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Congress has failed to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, putting the surveillance authority on track to lapse for the first time since it was enacted in 2008.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a foreign-intelligence authority that lets agencies like the NSA, FBI and CIA collect the emails, calls and texts of non-Americans believed to be located overseas. It’s a targeted program rather than bulk collection, and both Democratic and Republican administrations have called it indispensable, saying it feeds more than half of the president’s daily intelligence brief and has helped thwart terror plots. The catch critics seize on is that because those foreign targets often communicate with people inside the US, the program inevitably sweeps up Americans’ communications too, which the government can then search without a warrant, a so-called “backdoor search” that privacy advocates and lawmakers in both parties have long fought to require a warrant for.

What’s going on now: The House rejected a short-term extension through July 2 on a 198-218 vote, falling short even of a simple majority. The warrantless foreign-surveillance program expires Friday at midnight, and with the House not due back until June 23, it is set to go dark.

The collapse was driven by Democratic objections to Trump’s pick of Bill Pulte, a housing official with no intelligence experience, to serve as acting director of national intelligence. Democrats refuse to back an extension unless Trump drops him, citing fears he would abuse intelligence tools against the president’s political enemies given his record of searching government databases for damaging material. A near-finished bipartisan deal for a three-year extension had fallen apart once Pulte was named.

Republicans blasted the impasse, with Speaker Mike Johnson calling the Democrats’ move “shameful” and Senate Majority Leader John Thune branding it irresponsible, both warning of the security risk during the upcoming World Cup and America250 events. Democrats countered that they could not support reauthorization without meaningful reforms to protect Americans’ privacy, with Intelligence Committee Democrat Jim Himes arguing there would be no negotiation “until the president backs away from Bill Pulte.”

Trump suggested he could extend the law by executive order, telling reporters, “Congress wants me to do it,” though it is unclear whether he has that authority and lawmakers called the idea uncharted territory.