Security News > 2024 > February > White House goes to court, not Congress, to renew warrantless spy powers

The Biden Administration has asked a court, rather than Congress, to renew controversial warrantless surveillance powers used by American intelligence and due to expire within weeks.

US Senator Ron Wyden railed at the US Department of Justice's decision to seek a year-long extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to end in mid-April unless Congress reauthorizes it.

Section 702 is set to expire by April 19 unless Congress votes to renew it, and there's been a big push among some lawmakers to change the rules and add some sort of guardrails to limit any future abuses.

Two of them, the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act and Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2023, include a warrant requirement before investigations.

"Congress acted in December to extend Section 702, which maintained this critical authority for intelligence collection. The executive branch is now acting on that, in the usual way, at the usual time in the reauthorization cycle. To do anything else would be an anomaly, and indeed an abdication, of our responsibility to use the law Congress extended for the protection of Americans."

"It's utterly ridiculous for the administration to make such a blatant end-run around Congress to reauthorize this often-abused, unconstitutional warrantless surveillance of Americans," Gilligan told The Register.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/29/fisa_section_702_wyden/