Unanimous Consent Requests
Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate is now debating section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires on Friday. Last week, the Senate resoundingly rejected a bill that would have continued the surveillance status quo.
It is clear the path to 60 votes in the Senate on section 702 runs through real reforms. There is no reason why the Senate can't start moving forward with surveillance reform now.
I and other colleagues have introduced comprehensive, bipartisan, bicameral surveillance reform legislation, which would protect both Americans' rights and national security.
We have been championing these reforms for some time, but I understand the Senate is divided on the issue. So Senators are going to need to get to work trying to forge a path forward.
So I am prepared to put some real offers on the table right now. So I am going to start by asking unanimous consent to pass a simple bill that makes one very important reform. It would require government agencies to get a warrant before using section 702 to read the communications of Americans. It contains a number of exceptions, including for emergencies, and our analysis is that it would be very feasible for the executive branch and the FISA Court to implement it.
Most importantly, it would finally bring section 702 in line with the principles of the Fourth Amendment. Law-abiding Americans are getting swept up in section 702 now, and this bill would require that government agencies get a warrant if they want to read Americans' emails, text messages, or other sensitive communications.
And let me note: A number of Republicans in both the Senate and the House have sponsored or cosponsored legislation to create the kind of warrant I am talking about.
This bill is only one part of my comprehensive surveillance reform bill. It doesn't address numerous other concerns related to FISA or other intelligence authorities and the sale of Americans' location data. It is not a long-term solution by itself; it will, however, extend section 702 of FISA for 9 months, well into next year.
So I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4738, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I think it is unfortunate what my friend from Texas is saying.
Let me be clear. The warrant requirements that I am talking about are sponsored or cosponsored by Republican Members both in the Senate and in the House. And my bill does not require a warrant to search metadata. A warrant is only required to read the contents of Americans' communications.
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Mr. WYDEN. Of course.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, without continuing this well into the evening, let me just say that I am quite certain that the senior Republicans who have sponsored or cosponsored these ideas understand what this is all about, and I believe we will continue this conversation.
Mr. President, I am now going to move to another unanimous consent request to pass an even narrower bill that is hard to see anybody objecting to. It would not make any changes to surveillance law, but it would significantly increase public transparency about the impact of surveillance on Americans' rights.
It would create some new reporting requirements that would help inform Congress and the public about surveillance activities that impact American citizens. It would direct the executive branch to declassify a March 2026 FISA Court ruling on section 702 that found significant violations affecting Americans. The executive branch is already legally required to declassify the report, and they have had 3 months to work on it; in my judgment, it needs to be redacted and released in the next couple of weeks so they can inform the surveillance debate here in the Senate.
The chairman and the vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, which I am honored to serve on, called on the executive branch to redact and release this court ruling by May 15, but the executive branch simply disregarded their request. This bill also extends 702 for 5 weeks.
4740; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have served on the committee for many years with my friend, and I appreciate him and don't want to give him a hard time. I am a U.S. Senator from Oregon, though, and I think I have been called the Senator from Washington.
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Mr. WYDEN. Our friendship will continue.
Now, Mr. President, I think, at this point, my colleague has a unanimous consent request that he wishes to make. Then I will respond, and we will complete our business for the night. So my colleague, I would say, ought to make his unanimous consent at this point.
I would only close my remarks by saying every day that section 702 is in effect without reforms is a day that Americans' rights are, unfortunately, under threat. If there is going to be an extension of these authorities, there need to be some guardrails or at least some transparency that would allow Congress and the American people to understand the abuses that have taken place and the need for the kind of reforms that I and, as I say, senior Republicans in both the Senate and the House have been backing.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, just very briefly before I leave the floor, I only want to say to my friend that I am always interested in talking to him about ideas, to bring people together and find some common ground. I have said, as we have gone through this debate, that Ben Franklin summed it up as, basically, liberty and security aren't mutually exclusive.
We can figure this out, but we are going to have to start talking. We are going to have to have some negotiations. I have enjoyed talking with my friend from Texas and would be happy to continue it in the future.
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