Senate Republicans are proposing a three-year extension of a key surveillance power that would include new guardrails and penalties for intelligence abuses but doesn’t include some of the biggest demands made by a bipartisan coalition of privacy hawks.
A copy of the bill reviewed by POLITICO would extend the program through June 12, 2029. It also includes a three-year ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a digital currency — a gesture toward House Republican hard-liners who have pushed for a permanent ban.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) took the lead in drafting the bill, which is being circulated ahead of the June 12 deadline to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which targets foreigners abroad but has come under controversy because of its ability to sweep in Americans.
A spokesperson for Cotton didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the legislation, which has not been publicly released but is being privately circulated.
Cotton consulted with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, as he drafted the bill in hopes of garnering enough bipartisan support to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Speaker Mike Johnson’s team has also been reviewing the text.
However, the push for Democratic support was complicated Tuesday by President Donald Trump’s decision to name Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. The appointment of Pulte, a close Trump political ally with no known intelligence experience, has fueled concerns from Democrats that he could weaponize the intelligence community against the president’s perceived political enemies.
Warner lambasted the pick during a Senate hearing Tuesday, saying Pulte’s appointment would make it harder to convince fellow lawmakers to renew Section 702 ahead of its looming expiration.
“What qualifications from my standpoint does Mr. Pulte bring to the office? Well, he has shown that he is willing to do anything that President Trump wants, legal or otherwise,” Warner said.
There are also lingering concerns among some far-right Republicans, particularly in the House, that could threaten passage of a long-term deal. One House GOP hard-liner granted anonymity to candidly describe the situation said that “there remain serious concerns.”
The copy of the bill obtained by POLITICO has some similarities to an extension of the spy program the House passed in April, including new penalties for violating search standards, a requirement for an attorney’s sign-off on some FBI’s searches and additional transparency provisions. It also narrows the definition of an “electronic communications service provider” after Congress previously broadened it in a way that sparked bipartisan concerns, though the change is unlikely to satisfy skeptics of the intelligence community.
The bill also does not include two other major provisions demanded by privacy hawks in the House and Senate: requiring federal officials to obtain a warrant before searching for Americans in databases of intelligence obtained abroad and preventing law enforcement from buying Americans’ information from data brokers without a warrant.
Meredith Lee Hill and John Sakellariadis contributed to this report.
