U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday pulled back on plans to reauthorize one of America's most hotly debated domestic surveillance programs, saying he was "still working on consensus" as bipartisan opposition mounted against the plan hawkish Republicans had planned to introduce on Thursday. The measure would have reauthorized the surveillance program - known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - which is set to expire in April, Reuters reports.
The FISA bill, which would allow law enforcement to keep trawling through intercepts of Americans' communications without a warrant, has drawn the opposition of civil liberties advocates, rights defenders, and privacy-minded lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. "We're still working on consensus on FISA. I'm 100% certain that we'll be able to get there, and we're optimistic about that," Johnson said. "We still have two months to resolve it before it expires. And so there's no reason to rush the product until we have the full consensus, since that's what we're working on." Advocates of surveillance reform said the real reason for the delay was because the reauthorization's backers didn't feel they could pass it without including the warrant requirement