House Republicans are blocking a proposal that would narrow a disputed new provision in a surveillance law, potentially handing President-elect Donald J. Trump broader power to force myriad types of American service providers to help the government spy.
Congress in April added the provision to the law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The law requires communications service providers inside the United States, like Google or AT&T, to turn over messages of foreign targets — even when they are talking to Americans — without warrants.
Lawmakers in April added the provision to a bill that extended Section 702, which was about to expire, for two years. The provision broadly expanded the types of firms that can be forced to assist the program to include “any other service provider who has access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.”
The potential breadth of that language drew alarm. But because the Senate was facing a time crunch to pass the bill, it pushed aside those concerns with reassurances that Congress would revisit the issue and tighten up the provision in another intelligence bill later in 2024.
The session is now drawing to a close, and lawmakers are folding that intelligence bill into a must-pass defense bill whose final version is expected to be unveiled soon. But in negotiations between the House and the Senate, the section with the intended fix has been dropped, people familiar with the negotiations say.
Privacy and civil liberties advocates have long criticized Section 702, which traces back to the once-secret warrantless surveillance program the Bush administration created after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. In more recent years, Section 702 has also drawn fire from Republicans who aligned themselves with President-elect Donald J. Trump’s hostility toward law enforcement and spy agencies.
