US House extends NSA surveillance law, rejecting new privacy safeguards

US President Trump tweeted in support of an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, on Thursday

The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to extend the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, rejecting a push by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to impose significant privacy limits when it sweeps up Americans’ emails and other personal communications.

The vote, 256 to 164, centered on an expiring law that permits the government, without a warrant, to collect communications from the US companies like Google and AT&T of foreigners abroad — even when those targets are talking to Americans. 

Congress had enacted the law in 2008 to legalise a form of a once-secret warrantless surveillance