The law that lets the US government spy without warrants is about to expire. Here’s what comes next

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act lets US intelligence agencies collect communications from foreigners abroad without a warrant, and routinely sweeps in Americans’ emails, messages, and calls in the process.

It’s set to expire Saturday. And Congress has all but assured it will.

In a 218-to-198 vote(neues Fenster) Thursday, the House rejected a short-term extension. Senate Democrats blocked a parallel effort hours later. Enough lawmakers from both parties refused to renew these powers without a warrant requirement attached. Speaker Mike Johnson called the lapse “dangerous, and very, very shameful.”

Privacy advocates have argued the opposite for years: Renewing Section 702 without reform is the danger.

Surveillance doesn’t stop when the law does

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court renewed its procedures for the Section 702 program in March(neues Fenster). On Thursday, Representative Jamie Raskin said “government surveillance activities will continue unchanged” and that “current FISA authorizations will continue unaffected, at least through March 17, 2027,” according to CBS News(neues Fenster). Even Representative Rick Crawford, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a supporter of renewal, confirmed the 702 database “would remain available to search.” The concern is that data grows stale over time, not that collection stops.

The more immediate problem is that some carriers have privately warned(neues Fenster) they will stop cooperating once the statute lapses, fearing legal liability without an active law behind the government’s requests. Intelligence agencies and telecoms face uncertainty(neues Fenster) about what collection can legally continue. Reform legislation would have resolved that. Congress chose not to pass it.

A warrant requirement needed three more votes

Axios reported(neues Fenster) that lawmakers in both parties were close to a longer-term extension. What they couldn’t agree on was whether to attach the reforms a substantial bloc of lawmakers has demanded for years.

Conservative Republicans who have long pushed back on FBI abuses of the Section 702 database refused to vote for a clean renewal. Democrats who previously supported the program did the same. 

The warrant requirement is not a fringe position: when it came to a House vote in 2024, it failed 212-212(neues Fenster). This week, a clean extension couldn’t reach a majority. The reform bloc, for the first time, had enough votes to block renewal outright.

Both parties expand surveillance when in power

We’ve documented this pattern for years. Section 702 has grown under every administration that has touched it. The party in power defends and extends these authorities. The party out of power raises objections, until it wins.

President Bush signed the Patriot Act into law on October 26, 2001(neues Fenster), expanding domestic surveillance authority. Once in power, the Obama administration signed a four-year reauthorization(neues Fenster) of those same provisions, despite bipartisan resistance in Congress.

The 2024 renewal also made this plain. As a candidate, President Trump said “KILL FISA” days before Congress passed a renewal that President Biden signed into law, expanding Section 702 by broadening which companies can be compelled to assist with surveillance. The warrant amendment failed. Surveillance expanded. Both parties voted for it.

The case for reform doesn’t depend on who is in office. These powers have no meaningful checks on how they are used. 

When searching Americans’ private communications requires no warrant, the only protection users have is whether the people in charge choose to exercise restraint.

That is not a protection.

The warrant requirement is the specific reform that matters

The Government Surveillance Reform Act(neues Fenster), backed by a bipartisan coalition including senators Ron Wyden and Mike Lee, would require a warrant before agencies can search Americans’ data collected under Section 702.

It would close the loophole that lets the government buy personal data from brokers instead of going to court, so location data and browsing history can’t be purchased to avoid judicial oversight. It would also roll back the expanded definition of who can be forced to assist with surveillance, with direct implications for how VPN traffic is classified under the law.

Reauthorization will come back. This time, reformers have leverage.