In fight over key surveillance law, officials look to sway congressional skeptics

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/ [login to see] /in-fight-over-key-surveillance-law-officials-look-to-sway-congressional-skeptics
The Biden administration and Congress are wrestling over the fate of a surveillance law that U.S. officials say is one of the government's best tools to gather foreign intelligence on everything from terrorists and hackers to Russia and China.

The statute, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is set to expire at the end of the year, unless Congress reauthorizes it. American officials say the program is a critical source of key intelligence on high-priority threats, and they warn that failing to renew it would deal a significant blow to national security.

But a growing number of lawmakers has expressed concerns about the program — and the government's surveillance powers more broadly — setting up what's expected to be a tough, months-long battle over Section 702.

Those dynamics were on display at a recent Senate hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Asked about the importance of the program, Garland told lawmakers that an "enormously large percentage" of the information he receives in his daily all-threats briefing comes from 702 collection. Failing to reauthorize the law, he warned, would be self-defeating.