Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires on April 20. Five days from now, the legal authority that allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect the communications of foreign targets — and, increasingly, to search through that data for Americans' names, phone numbers, and email addresses without a warrant — sunsets.

Congress shows no sign of reaching a deal.

The numbers that should be driving this debate are straightforward. According to the government's own transparency report, published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI queries of Americans' data under Section 702 rose 35% in 2025 — from 5,518 in 2024 to 7,413 in 2025.

But here's the number that should alarm every American regardless of political affiliation: the FBI acknowledges that the 7,413 figure is incomplete. Bureau personnel used what the Department of Justice euphemistically describes as an "advanced filter function" that conducted additional U.S.-person queries beyond those logged through standard oversight processes. A DOJ review ordered by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was unable to determine how many such queries occurred or how many violated agency rules.

The government is searching Americans' communications without a warrant — and it can't tell Congress how many times it did so.

What Section 702 Actually Does

Section 702 was enacted in 2008 to replace the Bush-era warrantless wiretapping program with a statutory framework. The law authorizes the NSA to collect the communications of non-U.S. persons located overseas for foreign intelligence purposes, without an individualized warrant from the FISA Court.

The program was designed to target foreign threats. But the architecture of modern telecommunications means that Americans' communications are inevitably swept up in the collection — when an American emails a foreign target, when a foreign target calls an American, or when an American's data transits the same infrastructure being monitored. Intelligence agencies call this "incidental collection."

What happens next is the constitutional flashpoint. Under current law, once that data is collected, the FBI can search it using Americans' names, phone numbers, email addresses, and other identifiers — without going to any court for a warrant. These are called "U.S.-person queries," and they represent a backdoor around the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement.

The bipartisan coalition pushing for reform argues that if the government wants to search a database for an American's communications, it should get a warrant — the same standard that applies to every other law enforcement search in the country. The warrant requirement proposals include exceptions for emergencies, consent, and cyberattack identification.

The Vote Count

The politics don't break along party lines, which is precisely why the debate has stalled.

In the House, 98 Democrats — the entire Congressional Progressive Caucus — have formally committed to opposing any Section 702 reauthorization without "dramatic reforms," including a warrant requirement. That's nearly a quarter of the House locked in against a clean extension.

On the Republican side, Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona has insisted that the bill include warrant protections before querying Americans' communications. The bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act, introduced by Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Representative Warren Davidson (R-OH), Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), remains the only bicameral bill that would reauthorize 702 with a warrant requirement.

President Trump supports a clean extension with no reforms. The intelligence community argues that a warrant requirement would cripple the program. Former intelligence directors published an open letter last week urging Congress to renew without conditions.

The warrant amendment came within a single vote of passing during the 2024 reauthorization — the House split 212-212 on a motion to add warrant requirements. Speaker Johnson cast the deciding vote against.

What the Abuse Record Shows

The case against trusting the FBI to police its own queries is not theoretical. FISA Court opinions and inspector general reports have documented a pattern of improper searches:

U.S.-person queries have been conducted on sitting members of Congress, according to declassified FISA Court opinions. Political campaign donors have been searched. Journalists covering national security have been queried. A Bureau analyst ran queries on the subjects of their online dating app matches — a fact documented in a 2023 FISA Court opinion that the government initially tried to keep classified.

In 2025, only 28% of FBI queries returned any Section 702 information at all, according to the government's transparency report — down from 38% in 2024. That means nearly three-quarters of the searches weren't targeted enough to return results. When a search tool produces results less than a third of the time, it suggests the tool is being used for broad fishing expeditions rather than focused intelligence work.

The FBI's own internal compliance review, mandated by the 2024 reauthorization, found ongoing violations of query standards. The specifics remain classified, but the FISA Court has ordered additional compliance measures — a step the court typically takes only when existing safeguards have demonstrably failed.

Five Days

The intelligence community warns that letting Section 702 expire would create a dangerous collection gap during heightened tensions with Iran. Reform advocates counter that a five-day lapse would not immediately end ongoing collection — the FISA Court's existing certification runs through April 2027, and intelligence agencies could continue operating under that certification even if the underlying statute sunsets, though new certifications could not be issued.

The legal ambiguity itself is a problem. If Section 702 lapses, ongoing collection continues under existing court orders, but the legal basis for that collection becomes immediately vulnerable to challenge. Any criminal prosecution that relies on 702-derived evidence would face a constitutional attack. Foreign partners who share intelligence based on the U.S. legal framework would face their own legal questions about whether data-sharing agreements remain valid.

Congress had two years to reach a deal. They spent those years on other priorities. Now they have five days, a divided caucus, and a surveillance architecture that searches Americans' communications without a warrant and can't count how many times it does so.

The Fourth Amendment is 235 years old. It has survived every national security crisis from the Civil War to 9/11. The question before Congress this week is whether it survives the convenience of a search bar.

Section 702 expires Monday, April 20. Contact your representative. The House switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.