Jayapal Statement on Upcoming FISA Reauthorization
WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), a Member of the House Judiciary Committee, released the following statement regarding the negotiations on the upcoming Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 reauthorization.
“As the Trump administration continues to run roughshod over our Constitution, we cannot continue to give them a further opening to sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of national security. We cannot give Stephen Miller a blank check to conduct domestic surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
“I have been working on essential reforms to FISA across Administrations, and I have not wavered — whether it is a Democratic or Republican President. This has always been a bipartisan issue for good reason. Americans across political parties care deeply about privacy and not being surveilled. Congress has a duty to protect those fundamental Constitutional liberties. Any attempt to push forward a ‘clean’ reauthorization of Section 702 will put our private, sensitive data at risk.
“This Trump administration has been particularly brazen in its use of domestic surveillance to suppress our Constitutional rights and dissent. In just the last six weeks, the administration has blacklisted Anthropic for refusing to stand down on its requirement that its technology not be used for the mass surveillance of Americans, and we learned that the Department of Justice surveilled me — and likely many other members — while reviewing the Epstein files, seeking justice for survivors. In Minnesota, federal immigration agents have surveilled and intimidated U.S. citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to document agents’ unlawful actions.
“It is time to reform FISA, ensure our Fourth Amendment protections are guaranteed, and stop the government surveillance of Americans.”
Section 702 authorizes the federal government to intercept electronic communications of non-U.S. persons who are located outside of the United States. However, the communications of Americans are often swept up when monitoring non-U.S. persons, are then kept by intelligence agencies, and can be later accessed without a warrant. This backdoor surveillance has occurred for decades and allows for rampant abuse. While the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claims to have significantly reduced the number of backdoor searches in recent years, the truth is, we do not know the true number of searches on Americans. In 2024, the Department of Justice’s National Security Division uncovered that the FBI was querying Section 702 data differently and was not in compliance with statutory and court-ordered requirements intended to prevent abuses. In October 2025, the Office of the Inspector General stated it was “not able to conclude… that FBI’s querying compliance issues are entirely in the past.”
Jayapal has been a champion of Congressional efforts to reform FISA. She has led both bipartisan legislation and letters to enact reforms, as well as multiple bipartisan calls to leadership to not tie FISA reauthorization to “must pass” legislation and allow Members a vote on the standalone legislation. Jayapal also co-led the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act to stop the federal government from circumventing Americans’ Fourth Amendment right to privacy by closing loopholes that allow the government to purchase Americans’ data from big tech companies without a search warrant.