US House blocks extension of powerful surveillance law | House of Representatives
US House of Representatives failed Thursday He agreed to a short-term extension of a powerful surveillance law amid controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s decision to appoint an inexperienced loyalist as the nation’s top intelligence official.
The measure failed by a vote of 198 to 218 after Democrats announced they would block a push to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in protest of Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte, a prominent Republican donor, as acting director of national intelligence.
The congressional impasse is leading to the Friday expiration of Fisa’s Section 702, which took effect after 9/11 and allows U.S. intelligence agencies to intercept foreign communications without a court order.
Republican leaders in the House and Senate have been trying to reach a compromise on extending the law for three years with members of their own party, as well as with Democrats who are concerned about the law’s impact on civil liberties. But Democrats pulled out of those talks after Trump appointed Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and heir to a homebuilding company fortune, to a top intelligence post.
“Bill Pulte has no relevant national security experience. As a result, his appointment is contrary to the law requiring the Director of National Intelligence to have ‘extensive’ national security experience,” top House Democrats, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, his aides and ranking members of the intelligence and judiciary committees, said in a statement released before the vote.
“The apparent motivation for his rise is Bill Pulte’s willingness to search government databases for alleged dirt on President Trump’s elected political enemies.
“There is a way to reauthorize Fisa, but it will require enacting meaningful reforms. We oppose this bill to take it further.”
Republicans tried to pass the extension using a fast-track process that requires a two-thirds majority vote to succeed. They fell well short of success, with 19 members of their own party opposing the bill, in addition to a majority of Democrats.
Failure to reauthorize the spy tool does not mean the surveillance program itself will go dark. Fisa court published one year certificate Section 702 collection is permitted until approximately March 2027, and the statute includes a provision that allows collection to continue under this order even if the law lapses.
Last week, a vote in the U.S. Senate to extend Fisa for three years failed, with all Democrats except Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman opposing the effort to protest Pulte’s appointment. Seven conservative Republicans who expressed civil liberties concerns about the bill also voted no.
That led the Republican chairmen of the Senate intelligence and judiciary committees to send a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking the administration to prepare for “a potentially significant gap in foreign intelligence collection.”
