Fisa

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, is a valuable, important national security tool for collecting foreign intelligence. The problem is that the government is also using section 702 as a backdoor for warrantless spying on Americans here at home.

FISA section 702 allows the intelligence community to collect the communications of foreigners who are overseas without a warrant. The justification for bypassing the Constitution's warrant requirement is that foreigners overseas are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. American citizens certainly are. But the government isn't just collecting the communications of foreigners; they are also collecting millions, if not billions, of communications of innocent Americans in touch with those foreigners as well. Our government then searches those private emails, phone calls, and text messages of Americans without a warrant. Congress has repeatedly failed to fix this end run around the Constitution's protection.

Unsurprisingly, without court approval for such searches, the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the FISA Court have documented shocking abuses of section 702 by our government. The intelligence community has used this authority to spy on American businesses, American religious leaders, political parties, campaign donors, journalists, and protesters across the political spectrum. And this was all before we had an administration which was expressly intent on targeting its political enemies.

In April 2024, Congress enacted the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, which reauthorized section 702 for 2 years with reforms that were meant to rein in past abuses. However, these reforms failed to prohibit warrantless searches of Americans' communications collected under section 702. In fact, warrantless searches of Americans increased in 2025, with the FBI alone conducting more than 7,000 warrantless searches on Americans last year.

Just as troubling is the increase in so-called sensitive queries by the FBI under Kash Patel's leadership. These are warrantless searches of section 702 data that target religious leaders or organizations, politicians or political organizations, or journalists. In 2025, the FBI conducted over three times as many sensitive queries as in 2024.

These statistics are troubling enough, but with the Trump administration closing oversight offices, firing compliance staff, dismantling the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and failing to testify, the full scope of their abuses remains unknown.

The administration is also keeping the latest FISA Court ruling on section 702 secret from the American people. The administration acknowledged that the court found ``deficiencies'' with how the government is conducting 702 searches. Yet it hasn't released the court's opinion or the details of these ``deficiencies'' to the American people.

Meanwhile, POLITICO reports that Stephen Miller--the architect of President Trump's immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Chicago, and beyond--is the White House's chief advocate for extending section 702.

Miller reportedly views section 702 as ``critical to a variety of homeland security missions.'' Why does Stephen Miller view section 702--a statute designed to collect foreign surveillance and intelligence--as critical to homeland security inside the United States? Well, in 2024, Congress quietly expanded section 702 to allow it to be used for immigration vetting.

How is the President exploiting this expansion of section 702 to carry out his mass deportation campaign? We don't know because the administration refuses to testify about the use of this authority.

Congress should not give Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and Kash Patel unchecked power to spy on Americans.

Last week, the House rightly rejected on a bipartisan basis attempts to renew section 702 without safeguards. Congress instead enacted a 10- day extension so it could reach an agreement on reform needed to protect our constitutional rights.

As in the past, some may argue that that is not enough time to enact reform before section 702 expires, but section 702 surveillance operates under yearlong certifications approved by the FISA Court. Even if 702 were to expire today, the law makes it clear that surveillance may continue under the current certification until March of 2027. There is no emergency excusing Congress from getting this right.

Congress should reform section 702 to protect Americans' constitutional rights and prevent further abuses. Senator Mike Lee of Utah--a conservative Republican--and I have proposed the bipartisan SAFE Act to do just that. Our bill includes a warrant requirement for conducting searches of U.S. persons' communications collected under section 702. This safeguard ensures that a judge, not the executive branch of government, approves the search.

There are exceptions for emergencies and other legitimate security needs to ensure that we can protect security and liberty at the same time. If the government has a legitimate basis for the search, they can make that case to the judge. If they do not, then they should not be rifling through private communications of Americans.

For too long, Congress has renewed section 702 without this basic protection from arbitrary government searches. Enough is enough. Congress should reauthorize 702 with sensible reforms to protect Americans from threats to their security and to their basic constitutional rights.

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