The United States Congress approved a short-term, 10-day extension of a controversial warrantless surveillance programme early Friday morning, after a night of failed votes and bitter divisions within the Republican Party derailed plans for a longer renewal.

At the centre of the dispute is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), first enacted in 2008, which allows the CIA, the National Security Agency, the FBI and other intelligence agencies to collect and analyse communications involving foreigners living outside the United States — without a warrant. Because Americans who communicate with those foreign targets can have their messages swept up in the process, the law has long drawn criticism from civil liberties advocates who argue it amounts to warrantless surveillance of US citizens through a so-called "backdoor loophole." Intelligence officials counter that the authority is indispensable for disrupting terrorist plots, cyber intrusions and foreign espionage. The law was due to expire on 20 April under a sunset provision requiring periodic reauthorisation.

President Donald Trump had pressed hard throughout the week for a clean 18-month extension with no changes, urging Republicans to "UNIFY" behind House Speaker Mike Johnson. But the effort collapsed dramatically on Thursday night and into the early hours of Friday. GOP leaders first introduced a five-year extension with limited revisions — including new requirements that only FBI attorneys could authorise searches involving US persons — then fell back to the 18-month plan Trump had backed. Both attempts failed when roughly 20 Republicans joined the majority of Democrats to block them. An unusual coalition of hardline conservatives and progressive Democrats has held firm in demanding a formal warrant requirement for any search of Americans' communications incidentally collected under the programme. Shortly after 2 a.m., lawmakers agreed by voice vote to the 10-day stopgap extension; the Senate passed it the same morning, also by voice vote, sending it to Trump for his signature.

The night's disorder drew sharp rebukes from across the aisle. "Are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place?" said Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, during a heated floor debate. Representative Ro Khanna of California, a Democrat who opposed the clean extension, declared a provisional victory, saying reformers had prevented leadership from pushing through a multi-year renewal "in the dead of night."

Why this matters: the 10-day extension buys Congress only a narrow window to reach a more durable agreement. Privacy advocates say the deadlock signals that genuine reform — chiefly a warrant requirement for searches of Americans' communications — may now be politically unavoidable. "A clean extension or fake reform is not going to cut it," said Hannah James of the Brennan Center for Justice's liberty and national security programme. With Johnson commanding only a slim House majority, the coming days will test whether the administration can hold its own party together while also satisfying the bipartisan bloc that has, so far, refused to back down.