Congress has struggled to extend key surveillance laws, partly due to privacy concerns but also because of President Trump’s new nomination as director of national spyware.
President Trump appoints Bill Pruitt as Director of National Intelligence
President Donald Trump has nominated Bill Pruitt, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to be his new acting director of national intelligence.
WASHINGTON — Congress is struggling to meet a deadline to extend the government’s main spying law that could endanger national security as the Iran war drags on.
For some lawmakers, this is a worrying prospect. For others, this is a chance to revisit 9/11-era laws that they say led to invasions of Americans’ privacy.
The issue at hand, updating Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), has created strange political bedfellows on Capitol Hill this year, drawing lawmakers into debates over privacy and security that consume much of the election-year Congress.
The reasons for the impasse are complex. A major stumbling block in recent days has been President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as the nation’s top spy director, Bill Peult.
Many Democrats, outraged that someone with no intelligence experience would lead the U.S. intelligence community, vowed to hold off on voting on the Section 702 reauthorization bill until President Trump chooses someone with a more acceptable background.
But some lawmakers’ problems with FISA run much deeper than that.
They have been negotiating for months over further structural reforms to the law that would allow U.S. spy agencies to access foreigners’ text messages, phone calls and emails without a warrant. Americans’ communications can also be caught up in these searches, according to a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and longtime privacy hawk, vowed to “fight like hell” to prevent the law from being updated again without major changes. It has already been expanded twice this year with short-term patches.
“Security and freedom are not mutually exclusive, and it appears Congress is finally beginning to understand that,” he said in a June 8 social media post.
In that post, Wyden, a staunch Democrat, sounded a lot like Florida’s Rick Scott, one of the most conservative members of the Senate. Scott similarly said in a June 5 statement that Congress “cannot give unchecked swamp power to spy on law-abiding Americans.”
The Section 702 renewal deadline is Friday, June 12th. Although the law expires after that date, FISA surveillance operates under a one-year authorization approved by the Special Court. Existing oversight authorities will continue until March 2027, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Still, leading politicians are sounding the alarm. In a June 5 letter, Republican Sens. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prepare for “potentially significant gaps in foreign intelligence collection.”
Pulto chooses “live grenade”
While criticism of FISA among rank-and-file members is widespread across the political spectrum, so is support for Section 702. The law’s more vocal supporters include the top Republicans and Democrats on the intelligence committees, as well as congressional leaders in both chambers.
“If you look at how effective FISA has been, FISA has stopped a number of terrorist attacks,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told reporters on June 9. “We have a proven program when it comes to keeping this country safe at risk because Democrats here in the United States Senate decided to vote against it in a bloc vote.”
Even Democrats who support updating FISA Section 702 say the ball is now in Republicans’ hands. The party has been united in its opposition to Section 702 since President Trump announced that he would nominate Mr. Pruitt, the top federal official who oversees mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to oversee the national spy agency.
Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, warned that unless the White House replaces Mr. Pelt, he cannot persuade other House Democrats to abandon their support.
“The president needs to calm down and realize that this is probably the worst and most dangerous of all the terrible appointments he’s made,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “He doesn’t like to back down, but he also doesn’t like terrorist attacks that might happen at the same time.”
Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and Mr. Hymes’s Senate counterpart, likened Mr. Trump’s selection of Pulte to throwing a “live grenade” into delicate negotiations on Capitol Hill.
“This was self-inflicted,” he said.
After meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson on June 9 to discuss the evolving situation, President Trump appeared unwilling to change course.
“William Prut, who works closely with Tulsi Gabbard, will be sworn in as Acting Director of National Intelligence on Friday, June 19th,” President Trump wrote on social media. “Thank you for your consideration in this matter!”
Zachary Schermele is a Congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can email us at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and on Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social..
