US House passes controversial foreign intelligence surveillance bill

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Late last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a controversial surveillance program, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), keeping a key element of the U.S. foreign intelligence-gathering operation in place.

The bill, passed in a 273-147 vote, will now move to the Senate, where it is expected to receive bipartisan approval.

It would have expired on April 19 without congressional action, after its implementation period was changed to two years from a previous version of five years, as some Republicans sought.

According to the White House, intelligence chiefs and top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee, not reauthorizing the bill, first created after the September 11, 2001, attacks and put forward by House Speaker Mike Johnson, would potentially have catastrophic effects.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have argued that FISA violates the constitutional right to privacy of Americans, and it was blocked three times by some rebel House Republicans in the past five months.

On April 10, Representative Mike Turner, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said, "We will go blind on April 19" without the bill.

The data of foreign nationals gathered by the program often includes communications with Americans and can be mined by domestic law enforcement bodies such as the FBI without a warrant, alarming both hardline Republicans and far-left Democrats.

The right to privacy is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.