Cybersecurity Policy Report, ‘Warrantless Surveillance’ Debate Resumes in Advance of FISA Hearing Tomorrow, (Dec 10, 2025)
The use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to surveil Americans should be stopped by Congress, 25 privacy and civil liberties groups said in advance of a House hearing tomorrow to examine FISA.
The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a 9 a.m. hearing in Room 2141 of the House Rayburn Office Building to consider “potential legislative reforms” to FISA, according to a committee announcement.
In a letter to committee leaders, the groups called on the committee to “use this moment to advance commonsense measures that will protect all Americans, privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.”
The groups advocated for reforms to FISA section 702, which empowers U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor the communications of foreigners who are overseas and considered national security threats.
In practice, however, section 702 results in Americans’ communications being swept up when they communicate with a foreign intelligence target. Those communications can be searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under certain circumstances.
“FISA 702 is a warrantless surveillance authority that collects the private communications of a huge number of Americans. It has been repeatedly misused, and lacks the independent oversight that serves as a foundational check for government surveillance of Americans. Without significant reform, FISA 702 could be weaponized and abused in the future,” the groups said.
If the FBI wants to search the FISA database using “U.S. person” query terms, it should be required to obtain a probable cause warrant from a court, they said.
“The only way to reliably protect Americans is to establish a warrant rule, and require U.S. person queries to be approved by a judge based on a probable cause standard,” they told committee leaders.
Civil liberties advocates have long sought to add a warrant requirement to FISA section 702 for U.S. person queries of FISA data. When the law was last reauthorized in April 2024, the warrant requirement wasn’t included (CPR, April 22, 2024). Debate over the warrant requirement is expected to resume in advance of the law’s expiration in April 2026.
The groups also flagged a FISA provision that allows federal agencies to circumvent privacy rules by buying Americans’ data from data brokers, and they called for changes to the law’s definition of “electronic communication service provider,” which was enlarged last April to include previously exempt entities such as data centers and landlords and businesses that provide Wi-Fi or other communication services.
The groups signing the letter include the Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Free Press Action, and New America’s Open Technology Institute.
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