Congress punted the fight to reauthorize a key spy powers fight for six more weeks as privacy advocates see another opportunity to reform the controversial surveillance law.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was set to expire at the end of Thursday. With the legislation that Congress passed, the authority will now expire on June 12.

Section 702 is a surveillance authority meant to be used to spy on foreign adversaries. However, Americans’ private communications incidentally get surveilled without a warrant — contrary to the Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless surveillance.

The decision to do a short-extension arose after the House passed a three-year clean extension of the authority on Wednesday, which also contained a provision that would bar the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Many privacy advocates believe a CDBC would lead to a drastic increase in financial surveillance.

The House Freedom Caucus cheered the bill’s passage through the House, as it contains the CBDC provision.

The Freedom Caucus wrote:

The House passed FISA with critical anti-Central Bank Digital Currency language attached to block any attempt by unelected bureaucrats to create an Orwellian surveillance tool monitoring Americans’ finances. With FISA expiring tonight, the Senate must pass the House package immediately. Even if they opt for a short-term extension, HFC and our allies made abundantly clear that there is no path forward for a long-term extension of FISA without major reforms to safeguard Americans’ right to privacy.

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) said, “We’re hopeful that, since this is going to pass, that we will make use of this next 45 days to not only do the reforms that the House sent over this time and reject central bank digital currency.”

He added that Congress should do even more beyond the CBDC prohibition.

However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said that the package with the CBDC provision was “dead on arrival.” This forced Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to agree to a short-term extension to find a potential solution to reauthorize the spy powers authority.

As part of the deal Senate leaders agreed to with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Mark Warner (D-VA), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will send a letter to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard and the Justice Department to declassify the 702 court opinion within 15 days so that it could be used as part of negotiations.

The New York Times and the Washington Post have reported how the FISA Court issued an opinion last month that is still classified and may reveal startling issues with how intelligence agencies conduct surveillance by potentially skirting rules created by the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, the last reauthorization bill that passed through Congress.

The Brennan Center for Justice explained:

The opinion reportedly reveals that even though DOJ shut down the filtering tool the FBI used in 2024, the FBI has been using another, similar filtering tool to conduct queries without following the requirements of RISAA—this time, seemingly with DOJ’s blessing. And it’s not limited to the FBI: the NSA and CIA are reportedly using similar tools to search through Section 702 data for Americans’ communications. That means the systemic violations of RISAA are ongoing. Moreover, it means that the reported numbers of U.S person queries conducted by the FBI, NSA, and CIA in 2025 are all incomplete. And it means that any abuses occurring through the use of these querying tools are likely going undetected and unreported.

The Brennan Center argued that this potential rule means that intelligence agencies cannot self-police and Congress must establish a warrant requirement to search communications of Americans.

“Congress should require agents to get a warrant or FISA Title I order (a type of warrant issued by the FISA Court in foreign intelligence investigations) before accessing Americans’ private communications that have been “incidentally” collected under Section 702,” the Brennan Center wrote.

The Senate has been working on its potential solution to clear Section 702 through Congress.

“I think there’s already a pretty substantial dialog going on between Sens. Warner and Cotton and their counterparts in the House and the White House. We’re interested in looking at some ways in which it can be reformed. … So we’re entertaining those ideas at the moment,” Thune said about potential progress.

Many on the left also believe that this gives Congress the opportunity to reform the legislation.

Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Hajar Hammado said in a statement on Thursday:

Intelligence agencies, the White House and their allies in Congress have tried every trick in the book from fearmongering to misinformation, but they still can’t get their warrantless FISA reauthorization across the finish line. The reason we keep ending up at this point is congressional leaders’ refusal to allow votes on overwhelmingly popular, bipartisan reforms. This ‘my way or the highway’ approach needs to stop. When Congress returns, Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune must allow votes on amendments for real privacy protections or we’ll keep repeating this farce over and over again.

Hammado added, “Our bipartisan movement in defense of civil liberties is holding strong, and we won’t accept anything less.”