Congress has just 10 days to renew a key government surveillance program before it expires, and a committee vote later today will set the course for how lawmakers proceed.

Why it matters: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has helped intelligence agencies collect data as part of counterterrorism, cybercrime, drug trafficking and several other types of investigations.

• But House Republicans are divided on how to address the program. Some side with the intelligence community, arguing the program should stay intact as is.
• Others side with privacy advocates and are pushing for changes to the program over reports that it's been abused to spy on unsuspecting Americans — including a U.S. senator and other officials.

Driving the news: The House Rules Committee will vote today on the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act.

• The bill has gone through several iterations in the last couple of months, but the latest version, unveiled Friday, removes the opportunity to add the privacy amendments that lawmakers had appeared ready to support earlier this year.
• Experts suspect that if the bill passes the Rules Committee, it will get a floor vote this week — and the Senate is anticipated to pass whatever bill the House sends its way.
• FISA Section 702 officially sunsets on April 19 — although parts of the program are authorized to run for another year.

Zoom out: FISA Section 702 allows intelligence agencies to conduct warrantless surveillance of noncitizens based outside the U.S., including by allowing them to read text messages, emails and other online communications.

• But some U.S. communications can sneak into collections if Americans are talking with non-U.S. citizens overseas.
• Section 702 program data collected is stored for years in a searchable database that intelligence agencies can tap as part of other investigations — which is where privacy advocates, progressives and far-right conservatives take issue.
• These groups argue that intelligence agencies should need a warrant to tap this collected information. But agencies say such a requirement would impede their ability to investigate serious issues, like ongoing ransomware attacks or terrorism plots.

Catch up quick: This week's committee vote marks the third time House lawmakers have tried to pass a compromise legislative package.

• In February, Speaker Mike Johnson's office spiked debate at the last minute on another legislative package over unknown disagreements.
• At that point, lawmakers were expected to also add an amendment that would require warrants for database searches and another that would bar data broker sales to the federal government.
• On Friday, the House Rules Committee released a new version of the bill that did not include those amendments.

The big picture: Since December, the Biden administration, privacy advocates and data brokers have embarked on a fierce lobbying campaign around Section 702.

• A senior administration official told reporters Friday that the administration had participated in congressional briefings this year that had reached roughly 178 House members and approximately 70 senators.
• The intelligence community is hosting a classified congressional briefing Wednesday for House members on Section 702.
• Various issues groups have started weighing in on the debate, including RELX, owner of data broker LexisNexis, and the Gun Owners of America.

Between the lines: While Johnson has been working to sell lawmakers on the new bill, advocates aren't buying the pitch that it would change the program enough.

• 45 of the 56 proposed reforms are plucked straight from the House Intelligence Committee's own proposal, Sean Vitka, policy counsel at Demand Progress, told Axios.
• 15 of those reforms either weaken privacy protections or codify existing standards, Vitka added.
• "It's trying to look like it's a compromise, but it's not," he said.

What's next: Onlookers are still waiting to see if the intelligence committee will add any amendments to the pending bills.

• The House Rules Committee will vote today on whether to send the bill to the floor, and the House could vote as soon as Thursday, experts say.

LinkedIn unveiled a new verification process today for job recruiters amid a rising number of scams targeting users.

Why it matters: Generative AI tools have made it easier for scammers to reach out to unsuspecting users about fake job offers to collect sensitive financial information.

Zoom in: Verified recruiters will soon receive a checkmark badge on their profiles that confirms they are who they say they are.

• When a recruiter messages someone, a badge will also appear under their accompanying profile information saying they're verified.
• Recruiter verification goes through the same process as other accounts on the the platform: Users can provide a work email for a verified company or work with partners like CLEAR.

Between the lines: LinkedIn estimates that it already catches most fake accounts before members report them.

• Adding verification is meant to help the "edge cases" that can still leak through those detection filters.

What they're saying: "This is really about giving members transparency and control, so they can make more informed decisions," Wei Tu, vice president of trust engineering at LinkedIn, told Axios.

Yes, but: LinkedIn verification is available only to North American users right now, although the company is working to expand verification to everyone.

What's next: LinkedIn will start rolling out the feature this week.

Alethea Group, an AI-powered social media monitoring platform, has secured a $20 million Series B round led by Google Ventures, the startup first tells Axios.

Why it matters: Alethea is one of the few cybersecurity companies able to raise money during an ongoing investment drought.

• Heading into the 2024 U.S. elections, the funding will help the company boost its staff levels and build its product to spot and detect foreign disinformation campaigns online.

Zoom in: Founded in 2019, Alethea wades through social media posts and other online chatter to detect foreign influence operations launched against its clients.

• Alethea's machine-learning platform pulls in news stories, social media posts and other content to track adverse user behaviors, the proliferation of new accounts and other indicators of a disinformation campaign.
• Customers include companies, nonprofits and governments that would benefit from knowing if there's an ongoing disinformation campaign about their work or products.
• A recent Alethea report found that Russian operatives have started creating fake versions of real news websites to link to in their social media campaigns — a far more sophisticated technique than 2016's bot-focused schemes.

The big picture: Alethea CEO Lisa Kaplan told Axios the new funding will help the company meet growing customer demand.

• Alethea is part of a growing group of companies using AI-enabled technologies to help organizations track false narratives and disinformation campaigns about them.

Between the lines: Alethea now has several notable cybersecurity investors on its roster.

• Karim Faris, general partner at Google Ventures, is joining Alethea's board as part of the new funding.
• Ballistic Ventures — a firm led by Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia, long-time Kleiner Perkins partner Ted Schlein, and ex-AT&T executive Barmak Meftah — has invested in Alethea since its Series A round and participated in the most recent raise.

What they're saying: "People kicked the tires on the tried and true, and then when that didn't work, they started reaching out to us," Kaplan said.

• "People realized that this is the kind of thing where [if] it's going to happen, it's going to happen to everybody and in a lot of ways; it brings together communications and cybersecurity."

What's next: Alethea currently has around 50 employees, and the new funding will help to bring the company closer to 75 by the end of the year, Kaplan said.

@ D.C.

🏛️ Two key lawmakers unveiled comprehensive bipartisan data privacy legislation, reviving congressional efforts to pass such a bill. (Axios Pro)

📲 More than a dozen Democratic House lawmakers are still posting on TikTok while voting to force a sale of the company from its Chinese parent company. (Politico)

💪🏻 French officials are visiting Washington this week for cybersecurity consultations ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. (New York Times)

@ Industry

🏥 The Change Healthcare cyberattack shows how reliant the entire health care system is on a small number of vendors. (Axios)

📍 Google launched a Find My Device network in the U.S. and Canada that runs on a crowdsourced network of Android devices. (9to5Google)

@ Hackers and hacks

⚠️ Hackers are actively exploiting a pair of critical flaws in D-Link tools, potentially affecting roughly 92,000 devices. (Ars Technica)

👀 A second ransomware gang is now saying it was involved in the Change Healthcare cyberattack. (SC Media)

🇵🇼 Officials from the island of Palau say they never heard from the ransomware gang that took down their networks last month — prompting questions about who was actually behind the incident. (The Record)

If you did not plan for the eclipse and found yourself scrambling for glasses/pinhole projectors/etc. — you were not alone, dear reader.