The US House of Representatives voted in the early hours of Friday to extend a controversial surveillance programme for just 10 days, after a coalition of Democrats and dissident Republicans blocked attempts to secure a longer renewal. The short-term extension keeps Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) alive until 30 April, buying lawmakers more time to negotiate a deeply contested reauthorisation.
Section 702, first enacted in 2008, grants national security agencies — including the CIA, NSA and FBI — broad powers to collect and analyse the calls, texts and emails of foreigners living outside the United States without a warrant. The law also incidentally captures communications between those foreign targets and Americans, a provision that has long drawn criticism from civil liberties advocates. Prior to the vote, which took place after midnight, 208 Democrats joined 20 Republicans to defeat proposals for a five-year renewal and an 18-month extension championed by President Donald Trump. The House then passed the 10-day extension by unanimous consent.
Trump had reversed a long-standing personal opposition to FISA to endorse the 18-month renewal, arguing the programme is "extremely important to our military" and crediting it with supporting US operations in Venezuela and Iran. Intelligence officials say Section 702 has helped foil terrorist attacks and rescue hostages overseas. But Democratic leaders were unequivocal in their opposition to any extension without reform. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the Republican proposal did not enhance privacy protections and risked "expanding the ability of the Trump administration to spy on the American people." Representative Ro Khanna framed the vote starkly: "A yes vote gives Trump more power to surveil Americans."
The Republican coalition itself was fractured. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had previously called for a warrant requirement before reversing course to support a clean extension — mirroring Trump's own about-face. Meanwhile, some Democrats who voted to renew the law in 2024 now oppose renewal without reform, arguing that internal safeguards introduced at that time have since been eroded. Critics also raised concerns about the government's use of commercial data brokers to access Americans' personal information, which they say circumvents constitutional protections.
The debate reflects a durable tension between national security imperatives and civil liberties. Searches conducted under Section 702 that were likely to identify an American decreased slightly to 7,724 in 2025, according to official figures, though experts note the total is incomplete because some agencies access the data without reporting publicly. FBI agents were found in a 2024 court order to have repeatedly violated their own standards when searching FISA-collected data related to the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot and 2020 racial justice protests. With the 10-day clock now running, lawmakers face renewed pressure to agree on whether — and how — to reform a law that sits at the heart of America's post-9/11 surveillance architecture.