A vital intelligence tool needs reauthorization. The House might wreck it instead.

As the U.S. government intercepts foreigners’ communications, conversations with or about Americans inevitably get swept up. Once again, Congress is battling over whether and how the FBI should be able to access this information.

The House plans to consider a measure this week reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The law governing how federal agencies may collect and use data collected from overseas targets must be reauthorized, as it was in 2012 and 2017. Yet this time there is a pronounced danger that, in an understandable drive to strike the right balance between privacy and security, lawmakers could hollow out, rather than sensibly reform, an important tool to combat terrorism, cyberattacks and espionage.

The House is planning a vote on an amendment from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) that would require the FBI to secure warrants before searching lawfully collected foreign intelligence data for references to Americans. This is data the National Security Agency gathers not in bulk, but on specific non-Americans believed to be operating outside the country and likely to communicate foreign intelligence information.