Senate Set to Vote Thursday on FISA Reauthorization

The Senate plans to vote Thursday on reauthorization of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday (see 2404120044). The upper chamber “must come to an agreement” before Friday’s deadline for reauthorization, said Schumer: “Otherwise, this very important tool for ensuring our national security is going to lapse, and that would be unacceptable.” The House hasn’t made the Senate’s job “any easier” with its “bogus impeachment trial,” but FISA needs to be extended, he said. The Senate on Wednesday rejected articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., spoke on the floor Wednesday and urged lawmakers to renew Section 702 of FISA. About 60% of items in the president’s daily intelligence brief are sourced from information gathered using Section 702, he said. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on Tuesday asked colleagues to reject the House proposal, saying it “gives the government unchecked authority to order millions of Americans to spy on behalf of the government.” He argued the proposal expands Section 702, citing bill language saying the government can compel information from any “service provider who has access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.” The House was scheduled to vote at 5 p.m. Wednesday on the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act. The bill would ban intelligence agencies from buying consumer data from brokers without a warrant. The White House opposes the legislation (see 2404160064). “If the government wants to track a suspect today, they could go through the trouble of establishing probable cause and getting a warrant,” House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who co-wrote the legislation, said on the House floor Wednesday.