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Don’t fall for Trump’s lies — FISA 702 endangers your privacy

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by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), opinion contributor - 04/10/26 1:00 PM ET

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by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), opinion contributor - 04/10/26 1:00 PM ET

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FILE – In his June 6, 2013 file photo, the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a powerful authority to surveil Americans without a warrant — and it has a troubling history of misuse.

That is why a group of bipartisan members of Congress have been pushing for years to reform this authority — to demand real protections and safeguards to put an end to loopholes and abuses that infringe on the privacy rights of people. This year, it is more important than ever that we achieve those fundamental reforms.

Currently, the law is set to expire on April 20 unless Congress acts. Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller have been pushing for a “clean” extension of the law, with no new protections or safeguards. That is a reckless move — especially dangerous given how the White House has decimated independent oversight, shut down key auditing offices, and purged the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to prioritize loyalty to the president.

Protecting Americans’ constitutional rights while operating this surveillance program is only possible when key oversight and auditors within executive branch agencies are able to operate independently from the federal government and the president. While this Department of Justice’s actions have been particularly egregious, administrations on both sides of the aisle have routinely violated Americans’ privacy rights and conducted surveillance on millions of people without any warrant or justification.

This administration has made it particularly clear that there will be no independent check on the president’s authority. In fact, a recently published FISA court ruling shows that the FBI is already finding loopholes, with agents conducting secret searches that have not been logged and audited, as intended and required by law.

Now, President Trump is trying to sell warrantless surveillance by peddling the lie that this law doesn’t affect Americans. In a Truth Social post, he framed section 702 as a tool that will only “collect Intelligence on Foreigners and Noncitizens.” FBI Director Kash Patel and Fox News are echoing this talking point, insisting that it will only target “foreigners outside of the U.S.” and “terrorist targets.”

This is simply not true. Although section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act only authorizes foreigners abroad to be the designated targets of this warrantless surveillance, the program sweeps up a huge amount of Americans’ private communications in the process. As recently as 2021, the FBI conducted 3.4 million warrantless searches of U.S. citizen data, an increase from 1.3 million in the previous 12 months.

As a result of enormous outcry from civil liberties advocates and Americans of all political stripes, that number was substantially reduced in subsequent years. But the intelligence community is failing to accurately report the number of Americans caught up in this warrantless mass surveillance system.

In fact, according to the FISA court, in 2024, the FBI used an “advanced filter function” to conduct U.S. person queries, allowing it to avoid counting and oversight requirements. A Department of Justice review ordered by the FISA court was unable to determine how many such queries occurred or how many of these queries violated agency rules — shedding doubt on the numbers provided by the FBI.

The refusal of the FBI to properly audit and report U.S. person queries as required by law has made it impossible to fully evaluate the scope of the surveillance being conducted on U.S. persons. But any number of warrantless searches targeting Americans is undeniably significant. And we know that Americans’ communications that end up in the database have been routinely misused. FISA has been illegally used to spy on American protestors, lawmakers, journalists, and even an intelligence analyst’s prospective online dates.

Section 702 allows the government to target virtually anyone abroad, so long as it might yield some foreign intelligence information. As the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board stated, before Trump fired the majority of the Board, “Targets need not act at the behest of a foreign power. They also don’t have to violate U.S. law or engage in any activities hostile to the United States.” Simply having information that m