Congress still can’t decide what to do about warrantless surveillance

The deadline to reauthorize FISA Section 702 is coming up a week from now on June 12, and it appears lawmakers are no closer to reaching an agreement. If this sounds like déjà vu, it’s because we’ve been here before. Congress Section 702 was reauthorized in late April — but only for 45 days, so lawmakers can negotiate reforms to the controversial wiretap authority.

“There were no reformers in any of the conversations that took place. Completely halted,” Sean Vitka, executive director of Demand Progress, said on a press call Friday afternoon, hours after the Senate meeting. He voted 52 to 47 against a deal that would renew Section 702 For three years, which required sixty votes. Democrats voted against the plan because of President Donald Trump’s announcement on Thursday that Bill Bolte – a businessman who does not have a security clearance – would serve as… Acting Director of National Intelligence. They were joined by seven Republicans.

As head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Bolte oversaw 18 agencies. In a Friday interview with Wall Street JournalTrump suggested he wanted Bolte to get rid of the Director of National Intelligence. “We made the Department of Education much smaller, and similarly, it should be much smaller,” Trump said. According to magazineTrump suggested to Bolt that he fire intelligence employees who served under the Obama and Biden administrations.

Critics of the so-called “clean” expansion of Section 702 — an extension that does not include reforms such as the requirement to obtain a warrant for inquiries involving U.S. persons — have cited Trump’s well-documented abuses of his surveillance powers. Bolte’s appointment only made matters worse for the administration, which had been urging Republican lawmakers to reauthorize Section 702 without reforms.