Senate begins FISA surveillance debate with deadline looming

The Senate voted Thursday to advance a House-passed bill reauthorizing the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act’s (FISA) warrantless surveillance program, setting the stage for a bruising debate over the controversial program before it’s set to lapse after Friday.

The Senate voted 67-32 to advance a motion to begin debate on the bill, the first of at least three procedural steps needed before holding a final vote on the legislation, which passed the House by an overwhelming margin.

The legislation would reauthorize FISA’s Section 702 authority for only two years — well short of the five-year reauthorization that congressional leaders initially envisioned.

Thursday’s vote sets the stage for a Senate floor battle pitting privacy advocates such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) against Senate leaders and senior members of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees who warn a failure to reauthorize the program by 11:59 pm Friday could force intelligence agencies to “go dark” and expose the nation to attack.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Thursday urged his colleagues not to let the program lapse, even temporarily.

“No other law is more important to the work of the intelligence community than Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Act,” he declared on the floor.

“It is hard to overstate even the importance of this law or frankly the gravity of allowing it to sunset. Yet we are 36 hours away from that happening,” he warned.

Paul, however, has dismissed such warnings as “scaremongering” and says that he wouldn’t have a problem with letting Section 702 expire for a few days if he doesn’t get time to debate and vote on the changes he wants to make to the bill.

He wants a vote on an amendment similar to what Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) offered in the House to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before reviewing the information of Americans swept up by the surveillance of foreign targets under Section 702. That proposal failed by a 212-212 vote in the lower chamber.

Paul also wants a vote on his Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which would prohibit law enforcement and intelligence agencies from buying U.S. customer and subscriber data from third parties. Wyden is also a sponsor of it.

And the Kentucky lawmaker says he wants a vote on an amendment that would bar FISA as a whole from being used to authorize any searches or surveillance of Americans.

“They’ve abused the power, so we need more protections for Americans,” Paul said. “It’s a pretty important thing. I think the vast majority of Republicans across the country, even Democrats, think your government shouldn’t spy on you without a warrant.

Wyden says he will offer an amendment to strike out a provision of the FISA bill authored by House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) that he says would dramatically increase the authority of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to snoop on Americans.

He said Turner’s language will dramatically expand the scope of surveillance authority to require all types of businesses, not just Google and telecom companies, to cooperate with data requests.

“I’m going to move to strike this Turner amendment,” Wyden told The Hill. “I think it’s a stunning expansion of the government’s role in requiring Americans to comply with requests for information.

“Basically, right now, when the government wants to collect information, it’s really Google and AT&T,” he said of the current surveillance authority.

But Wyden says Turner’s amendment would dramatically broaden that authority “to make it scores of businesses and individuals” who would have to comply.

Warner, the Senate Intelligence Committee chair, pushed back against Wyden’s and other critics’ characterizations of that provision.

“The amendment does not, as some have said, allow the government to spy on restaurants, bars [and] libraries,” he said, calling such claims “absurd distortions.”