The Senate has passed a bill reauthorizing Section 720 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial program that allows warrantless spying on foreign \u201ctargets,\u201d <\/strong>but a long, knock-down, drag-out fight over amendments kept the Senate in session past midnight on Friday, when the surveillance program officially expired. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n To be clear, the spying wasn\u2019t actually going to stop. As Sen. Mike Lee (R-OH) pointed out on the Senate floor on Friday afternoon, the FISA court recently granted a government request to allow the program to continue until April 2025. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) claimed that the FISA court\u2019s extension of Section 702 certification \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean the program can continue uninterrupted for another year.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn the event of a lapse,\u201d Cornyn continued, \u201ctonight at midnight, some communication service providers will stop cooperating with the United States government. That\u2019s exactly what happened in 2008 when the predecessor of 702, called the Protect America Act, lapsed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAllowing 702 to expire would be \u2018an act of unilateral disarmament in the face of the Chinese Communist Party\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Cornyn was keen on the importance of the FISA spying program, saying, \u201cFBI Director Chris Wray said allowing 702 to expire would be, quote, an act of unilateral disarmament in the face of the Chinese Communist Party, close quote. So the stakes are extremely high.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) also stressed the urgency of reauthorizing of Section 702, claiming that \u201csixty percent\u201d of the president\u2019s daily brief comes from material collected through the surveillance program. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Less than three hours before Section 702\u2019s expiration, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a version of the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act<\/a> as an amendment to the reauthorization bill. (It ultimately failed 31-61.) Paul was clearly frustrated at other senators\u2019 comments that it was too late to add new amendments to the bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe idea that we don\u2019t have enough time is a specious one,\u201d Paul said. \u201cThe only reason we don\u2019t have time is because the supporters of this bill delayed it to the last hour. We\u2019ve had five years to renew this!\u201d In his colleagues\u2019 defense, the House had three failed votes on Section 702<\/a> before it was finally able to send its bill to the other chamber, leaving the Senate with barely a few days before the FISA sunset for its own proceedings. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe House is still here,\u201d Paul pointed out. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be voting tomorrow. We should pass the good amendments today, send them to the House tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The House is scheduled to be in session on Saturday to vote on aid packages and a potential TikTok ban. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n With two hours to go before Section 702\u2019s expiration, <\/strong>the so-called act of unilateral disarmament in the face of the Chinese Communist Party, <\/strong>the senators then took a five-minute interlude to congratulate Susan Collins for making her 9000th roll call vote. \u201cDay after day, year after year, our senior-most appropriator has demonstrated, through her dedication: do your homework, show up to vote on everything, on time,\u201d said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Wyden-Hawley amendment failed, meaning that the next iteration of the FISA surveillance program will be more expansive than before<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced an amendment that would have struck language <\/strong>in the House bill that expanded the definition of \u201celectronic communications service provider.\u201d Under the House\u2019s new provision, anyone \u201cwho has access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.\u201d The expansion, Wyden has claimed, would force \u201cordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying.\u201d\u00a0The Wyden-Hawley amendment failed 34-58, meaning that the next iteration of the FISA surveillance program will be more expansive than before. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n