A surveillance law is in congressional limbo.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Stephanie Hughes.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, allows government agencies to collect information about foreign nationals located abroad.

That surveillance can happen without a warrant, and the government can order email providers to turn over any messages of a particular foreigner, including those with a U.S. citizen.

Section 702 is set to expire this week.

President Trump has called for its extension,

but there are congressional lawmakers in both parties

who oppose the kind of surveillance the law allows for.

Elizabeth Goitin, who's with the Brennan Center for Justice,

has testified before Congress, advocating for a reform of the law.

She says right now it lets agencies search through

American sensitive data. The main reform is to close this backdoor search loophole by requiring

the government to get either a warrant or a FISA Title I order. That's a type of warrant

that the FISA court issues in foreign intelligence

investigations before accessing Americans' communications that have been collected under Section 702.

There's also a lot of bipartisan support to use this opportunity to close the data broker loophole. The data broker loophole

refers to the government's practice of evading constitutional and statutory privacy protections

by purchasing America's sensitive information from data brokers. Yeah, how likely do you think it is that any of these reforms

actually happen? It is very hard to game this right now because, you know, on the one hand,

I think the administration and, and Speaker Johnson are pretty committed to making sure that

the president has maximum surveillance authority without protections for

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