US lawmakers move to stop access to phone calls without permission from the FBI

Bi-partisan peculiarity The coalition in the US Congress introduced legislation on Thursday that would impose a strict detention requirement FBI background searches For Americans’ communications, aligning federal law with a 2025 federal court ruling that The practice without a warrant was found to be unconstitutional.

The bill repeals the Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2026 Controversial expansions of the government’s warrantless eavesdropping authority while reforming key aspects of federal surveillance law — setting up a showdown with the U.S. intelligence community and its allies in Congress weeks before the sweeping global spying program ends on April 20.

Senators Ron Wyden and Mike Lee are leading the legislative push, along with Representatives Warren Davidson and Zoe Lofgren. The measure has support from civil liberties organizations across the political spectrum.

The legislation hits a surveillance landscape that has changed dramatically since 2024, when Congress last renewed the wiretapping program, authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The bill’s sponsors framed the Government Surveillance Reform Act as a necessary corrective to the surveillance state fostered by modern technology and the creep of bureaucratic functions. Wyden noted that the explosion in commercially available data and rapid advances in artificial intelligence “have far outpaced the laws protecting Americans’ privacy.”

Davidson echoed that sentiment, arguing that Section 702 has been stretched “far beyond its original purpose” to enable unconstitutional local searches.

Section 702 allows the federal government to collect the communications of aliens residing outside the United States without a warrant. In practice, the program scans vast amounts of communications from US citizens, permanent residents and others on US soil.

The FBI routinely sifts through this intercepted data to read Americans’ private messages without a warrant, a practice privacy advocates call “backdooring.”

In a speech earlier this week, Wyden warned that Congress was discussing reauthorization without getting a full picture of the government’s activities. “There is another example of the secret law related to Section 702, and it directly affects the privacy rights of Americans,” he said, noting that successive administrations have refused to declassify the matter. He added: “When it is eventually declassified, the American people will be stunned that it took so long and that Congress is discussing this authority without sufficient information.”

Internal oversight mechanisms meant to check the government’s broad powers have been systematically dismantled over the past year. FBI Director Kash Patel He previously criticized warrantless searchesHe turned on the issue after taking office. He now defends the program as a “critical tool.”

In May 2025, Patel FBI closed internal auditthe compliance unit that He led the reduction In incorrect searches of Americans’ data from more than 119,000 in 2022 to just 5,518 in 2024. The FBI heavily touted this improved compliance rate two years ago as a primary argument for why a warrant was not needed.

The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has overseen a similar hollowing out of independent oversight bodies, including the Financial Regulatory Authority. Mass dismissal of inspectors general and Inability of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. He also faces Gabbard Whistleblower complaint Alleging that it shared NSA intercepts with the White House for political purposes.

The FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This erasure of internal barriers coincides with a broader deployment of law enforcement tools against domestic targets. Following a 2024 directive from former FBI Deputy Director Paul Abate urging agents to actively conduct inquiries about Americans to justify the program’s existence, First reported by WIREDcurrent administration Journalists’ homes were raided He issued a presidential memorandum to redirect counterterrorism resources Towards internal political groups.