A surveillance law that allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect the communications of foreign targets abroad without a warrant is set to expire at midnight on Friday, prompting warnings from current and former officials that a lapse could endanger national security.
The immediate effect of allowing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expire would be limited. That’s because a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court renewed the government’s surveillance certifications in March, allowing intelligence agencies to continue using the authority until March 2027.
But supporters of the law say a lapse risks creating uncertainty for the government and the companies it relies on to provide information. If Congress has not renewed the law by 2027, they argue, the government could lose access to one of its most important intelligence-gathering tools.
Critics, however, contend that the warnings overstate the immediate risk and obscure the reason the law has become so politically contentious: Section 702 is aimed at foreign targets abroad, but it has been used to search Americans’ communications collected in the course of that surveillance.
Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel of the National Security Agency (NSA), tells TIME the risk of a lapse should not be dismissed. Crucially, he explains, the intelligence acquired through Section 702 makes up roughly 70% of the President's daily brief.
“In other words, it covers everything from sanctions evaders, to narco-terrorists, to ISIS terrorists, to what Iran might be up to, North Korea, etc,” he says during a phone interview. “So it's probably the critical national security tool. So if it lapses, it stands to reason that we'd be worried about what we're missing.”
Technology companies would also become more reluctant to comply with government requests, he argues, in particular if they fear violating privacy agreements or be
