United States Senate, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, Cropped by Resist the Mainstream

Early Saturday, just before the stroke of midnight, the Senate voted to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which had nearly lapsed due to disputes about the FBI’s ability to use the program to search for Americans’ data.

This major U.S. surveillance law, considered crucial for countering terror attacks, cyber intrusions, and foreign espionage, was passed with bipartisan support, 60-34, and is now pending President Joe Biden’s signature.

“In the nick of time, we are reauthorizing FISA right before it expires at midnight,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, as reported by CNN.

The same source also quoted White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who assured that Biden “will swiftly sign the bill.”

The reauthorization extends the program for two more years, allowing the U.S. government to continue collecting, without a warrant, the communications of non-Americans located outside the country. Although the program targets non-Americans, it also captures communications involving Americans when they are in contact with those foreigners, which has been a point of contention.

Amidst this backdrop, U.S. officials have repeatedly emphasized the indispensable nature of the program.

“If you miss a key piece of intelligence, you may miss some event overseas or put troops in harm’s way,” Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, per CNN.

Despite these arguments, concerns over privacy and civil liberties persist, with some lawmakers pushing for amendments that would restrict access to Americans’ data without a warrant.

“If the government wants to spy on my private communications or the private communications of any American, they should be required to get approval from a judge, just as our Founding Fathers intended in writing the Constitution,” Senator Dick Durbin argued, according to CNN.

However, these amendments did not pass, with opponents arguing that such restrictions could impede quick responses to national security threats.

Attorney General Merrick Garland highlighted the reauthorization’s importance in remarks quoted by CNN, stating, “This reauthorization of Section 702 gives the United States the authority to continue to collect foreign intelligence information about non-U.S. persons located outside the United States, while at the same time codifying important reforms the Justice Department has adopted to ensure the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.”

This statement came amidst a scramble to secure the law’s continuity, as U.S. officials disclosed that two major communication providers had threatened to stop complying with orders through the surveillance program if it were allowed to lapse.

FISA was passed initially in 1978, purportedly to ensure channels of accountability for national intelligence agencies without compromising the sensitivity of the relevant information. Its method for so doing is the establishment of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which conducts nonpublic sessions to determine the appropriateness of issuing search warrants under FISA regulations.

However, FISA is somewhat more limited in scope than other similar surveillance legislation, and the bill ostensibly only applies to situations where the suspect is credibly believed to be involved in a specifically foreign-originating security threat.

“Unlike domestic criminal surveillance warrants issued under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (the ‘Wiretap Act‘) , agents need to demonstrate probable cause to believe that the ‘target of the surveillance is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power,’ that ‘a significant purpose’ of the surveillance is to obtain ‘foreign intelligence information,’ and that appropriate ‘minimization procedures’ are in place,” the U.S. Justice Department states.