Surveillance & Civil Liberties

Congress Races to Reform FISA Section 702 Before April Sunset. Here Is What the Bill Would Change.

The bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act would require warrants for FBI searches, close the data broker loophole, and restore oversight of the secret FISA court — the most significant surveillance reform since the Snowden disclosures.

Veritas Press · March 24, 2026 · 11 min read · 5 sources cited

With FISA Section 702 approaching its April 2026 sunset, a bipartisan coalition in Congress has introduced the most significant surveillance reform legislation since the Snowden disclosures. The Government Surveillance Reform Act, sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mike Lee (R-UT) alongside Representatives Warren Davidson (R-OH) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), would fundamentally restructure how the U.S. government collects and searches Americans’ communications data.

What Section 702 Allows Today

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorizes the NSA to collect the communications of foreigners located outside the United States. In practice, this collection inevitably sweeps up vast quantities of Americans’ communications — emails, phone calls, text messages — when they communicate with foreign targets. The FBI can then search this database for Americans’ information without a warrant, a practice civil liberties groups call the ‘backdoor search loophole.’

What the Reform Bill Would Change

The bill introduces five major reforms. First, it requires federal law enforcement to obtain a warrant before searching Section 702 data for Americans’ information. Second, it closes the data broker loophole by prohibiting the government from purchasing Americans’ location data, web browsing history, search records, and chatbot conversations from commercial data brokers. Third, it repeals a controversial 2024 expansion that allowed the government to compel millions of Americans and companies to secretly participate in surveillance. Fourth, it reinstates the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board with confirmed members and bans politically motivated firings. Fifth, it mandates timely audits of agency query practices and public reporting.

The Transparency Companion Bill

In parallel, the Government Surveillance Transparency Act (H.R. 7738) would require public reporting of the hundreds of thousands of criminal surveillance orders issued by courts each year. Currently, these orders are typically sealed indefinitely — meaning Americans may be surveilled without ever learning about it, even when they are never charged with a crime.

Why This Matters Now

The bill arrives at a moment when government surveillance capabilities have expanded far beyond what even the Church Committee could have imagined in 1975. As documented throughout The Record, from Operation Mockingbird to MKUltra to the Snowden disclosures, the pattern is consistent: surveillance powers granted in the name of national security are routinely turned inward against domestic populations. The question before Congress is whether this generation will impose the constraints that previous generations did not.