What happened

Congress passed a bare-minimum 10-day extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act early on Friday, pushing the programme’s expiration from 20 April to 30 April.

The House approved the stopgap by unanimous consent after 2 a.m., following hours of failed votes on longer-term proposals. The Senate cleared it by voice vote later on Friday morning.

Why it matters: Section 702 allows US intelligence agencies to collect foreign nationals’ electronic communications without a warrant. Roughly 350,000 foreign targets are monitored under the programme, but some of those targets communicate with Americans, meaning US citizens’ calls, texts and emails can end up in the government’s surveillance database.

Why longer renewals failed

Speaker Mike Johnson attempted two separate votes on Thursday night. A five-year reauthorisation failed first when 20 House Republicans joined Democrats in voting it down. An 18-month renewal that President Trump had demanded also failed.

The Republican holdouts span the party’s ideological spectrum. Libertarian-leaning members like Representative Thomas Massie oppose the programme on Fourth Amendment grounds. Other conservatives object to how the FBI has used Section 702 data to query Americans’ communications without judicial approval.

The privacy debate

Nearly all Democrats demanded reforms because they do not trust the Trump administration with the surveillance powers. For almost two decades, privacy advocates from both parties have sought to require a court order before federal agents can review an American’s information collected under Section 702.

The intelligence community argues that adding a warrant requirement would slow time-sensitive operations and endanger national security. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who previously advocated for FISA reform as a member of Congress, has supported the administration’s push for a clean renewal without new restrictions.

What happens next

Congress now has until 30 April to find a compromise that can pass both chambers. The 10-day window gives leadership time to negotiate, but the underlying divisions have not changed.

If no agreement is reached, the programme would lapse for the first time since its creation in 2008. Intelligence officials have warned that such a lapse during the Iran conflict would create gaps in the government’s ability to monitor foreign threats.