US Spy Law Faces Expiration After Senate Rejects Trump-Backed Intelligence Nominee

The US House of Representatives has failed to renew the country’s warrantless surveillance law ahead of its scheduled expiration on Friday, making it increasingly likely that the legislation will lapse for the first time. The setback comes as lawmakers continue to object to President Donald Trump’s appointment of a controversial ally to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies.

The House voted 218-198 on the renewal measure, falling short of the two-thirds majority required for passage. Nineteen Republican lawmakers voted against the proposal. According to Politico, another vote is expected on June 23.

The legislation, formally known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), gives US intelligence agencies broad authority to collect information in efforts to identify foreign hackers, spies, and potential terrorist threats. Section 702, as the provision is commonly known, has long been viewed by both Democrats and Republicans as a critical national security tool.

Efforts from lawmakers in both parties to renew the decades-old surveillance authority have stalled in recent weeks. As negotiations continued, Congress was only able to approve short-term extensions to keep the program operating temporarily.

Critics have repeatedly called for major reforms to FISA, citing instances in which previous administrations allegedly misused surveillance powers. Lawmakers from both parties proposed measures requiring intelligence agencies to obtain court-approved warrants before accessing Americans’ private communications. The Trump administration, however, had pushed for a straightforward reauthorization without additional restrictions.

The debate became more complicated last week when Trump appointed longtime ally Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence. The cabinet-level role oversees more than a dozen US intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the NSA.

Pulte’s appointment triggered concerns among lawmakers who feared he could use the position to target Trump’s political opponents while reshaping the intelligence community. Politico described the appointment as reflecting the current atmosphere within the White House and reported that Trump had become increasingly isolated and driven by political grievances.

According to The Washington Post, some Democrats argued that Pulte’s appointment represented a greater threat to national security than allowing the surveillance law itself to expire.

Pulte, who lacks prior intelligence or national security experience, was expected to begin the role on June 19 while continuing to lead a federal housing agency. However, the administration withdrew his nomination on Thursday. Instead, it appointed Jay Clayton, currently the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

By the time Clayton’s appointment became public, many lawmakers had already left Washington for a week-long recess, making a last-minute agreement on FISA renewal increasingly unlikely.

From Snowden Revelations to Modern Surveillance

Section 702 became widely known following the 2013 surveillance disclosures involving the National Security Agency and several allied governments. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked thousands of classified documents that revealed the extent of US global surveillance operations, including the collection of communications involving Americans despite constitutional protections.

Programs operating under Section 702 enabled the NSA to gather vast amounts of communications data transmitted through undersea fibre-optic cables that form the backbone of the internet. The agency also obtained large volumes of user information from technology companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, through a program known as PRISM.

Although the law is scheduled to expire on Friday, U.S. surveillance operations are unlikely to stop immediately.

Many surveillance programs, authorized or unauthorized, were approved earlier this year through the annual certification process conducted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which oversees government surveillance activities and reviews requests in secret proceedings. As a result, authorities can continue using many of these surveillance tools until March 2027.

However, Reuters reported that telecommunications providers that regularly share call records with the government may be less willing to continue doing so without clear legal authorization. If authorization lapses, the government retains other surveillance authorities. One of the most significant is Executive Order 12333, which provides broad powers for intelligence gathering outside the United States.

Lawmakers from both parties continue to express concerns about how surveillance authorities are being used. Earlier this year, Senator Ron Wyden, a senior Democrat and longtime member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned that FISA is still being used in ways that may violate Americans’ constitutional rights.

Wyden, who has access to classified intelligence information, said lawmakers may not fully understand how multiple administrations have relied on a secret interpretation of Section 702 that, according to him, directly affects the privacy rights of US citizens.