With US spy laws set to expire, lawmakers are split over protecting Americans from warrantless surveillance

A long-running law that has allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to collect and analyze huge amounts of overseas communications without needing search warrants is set to expire next week, and lawmakers are in a deadlock over whether to allow the Trump administration to extend it without any changes.

Known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the law allows the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies to record overseas communications that flow through the United States without needing individualized search warrants.

In sweeping up much of the world’s communications, the agencies also collect unfathomable amounts of information, including phone logs and emails, on Americans who interact with people subject to surveillance overseas. This data is collected despite constitutional protections that should shield Americans and people in the United States from government surveillance.

But ahead of the law’s expiry on April 20, a bipartisan, pro-privacy group of House lawmakers and Senators are calling for sweeping changes to FISA, arguing that the changes are “essential” for protecting the privacy rights of Americans.

Some lawmakers are calling for widespread reforms following years of scandals and surveillance abuses across successive U.S. administrations, while others are holding their vote to further their own political goals by attaching the provisions to other legislation. 

A social media post from President Trump suggests that, as of this week, the White House is keen on the idea of passing a simple re-authorization without any changes to the law.

In the middle of the night into Friday, House Republicans approved to extend FISA until April 30 as a stopgap to make more time to negotiate. The Senate, set to reconvene on Monday, would still need to approve the bill by majority vote for it to pass the short-term extension.

The bipartisan group’s legislative fix is the Government Surveillance Reform Act, introduced into Congress in March by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mike Lee (R-UT) and others, which aims to curtail some of the government’s warrantless surveillance programs. Among other things, the lawmakers seek provisions to prevent government agencies from using a “backdoor search” loophole that allows them to trawl the communications of Americans without first obtaining a search warrant.

Another key provision would prevent federal agencies from buying commercially available data about Americans from data brokers — a practice the U.S. government has long asserted that it does not need a court’s permission for.

App developers collect reams of location data from people who use smartphone apps, and then sell that information to brokers, who in turn sell that data to governments and militaries. FBI director Kash Patel confirmed in a congressional hearing in March that the FBI buys Americans’ location data without seeking court authorization.

Both Republicans and Democrats are reportedly keen on closing this loophole, which allows spy agencies to buy commercial data and use AI models to analyze billions of location points. This is currently also a sticking point in the U.S. government’s negotiations with Anthropic and OpenAI over the unrestricted use of their tools.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Project on Government Oversight are among some of the privacy groups supporting the bipartisan bill.

It’s currently unclear if the bill will pass, but lawmakers say legislative reforms are necessary, especially as technological advancements make it easier for tech companies and governments to surveil people than ever before.

Wyden, the longest-serving lawmaker to sit on any congressional intelligence committee and a known privacy hawk, has warned that many lawmakers are not fully aware that multiple U.S. administrations have long relied on a secret, legal interpretation of Section 702 that “directly affects the privacy rights of Americans.” Wyden said the matter remains secret, but urged the government to declassify the information so lawmakers can discuss it. 

In a post on X on Thursday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY, 4th) said he would vote against the reauthorization of Section 702, after he echoed Wyden by raising concerns about how the FBI was interpreting the law.

Even if Section 702 expires on Monday, it doesn’t mark the immediate end of the U.S. government’s surveillance powers.

While lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are yet to reach consensus on renewing or altering Section 702, a legal quirk would allow U.S. surveillance to continue until March 2027 unless Congress actively intervenes — even if the law expires.

This is because the secretive Washington D.C. court that oversees the government’s compliance with FISA, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), asks the government each year to certify that its practices are lawful. That rubber-stamp allows the government to collect phone calls and emails for a duration of 12 months, effectively guaranteeing that the surveillance programs that rely on FISA’s legal powers will continue for at least a year.

The U.S. government also has other surveillance powers that aren’t overseen by Congress, such as Executive Order 12333, an entirely secret presidential directive that dictates most of the U.S. government’s surveillance outside of the United States. It also ensnares an unknown quantity of Americans’ private communications.