Senate reaches deal to pass FISA reauthorization by deadline

After hours of impasse, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced an agreement Friday evening to vote on a set of amendments to a House-passed bill to reauthorize the program. warrantless surveillance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), putting him on a trajectory to complete before a midnight deadline.

The sweeping surveillance powers authorized by controversial FISA Section 702 were set to expire late Friday and appeared poised to disappear as senators argued over a package of amendments requiring warrants to examine Americans’ communications swept into the FISA Database among other changes.

“We have good news for American national security. Senators have reached an agreement that paves the way for approval of FISA reauthorization this evening,” Schumer announced on the Senate floor.

The bill would reauthorize the program for two years, instead of five years, as Senate and House leaders initially hoped. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reduced the reauthorization term by three years to appease conservative critics at his conference.

Earlier in the day, senators seemed pessimistic about the prospects for a deal.

“We could get dark over the weekend,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Intelligence Committee, warned Friday afternoon.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the lead sponsor of the amendment requiring warrants for any review of Americans’ communications scanned into the 702 database, told reporters Friday afternoon that he had not even been approached about a potential agreement on the amendments.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) spoke shortly after Schumer announced the deal to urge his colleagues to vote against any amendments to the bill.

He warned that changes at this late stage would require sending the bill back to the lower house, meaning it would have no chance of becoming law before the deadline.

“Any amendment to this bill at this time is tantamount to killing the bill,” he added. “A number of telecommunications companies have already contacted the Department of Justice to say that if this bill expires, as it will at midnight, they will stop complying with 702.”