Lawmakers reach a deal to temporarily extend major federal surveillance program – By Frank Thorp V, Julie Tsirkin and Kate Santaliz (NBC News) / Dec 6, 2023
The agreement to extend FISA still needs to pass both chambers, but it would buy time for additional talks on reforms to the intelligence community’s spy powers under Section 702.
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers have reached an agreement to temporarily extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), three sources tell NBC News, a move that could save the intelligence community from losing a key tool when it expires at the end of the year.
The agreement, which will reauthorize FISA through April, is part of bipartisan and bicameral negotiations on a path forward on the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Lawmakers had seen the NDAA as a likely vehicle for a temporary extension of the program and whether it would ride with the package had held up attempts to finalize the bill in recent days.
The compromise still needs to be finalized in the text of the bill and would need to pass in both the Senate and the House. That is expected to happen before lawmakers leave Washington for the New Year at the end of next week.
There are ongoing attempts by different groups of lawmakers to reform FISA, particularly Section 702, which is the method U.S. intelligence agencies use to data from phones, emails and other messages of foreign persons abroad.
