Two Republican senators warned Tuesday that they would vote against any government spending bill that includes permanent reauthorization of a controversial provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, said they would go that far to oppose a permanent authorization of Section 702 of the FISA law.
“I would vote against any spending bill that has permanent reauthorization,” Paul said Tuesday. He added that the intelligence community “needs more oversight, not less” of the provision.
Lee said anything more than a year-long extension of FISA Section 702 as the law stands right now would also put his spending bill vote in jeopardy.
“A permanent reauthorization of Section 702 would be completely unacceptable,” Lee said. The Senate is expected to consider a short-term spending bill to keep the government open past this week, but Lee said it seems unlikely that permanent 702 language would be added to that bill, although it could be part of a full-year spending bill in January.
Ryan and Lee were joined by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., in calling for only a short-term reauthorization of FISA Section 702 to allow for more debate in the new year.
“We need serious, meaningful reforms to Section 702 to protect our privacy,” Leahy said. He added that there is a “bipartisan reauthorization” to resist permanent reauthorization.
Many lawmakers overall have said they support putting a short-term renewal of FISA Section 702 in the short-term funding bill to pave the way for debate for a long-term reform solution in January.
The House Intelligence Committee passed the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., has pushed his own bill. Both would try to rein in the practice of unmasking, which is when officials reveal the identity of Americans swept up in surveillance of foreign nationals.
A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told the Washington Examiner by email that DNI officials “fully expect” Congress to reauthorize FISA Section 702 by year’s end, but that the provision can lawfully continue even if Congress fails to take that step.
“If Congress did not reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act by year-end, Section 404(b) of that statute makes very clear that ‘any order, authorization, or directive issued or made under title VII of [FISA] … shall continue in effect until the date of the expiration of such order, authorization, or directive.’ Although any existing order will continue in effect for a short time even if Congress doesn’t act to reauthorize the law in a timely fashion, a gap in the statutory authority will generate significant uncertainty regarding the future of the program,” spokesman Brian Hale said. “So while the orders would be in effect for a short time after the end of the year, the fact is that we would need to be planning for the end of the program, and that cannot be done in a matter of days – to effect that takes some time, and is not like turning on or off a light-switch.”
