Trump Officials Press Congress to Renew Spying Law in Lame-Duck Session

The Trump administration pressed top lawmakers on Friday to extend a high-profile warrantless surveillance law within the next month, moving to resolve a thorny policy dispute in the last weeks of a Republican-controlled Congress.In a letter to congressional leaders, three top national security officials in the administration — Todd Blanche, the attorney general, Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A.director — said President Trump had urged them to extend the law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act now.“As you know, Section 702 is the single most indispensable tool we have to keep our homeland and the American people safe,” they wrote.

“It enables our intelligence community to detect and disrupt terrorist plots, cyber intrusions, and weapons proliferation.No other authority can replace it.”But any push to bring a Section 702 bill to the floor — either by itself, or bundled with some larger package like the annual National Defense Authorization Act — appeared likely to set off a new round of heated contention.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates in both parties have been pushing to add new limits, like requiring the government to obtain permission from a judge before deliberately gaining access to the messages of Americans swept up under the program.In a statement, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and proponent of adding more limits to the program, said the issue should wait for the next Congress, when Democrats will have control.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....