WIRED: News on the US Section 702 Privacy Reauthorization and its Possible Implications for the Future of the Department of Homeland Security

The United States government, like its rivals in Moscow and Beijing, has poured untold millions of dollars into quietly turning the phones and internet browsers of its own citizens into a powerful intelligence-gathering tool. Shadowy deals between federal agencies and commercial data brokers have helped the US intelligence system to amass a “large amount” of what its own experts term “intimate information” on Americans.

House speaker Mike Johnson—whose brief tenure as speaker has been roiled by an ongoing debate over domestic intelligence abuses—previously supported several privacy measures that, now in power, he is working to defeat, including strong new limits on the government’s access to private data.

The ongoing issue of reauthorizing Section 702 is something Johnson is trying to resolve this week. April 19 is when the program is set to end.

Congressional sources tell WIRED that a vote to salvage the program could come as early as Thursday, following a series of scheduled briefings on Tuesday and Wednesday between lawmakers and intelligence officials, as well as a number of smaller votes that may significantly modify the terms of the program for years to come.

The focus of privacy advocates has turned almost entirely to an amendment that aims to force the FBI and other agencies to apply for a warrant before accessing the communications of Americans incidentally captured by the US under the 702 program.

WIRED will keep you up to date with the latest information as it becomes available, to keep pace with a situation that is sure to evolve rapidly. See below for the latest developments.

The Intelligence Committee Appropriately Recognizes that the 702 Program Is Unrestricted and Obscured

The outcome was preventable but it is necessary for the Intelligence Community and its allies to be aware that the days of unaccountable and unrestricted espionage on Americans are over.

James Czerniawaski, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity, a Washington, DC, think tank pushing for changes to Section 702, says that despite recognizing its value, it remained a “troubled program” in need of “significant and meaningful reforms.”

An unlikely coalition of progressives and conservative lawmakers formed last year in a push to end these warrantless searches, many of the Republicans involved vocal critics of the FBI following its misuse of FISA to target a Trump campaign staffer in 2016. (The 702 program, which is only one part of FISA, was not implicated in that particular controversy.)

The attorneys made a statement Tuesday saying that an amendment that the Intel committee proposed would increase the number of US businesses forced to cooperate with the program.

Sean Vitka, policy director at Demand Progress, a civil liberties-focused nonprofit, says Congressional leadership should be reminded that these privacy protections are popular. Vulnerable reformers are willing and able to do that.

Although the government says it only targets foreigners, it has acknowledged collecting a lot of US communications. (The actual amount, it says, is impossible to calculate.) It claims that since those communications are in the government’s possession, federal agents can review those wiretaps without a warrant.

The program remains controversial due to a laundry list of abuses committed primarily at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which maintains a database that holds a portion of the raw data collected under 702.

The certifications, which are only required due to the “incidental” collection of US calls, generally permit the program’s use in cases involving terrorism, cybercrime, and weapons proliferation. The program is crucial in fighting the flood of Fentanyl related substances entering the US from overseas.

The Justice Department applied for new certifications in February. They were approved by the court last week. The government’s power to issue new directives under the program without Congress’s approval, however, remains in question.

Johnson lost 19 Republicans on Tuesday in a procedural vote that traditionally falls along party lines. Republicans control the House, but only by a razor-thin margin. The failed vote comes just hours after Donald Trump made a post on Truth Social, saying he wanted Republicans to kill the Foreign intelligence surveille Act, which is authorized by the law.