several intelligence-gathering programs to expire in May 2015.
