Senate temporarily extends nation's controversial spying powers after House fumbles

The upper chamber's unanimous vote to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) gives Congress a little more breathing room beyond the April 20 deadline but still leaves lawmakers in the same divided place they started.

"We can't go dark," Thune said. "We just can't afford to go dark, so we've got to figure it out. Hopefully, we can move a 10-day extension, and we'll try and set things up to try and do something over here." 

While FISA as a whole is a vital tool for the government, particularly as uncertainty swirls about the true end of the war in Iran, Congress still isn't on the same page as the White House.

It's a rare horseshoe issue in Washington, D.C., that draws opposite ends of the political spectrum - conservatives and progressives - together on privacy rights.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has strongly pushed back against a clean reauthorization, arguing in a letter to his Democratic colleagues that leaps and bounds in AI are "supercharging how the government can surveil Americans."

And Wyden nearly derailed chances for the extension to pass in the upper chamber, but later argued it was the "right decision for today," and that tacking on another few days would give more leverage to lawmakers wanting reforms. 

Wyden told Fox News Digital that "the focus here needs to be what Ben Franklin talked about."

"Anybody who gives up their liberty to have security really doesn't deserve either," Wyden said. "And I don't buy the idea that liberty and security are mutually exclusive, and that's what the proponents, who just want a straight across the board approach are calling for."

The FISA issue will linger until the next deadline at the end of the month.