Trump risks key surveillance authority by selecting ‘unqualified’ spy chief

Cornyn said Section 702 material generates roughly 60 percent of the president’s daily brief, a figure also cited by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley.

Some Republicans question the framing of the disaster. Rep. Keith Self of Texas Called warnings “Hysteria,” arguing that other FISA powers remain in effect and that supporters should accept reforms like the detention requirement: “FISA will not be unfair. We have the law. We have precedent from 2008. Don’t fall for the scare tactics.” The libertarian Cato Institute has made a similar point.

“The 702 program has been authorized by the FISA court to continue for another year, so it will continue whether we act or not,” a senior Republican aide on the relevant committee said. “None of the members who say the program will end on Friday will ever claim that it will end on Monday – especially those who work in intelligence. They know better.”

Hajar Hamadou, senior policy advisor at Demand Progress, was more explicit. “If Republican leadership truly believes their baseless fears about security at the World Cup, they will do what needs to be done to reach an agreement to renew FISA by finally allowing a vote on the warrant requirements,” she said. “Any threats to national security during the World Cup fall squarely into the hands of Cotton, Grassley and Trump officials who still refuse to allow votes on popular, bipartisan reforms.” She added that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has already ruled that surveillance of 702 remains in effect until March 2027 under current orders. This makes Johnson and Thune’s warnings about the impending national security consequences, in their view, a threat to civil liberties of urgency.

However, the Republican chairs of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, Tom Cotton and Chuck Grassley, respectively, have asked the administration to plan to close the achievement gap — including, if necessary, drafting an executive order to close the gap.

The standoff is a symptom of the process’s deliberate failure, said Jake Lapeyroc, a surveillance policy expert at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “We don’t need the sun to set, and we don’t need to continue the same messy process of enforcing FISA with another short-term extension,” he said. “We can end the impasse and resolve this issue now, but leadership needs to stop silencing debate and allow votes on warrants and reforms, as we have always done in the past. Blocking a vote on reform is why we are in this mess, and allowing a vote on reforms is the only way out of this mess.”

The battle is unfolding as the government withholds two sets of records related to how Section 702 is used. In Letter dated June 3 to colleaguesSenator Ron Wyden wrote that warrantless searches are plaguing American politicians, activists and journalists More than triple in 2025 The court’s March opinion, which remains classified under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, describes serious violations. The administration has refused to declassify her, even after the leaders of the Intelligence Committee jointly requested her release.

Separately, in Cato’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FBI disclosed in a June 4 court filing that it had identified approximately 39,650 potentially responsive pages of Section 702 Noncompliance RecordsBut she said she would not start releasing them until mid-August.