Congress renewed a program that allows the government to collect communications of foreign nationals without the reforms that Representatives Michael Cloud (R-TX) and Chip Roy (R-TX) had fought for, including a permanent ban on a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and stronger privacy protections for Americans.
The two Republicans voted no on the 45-day extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), arguing that renewing it without any changes was a direct threat to the rights of everyday Americans.
The House approved the measure 261-111 just hours before the program was set to expire. The Senate had passed it unanimously earlier in the day, and it now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature.
For Reps. Cloud and Roy, the vote represented a missed opportunity and a familiar frustration.
The House had already passed a three-year reauthorization bill that included meaningful reforms, among them a permanent ban on a CBDC and stronger Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless government surveillance of American citizens.
The Senate rejected it entirely, never bringing it to the floor for a vote, and sent back a clean extension with no reforms attached.
Frustration From The Floor
Roy didn't hide his frustration.
"Under no circumstances should we allow technology to breach the wall that the Fourth Amendment created," he said from the House floor, arguing that the government should never be permitted to use surveillance powers to access the personal information of American citizens.
He called the Senate's move to sidestep the House bill unacceptable and urged the chamber to take up the stronger legislation.
Cloud was equally pointed. "The sleepy Senate had hoped to send us a FISA extension with no changes," he wrote on social media, describing the Senate's approach as one designed to slip through a largely empty House chamber without serious debate.
However, Cloud framed the outcome as a battle still in progress rather than a defeat.
The 45-day window, he argued, creates space to fight for three specific priorities: a permanent ban on a central bank digital currency, stronger FISA warrant protections, and what he called "Fourth Amendment not-for-sale protections," reforms that would stop intelligence agencies from purchasing Americans' personal data as a workaround to traditional legal safeguards.
"Even in our ‘loss’," Cloud wrote, "the battle is not over."
