Pulte or Not, the Surveillance State Won't Stop

The government’s sweeping spying powers will remain in place for a year, regardless of who becomes director of national intelligence. Both sides are pretending that’s not the case.

https://prospect.org/2026/06/11/pulte-or-not-surveillance-state-wont-stop-fisa-congress/


William Pulte is seen during a confirmation hearing last year before the Senate Banking Committee, February 27, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Credit: Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA via AP Images

Congress is staring down the barrel of a manufactured crisis. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) expires Friday, June 12. Under this authority, U.S. intelligence agencies conduct targeted surveillance of foreign nationals abroad, but agencies like the FBI, NSA, CIA, and National Counterterrorism Center routinely search 702-acquired data for Americans’ private communications, and they don’t need a warrant to do so. Yet contrary to claims that the program will lapse or “go dark” if Congress fails to extend it, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) certified the program for another year in March. According to Hannah James, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, the risk of Section 702 imminently lapsing “is a nonexistent one,” she said. “It’s effectively a myth.”

Democrats and Republicans allied with the intelligence community are both exploiting the pretend deadline as a means to get something they want. Unfortunately, that something has little to do with ending warrantless surveillance on American citizens. Next Friday, June 19, marks the beginning of Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte’s tenure as acting director of national intelligence (DNI). Pulte is replacing outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard, who happens to be close with her successor. A procedural vote in the Senate to begin debate on Section 702 failed 47-52 last week amid Democratic uproar over Pulte’s appointment.

Democrats are demanding that Pulte be removed from DNI before they will agree to any extension of Section 702. Politico reported that President Trump is expected to nominate a permanent DNI, though sources said he “continues to push back on any suggestion that he needs to placate Democrats to pave the way for a FISA extension.” But if Trump were to pull Pulte’s appointment and nominate Mister Rogers as permanent DNI, there is a bipartisan compromise ready to go that would merely extend the program for three years, without adding warrants to Section 702 searches. In other words, intelligence hawks like the authors of this bipartisan bill don’t want Pulte, a partisan henchman of Trump, to run the warrantless spying program, but they’re fine with some other Trump appointee doing it, regardless of the implications for privacy and liberty. In other words, they are using the backlash against Pulte as a cover to stave off meaningful reforms.

ONE SUCH HAWK, SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA), vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has been making the rounds, clutching his pearls over Pulte being named acting DNI. When Warner appeared on MS NOW’s All In with Chris Hayes on June 3, he seemed to feign outrage over Trump handing his henchman “the keys to all 18 of our intelligence agencies.” Throughout the interview, Warner enumerated the many reasons why Pulte probably shouldn’t have those keys, while simultaneously downplaying privacy concerns over Section 702. “This comes at a time when we’ve got this debate over 702, which is a critically important tool,” Warner said. “I’m less worried about him there.” On June 7, Warner told Dana Bash, co-anchor of CNN’s State of the Union, that Trump effectively threw a “live hand grenade” into FISA negotiations by naming Pulte acting DNI.

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