Reporter’s Notebook: Congress passes short-term FISA 702 fix, delays long-term renewal
If you give them an inch, they may take a mile.And if you give Congress a deadline, they’ll probably take 13 days. Or perhaps 45.Congress recently struggled to reauthorize the...
By Fox News · Fox News
If you give them an inch, they may take a mile. And if you give Congress a deadline, they’ll probably take 13 days. Or perhaps 45. Congress recently struggled to reauthorize the nation’s most effective, and arguably most controversial, spying program. After much division, lawmakers only renewed Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for 45 days. That was after a 13-day Band-Aid was applied last month. This infighting produced a buzzer beater on Capitol Hill. HOUSE PASSES FISA RENEWAL IN BIPARTISAN VOTE, PUTTING PRESSURE ON SENATE BEFORE LOOMING DEADLINE Congress knew for months that Section 702 of FISA would expire in mid-April. But after yanking renewal for the program from the House schedule earlier this year — then stumbling through two failed proposals to reauthorize the program in the House, Congress re-upped FISA for a scant 13 days. That deadline bore down on lawmakers last week, with FISA programs expected to lose their congressional blessing in the wee hours of Friday, May 1. "These are some of the most complicated public policy matters that Congress deals with. And they are all sandwiched together because of the deadlines that are upon us," observed House Speaker Mike Johnson , R-La. "There's still some negotiation, deliberation and consternation." With the 13-day program patch on the precipice of expiration, House Republicans planned to pass a three-year extension — but the bill included a provision to also bar the potential creation of a "digital currency" by the Federal Reserve. Such a crypto mechanism isn’t in the offing right now, and it has nothing to do with FISA directly. But libertarian lawmakers fear that the government could track the financial transactions of Americans if the Fed initiated a digital financial asset. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the upper chamber would reject any bill that included the digital currency provision. Even so, Johnson forged ahead with the FISA reauthorization featuring th…