Biden administration officials urged Congress on Tuesday to renew a surveillance program the government has long seen as vital in protecting national security but whose future is uncertain because of scrutiny from an unusual alignment of civil liberties advocates and some Republicans.
The program, which is under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, grants American spy agencies sweeping powers to surveil and examine communications of foreigners located outside the United States. It’s set to expire at year’s end unless Congress agrees to renew it.
Officials in the Democratic administration, bracing for a contentious debate on Capitol Hill about reauthorizing the program, sought on Tuesday to make a public case about the value of the statutory authorities that are at risk of expiring. They asserted that the program in recent years has yielded valuable insight into ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure, helped disrupt potential acts of terror and efforts to recruit spies, and contributed to the killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike last August.
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