FISA: What to know about the government’s key spy powers that Congress just extended

By Annie Grayer, Ellis Kim, CNN

(CNN) — Congress has approved another short-term extension of controversial spy powers that permit US officials to monitor phone calls and text messages from foreign targets.

The deadline to renew the powerful surveillance law exposed deep divisions in the Republican Party and left US national security officials scrambling as they sought to blunt the potential for blind spots in intelligence collection.

For months, Republicans on Capitol Hill have searched for a path forward to reauthorize the legislation – which the short-term extension now only prolongs.

The law, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allows authorized US officials to gather phone calls and text messages of foreign targets, but can also scoop up the data of Americans in the process.

Here’s what to know as lawmakers again kept the program going under the pressure of a midnight deadline.

How long has the law been extended?

The surveillance law is in effect for another 45 days – but it’s only a temporary patch.

The Senate passed the short-term extension after the House earlier in the week passed its own, more contentious version of the measure. Ultimately, the House passed the Senate’s extension in a 261-111 vote to avert a lapse.

That stopgap was needed, Senate Majority Leader John Thune suggested, because the Senate was unwilling to pass the House’s bill after conservatives in the chamber got an unrelated crypto measure attached to it.

How does the government use FISA?

Under updates to the FISA law enacted in 2008, the government has the ability to compel US phone companies and internet providers to provide access to communications across the “backbone” of the internet. The government can also compel access to phone information that can allow it to obtain the content of calls and also require email providers and others to provide communications from a specific address.

And according to a September 2023 public oversight report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board – which was formed to periodically assess the program – in addition to the above methods of collecting data, the board refers to an additional “highly sensitive technique” that was only authorized in 2022.

The trove of data, including a large portion of US internet traffic, is meant to provide US intelligence agencies with quick access to data regarding foreigners in other countries.

As CNN has reported, a good portion what what appears in the Presidential Daily Brief has some data that comes from the 702 program, according to the National Security Agency.

What’s at risk if it expires?

It depends who you ask.

Senior national security officials have for years said Section 702 is critical to thwarting terror attacks, stemming the flow of fentanyl into the US and stopping ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure.

The authority is now more critical than ever, officials say, amid the delicate ceasefire in the US war with Iran and a heightened threat environment.

Civil liberties groups on the left and the right, meanwhile, argue the surveillance authority risks infringing on Americans’ privacy. The program is currently warrantless, in large part because it is aimed at foreigners not Americans, but US citizens do get swept up in the surveillance when they are interacting with targets abroad.

The law, which verged on expiration multiple times in recent months, became embroiled in the broader Republican battle over the reach of the government’s surveillance powers.

And some Democrats who have previously supported the spy program expressed concern over renewing it under a Trump administration that they do not trust, making the margins Republicans have to rely on even smaller.

At first, the Trump administration did not weigh in on how they wanted Republican lawmakers to handle the renewal of the law, allowing divisions to build and fester. The president and his supporters have previously conflated the law with other legal methods used to investigate Russian interference in US elections and allegations that people associated with the Trump campaign in 2016 were connected to those Russian efforts.

But earlier this month, President Donald Trump called for a clean reauthorization of the law for 18 months. That did not sway conservative Republicans who have insisted that the bill include reforms like warrants before querying Americans’ communications.

This headline and story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Zachary Wolf contributed to this report.