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Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight deadline

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Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight deadline

WASHINGTON (AP) — After its midnight deadline, the Senate voted early Saturday to reauthorize a key U.S. surveillance law after divisions over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans’ data nearly forced the statute to lapse.

The legislation approved 60-34 with bipartisan support would extend for two years the program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden “will swiftly sign the bill.”

“In the nick of time, we are reauthorizing FISA right before it expires at midnight,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said when voting on final passage began 15 minutes before the deadline. “All day long, we persisted and we persisted in trying to reach a breakthrough and in the end, we have succeeded.”

U.S. officials have said the surveillance tool, first authorized in 2008 and renewed several times since then, is crucial in disrupting terror attacks, cyber intrusions, and foreign espionage and has also produced intelligence that the U.S. has relied on for specific operations, such as the 2022 killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

“If you miss a key piece of intelligence, you may miss some event overseas or put troops in harm’s way,” Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said. “You may miss a plot to harm the country here, domestically, or somewhere else. So in this particular case, there’s real-life implications.”

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The proposal would renew the program, which permits the U.S. government to collect without a warrant the communications of non-Americans located outside the country to gather foreign intelligence. The reauthorization faced a long and bumpy road to final passage Friday after months of clashes between privacy advocates and national security hawks pushed consideration of the legislation to the brink of expiration.

Though the spy program was technically set to expire at midnight, the Biden administration had said it expected its authority to collect intelligence to remain operational for at least another year, thanks to an opinion earlier this month from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which receives surveillance applications.

Still, officials had said that court approval shouldn’t be a substitute for congressional authorization, especially since communications companies could cease cooperation with the government if the program is allowed to lapse.

House before the law was set to expire, U.S. officials were already scrambling after two major U.S. communication providers said they would stop complying with orders through the surveillance program, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

Attorney General Merrick Garland praised the reauthorization and reiterated how “indispensable” the tool is to the Justice Department.

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“This reauthorization of Section 702 gives the United States the authority to continue to collect foreign intelligence information about non-U.S. persons located outside the United States, while at the same time codifying important reforms the Justice Department has adopted to ensure the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” Garland said in a statement Saturday.

But despite the Biden administration’s urging and classified briefings to senators this week on the crucial role they say the spy program plays in protecting national security, a group of progressive and conservative lawmakers who were agitating for further changes had refused to accept the version of the bill the House sent over last week.

The lawmakers had demanded that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer allow votes on amendments to the legislation that would seek to address what they see as civil liberty loopholes in the bill. In the end, Schumer was able to cut a deal that would allow critics to receive floor votes on their amendments in exchange for speeding up the process for passage.

The six amendments ultimately failed to garner the necessary support on the floor to be included in the final passage.

One of the major changes detractors had proposed centered around restricting the FBI’s access to information about Americans through the program. Though the surveillance tool only targets non-Americans in other countries, it also collects communications of Americans when they are in contact with those targeted foreigners. Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, had been pushing a proposal that would require U.S. officials to get a warrant before accessing American communications.

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“If the government wants to spy on my private communications or the private communications of any American, they should be required to get approval from a judge, just as our Founding Fathers intended in writing the Constitution,” Durbin said.

In the past year, U.S. officials have revealed a series of abuses and mistakes by FBI analysts in improperly querying the intelligence repository for information about Americans or others in the U.S., including a member of Congress and participants in the racial justice protests of 2020 and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

But members on both the House and Senate intelligence committees as well as the Justice Department warned requiring a warrant would severely handicap officials from quickly responding to imminent national security threats.

“I think that is a risk that we cannot afford to take with the vast array of challenges our nation faces around the world,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Friday.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

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Trump calls 'obliteration' an accurate description of damage to Iran's nuclear facilities

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Trump calls 'obliteration' an accurate description of damage to Iran's nuclear facilities

A satellite image shows the Fordo nuclear facility in Iran in this handout image dated June 14, 2025.

Maxar Technologies | Via Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday disputed Iranian attempts to downplay the strikes on its nuclear facilities, stressing that “obliteration” was an accurate description, even though the full extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities was not immediately clear.

“Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images. Obliteration is an accurate term! The white structure shown is deeply imbedded into the rock, with even its roof well below ground level, and completely shielded from flame. The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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Damaged or destroyed?

The U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said Sunday that there was “severe damage and destruction” to the facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, but did not go so far as to say that Iran’s nuclear capacities had been “obliterated.”

“Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,” Caine said.

A satellite image shows the Fordo nuclear facility in Iran in this handout image dated June 14, 2025.

Maxar Technologies | Via Reuters

Meanwhile, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Sunday that while the damage assessment is ongoing, “all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect.”

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When asked if Iran still retains any nuclear capability, Caine said that “BDA is still pending, and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there.”

Battle Damage Assessment, or BDA, is a military term that refers to the process of evaluating the effects of military operations on a target.

It usually involves a physical or functional check on the extent of damage, beyond visual signs, and whether the target remains operable.

These assessments are usually conducted by intelligence analysts and reconnaissance teams, using data from drones, satellites, radar, or ground reports. It helps commanders decide if the mission achieved its objectives and if follow-up strikes are needed.

The UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi also struck a cautious tone, saying that it was not yet possible to assess the damage done at the Fordo nuclear facility.

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Adding to the uncertainty, Reuters reported, citing a senior Iranian source, that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordo had been moved to an undisclosed location ahead of the U.S. strikes on the enrichment site.

The strikes began early on Saturday, when six U.S. Air Force B-2 stealth bombers dropped six GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) – a 30,000-pound bomb known as the “bunker buster,” – on Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility, which is built into the side of a mountain.

A seventh U.S. B‑2 bomber released two GBU‑57 bombs on the Natanz Nuclear Facility, while a U.S. Navy submarine also launched a volley of 30 Tomahawk missiles, targeting Natanz and a third site, Isfahan.

The mission, code named Operation Midnight Hammer, involved more than 125 aircraft in total.

— Erin Doherty contributed to this report

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Missteps, Confusion and ‘Viral Waste’: The 14 Days That Doomed U.S.A.I.D.

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The rapid dismantling of the global aid agency remains one of the most consequential outcomes of President Trump’s efforts to overhaul the federal government, showing his willingness to tear down institutions in defiance of the courts.

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Trump has opened a Pandora’s box 

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Trump has opened a Pandora’s box 

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They say with Donald Trump that accusation is confession. Having warned during the 2024 campaign that Joe Biden, then Kamala Harris, would trigger “world war three”, Trump is now offering a perilous test of that proposition. In his statement on Saturday night, Trump pronounced his military strikes on Iran a success. America’s bunker-busting bombs had obliterated Iran’s nuclear capacity, he said. It could take a while to find out whether both Iran and Israel — the prime actors in a show that Trump did not script but in which he is now taking a starring role — will share the US president’s assessment. But Trump is hoping that his awesome display of power will bring the curtain down on the war. That is not his decision to make. 

Whatever happens next, it is worth recalling how Trump got here. Ten days ago, Benjamin Netanyahu torpedoed Trump’s nuclear negotiations with Iran with a series of devastating missile strikes. Israel’s prime minister said that Iran was weaponising its nuclear programme and posed an existential threat. Most others, including the US intelligence community, do not share Netanyahu’s diagnosis. Having his desired deal scuppered by Israel’s move, Trump quickly associated himself with it. He demanded Iran’s unconditional surrender and said that he could take out the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, at any point. Iran did not submit to Trump’s demand. His de facto declaration of war on Saturday night was the outcome. 

It also bears stressing that nobody, including Trump, knows what will happen next. It is easy to start a war, especially if you command the most powerful military on Earth. But wars only end when one side gives up. That age-old warning about the fog of war is particularly relevant to today’s Middle East, in which there are often more than two warring parties. The enemy of your enemy can turn out also to be your enemy. Having once been lectured by a younger Netanyahu, Bill Clinton said to an aide, “Who’s the fucking superpower here?” Trump’s brief televised address following the strikes was meant to showcase his command of the situation. In reality, Netanyahu has been dictating events. But even he cannot predict how Iran will respond. 

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Netanyahu’s interests are not the same as Trump’s. Israel’s leader has made it clear he wants regime collapse in Iran. Trump wants Iran to surrender. The first would be precipitated by a strong Iranian response that left Trump no choice but to escalate — a prospect he threatened in his address. The second would involve a token Iranian retaliation that enabled Trump to declare mission accomplished. How this unfolds, and who gets to diagnose whether Iran’s actions are token or lethal, is largely out of Trump’s hands. This leaves him as the most powerful military actor in the Middle East but potentially a hollow one. Power is about the ability to shape events. Trump is largely their prisoner. 

Whatever happens, Trump’s bombing of Iran has defined his presidency at home as well as abroad. This is Trump’s war now. Iran’s submission would reverberate to his advantage in many ways; a full-blown war could sink his presidency. Among the ironies, Trump’s Iran strikes are being cheered on by many of the “Never Trumpers” who had been warning so starkly of Trump’s autocratic impulses. They are prepared to risk the power-aggrandising opportunity that war will offer Trump. Another irony is Trump’s Maga allies, such as Steve Bannon, are among the biggest sceptics of this latest, and potentially most dramatic, chapter in the “forever wars” that Trump has vowed to end. 

Only a fool would take Trump at his word, which he serially breaks. But it is safe to say that his ambition of winning the Nobel Peace Prize is unlikely to bear fruit. Without consulting Congress, and in probable contravention of international law, Trump has taken a fateful gamble. Whether he has fully digested this fact or not, he is now committed to seeing this through to the end. Iran and Israel will have at least as big a say as Trump in deciding when and how that happens. 

edward.luce@ft.com

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