Intelligence community warned Congress on FISA 702 deadlines, but some Democrats have doubts

Trump administration intelligence officials are pressing Congress to renew the nation’s warrantless spy powers before Thanksgiving, warning they could run out of time to get a needed annual recertification for the program from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) operates under dual authorities from Congress and the court, but the judicial backing for the spy tool that allows the government to spy on foreigners located abroad is set to expire in March.

Congress this year has repeatedly failed to renew FISA’s Section 702, and the spy program lapsed June 12 , entering uncharted territory by operating only under its court authorization.

In a meeting as Congress returned from summer break, staff from the office of the director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told lawmakers to pick up the pace, saying intelligence staff would need a few months to make their case for the program before the FISC.

But that’s sparked skepticism from some Democrats who want to see the law reformed, including by requiring a warrant to review any information inadvertently collected on Americans as the government conducts surveillance of its targets.

“They obviously just want to get it done because they know they’re going to lose the elections because they have fallen out of favor with the American people for good reason, and because they know they’re not going to be in control, they feel this is their chance to push FISA through without the privacy protections that America wants,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told The Hill.

“So that’s a false deadline. March is the real deadline, and we need to get something done before that,” the congressman added.

The intelligence community is still able to conduct surveillance, in part because communications providers of cellphone and email services are cooperating with the requests and have not sued to question the legality of the program.

But the lapse in congressional reauthorization makes the March 17 court deadline all the more important.

Each year, the director of national intelligence and attorney general must seek certification of Section 702, laying out how they will conduct surveillance within the bounds of the law as laid out by Congress. That includes detailing procedures for screening out any information that might be collected on Americans and would also need to reflect any changes made by Congress in reauthorizing the powers.

First reported by Punchbowl News, ODNI staff stressed in meetings with congressional committees that the process before the FISC would take a few months, while House Intelligence Committee Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) said first moves on that task would need to begin in December.

“The fact is, the courts have to recertify in December. Yes, the program is authorized till March, but they’ve got to recertify in December. If we don’t deliver something before that, it’s going to be complicated for them to implement the changes that we have in the FISA bill,” Crawford said.

“It does require significant lead time to be able to implement all that and go through the certification process. So this is not just simply saying, ‘Here it is and everything’s good’ — particularly when we have changes to the existing law.”

ODNI did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

FISA fault lines don’t fall cleanly along party lines, and one Democratic aide present for the meeting noted that GOP privacy hawks also pushed back against ODNI during the briefing.

But the staffer said the push on deadlines also comes as Democrats are feeling confident they will retake the House after the midterms.

Support for Section 702 has shrunk within the Democratic Party. While 147 Democrats voted to renew Section 702 in 2024, just 42 Democrats joined Republicans to back a House bill to renew 702 for three years that has since failed to be considered by the Senate.

“Our members are more skeptical of the Trump administration, but I think that skepticism is a bipartisan one. I think we’ve heard that from our members certainly behind closed doors from Democrats and Republicans,” the Democratic staffer said.

“I think that in the new Congress, the negotiations will be more fulsome, include more corners of our caucus and their conference, and yes, probably would involve additional checks on the intelligence community, and that ODNI has issued this warning, both because they really want it done and because they would rather take this deal than whatever deal we come up with.”

Not all Democrats want to punt the issue to the next Congress.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said the spy program is in a tenuous situation, essentially still functional only because tech companies chose not to sue when Section 702 failed to be reauthorized.

“The four or five people that I talked to that are pretty instrumental to reauthorizing this thing, nobody is trying to be too clever here, right? This process cannot expire, or we will be subject to some real evil. So at least I and others I think are thinking, ‘Let’s get this thing done on time,’” he told The Hill.

“We had a great development when the companies decided they weren’t going to sue and stop providing information. So let’s just get it done. Look, quite frankly, I would much rather we deal with it right now, both for temporal reasons, but also to have to do this under pressure with a brand new majority and a pissed off minority. That doesn’t feel smart to me.”

Hopes of passing a FISA 702 bill collapsed over the summer when President Trump installed Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to temporarily lead ODNI.

Senators on both sides of the aisle revolted , noting Pulte’s history of forwarding Trump enemies for prosecution for mortgage fraud, but it was Democrats who refused to move forward on Section 702 until Pulte was out of the building.

Pulte has since been replaced by the now-confirmed Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, though the Senate has yet to take up its own Section 702 bill.

In the lower chamber, lawmakers who back Section 702 are eager to move on it.

“I was ready to get it done a while ago,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee. “So hopefully we will.”

Crawford also vented frustration at the Senate.

“Well, they got the DNI [director of National Intelligence] confirmed. They got the one they wanted. Should be no further delays, no more excuses. And here we are. Probably won’t be back till sometime after [the] election, and they haven’t even dusted it off over there. So the House did their job. We passed that over here back in June. This is 100 percent on the Senate,” he said.