Congressional Democrats have joined in bipartisan effort to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amid abuses exposed in special counsel probes and in federal court.
Congressional reauthorization of FISA is due in December, with particular focus on Section 702 of the law, which permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance on foreign people outside the U.S., with the assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information.
Beyond concerns about FISA abuses, lawmakers are also concerned about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, otherwise known as the FISA Court, which oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the U.S by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
In May a U.S. court found that the FBI improperly searched for information in a U.S. database of foreign intelligence 278,000 times over several years, including on Americans suspected of crimes.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has said that Durham's final report shows that there was political bias against former President Trump at "The highest levels of the FBI." "This Congress needs to change the 702 program, relative to the FBI and to use the appropriations process to get policy language that will help with what we've called the weaponization of these agencies against the American people," the Ohio Republican recently said.
How members of Congress will decide on FISA's future will likely depend, at least in part, on what FBI Director Christopher Wray has to say about the matter when he testifies before Jordan's committee July 12.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee, said that Congress needs to build more safeguards into FISA before section 702 gets reauthorized.
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