When Trump, Republicans tell you they oppose FISA 702, they’re lying!
For years now, Donald Trump and his nationalist buddies in the Republican Party have pretended to oppose the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 and the government spying programs it created for the NSA, CIA, and other government agencies. Besides the fact that FISA 702 should simply be stricken from the books, Trump and the Republican Party have been lying about their opposition to the law.
While the government shutdown, Trump’s ICE Gestapo, and military strikes on the open sea against alleged drug runners make all the headlines, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has been quietly pushing for a “clean reauthorization” of FISA 702 in order to kick the can down the road until after the 2026 midterms when Trump and the Republican Party will work on ways to make it permanent if they retain control of Washington. The program is scheduled to expire in April 2026.
FISA originated during the Cold War to gather foreign intelligence information, but the current debate over Section 702 began around 2008, when Republicans joined the Democrat majority to legalize a version of a surveillance program secretly created by the National Security Agency after 9/11. FISA Section 702 permits our government overlords to track the electronic communications of foreign terrorists, spies and hackers without obtaining a warrant.
However, as we have witnessed numerous times since the law was created, FISA 702 has enabled the government to gather communications data from an unknown number of Americans. This abuse by the NSA led to the passage of the USA Freedom Act, a law designed to reign in the government’s blatant abuse of power.
When the USA FREEDOM Act was passed in 2015, it was supposed to bring an end to bulk collection of metadata by the NSA and rein in the FISA Court, But the FREEDOM Act failed, the NSA continued spying, the FISA kept all its power when Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress approved the “periodic congressional reauthorization” of FISA Section 702 in 2018 until December 2023.
Then-Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) openly opposed the 2018 extension because it “allow[ed] the government to conduct warrantless searches on Americans and maintain massive troves of our data” — a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In 2023, Mike Johnson and the Republican Party — who controlled the House — joined Joe Biden and the Democrats to reauthorize FISA 702 until April 2026, which brings us to where we are today.
While Tom Cotton’s reauthorization strategy is intentionally lacking on details, we already know enough to oppose any attempt to allow FISA 702 to continue in its current form (via Epic.org):
“A clean refresh of FISA Section 702 would show utter disrespect for the American people,” according to Jeramie D. Scott, senior counsel and director of the Project on Surveillance Oversight at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
“We don’t need a reform commission to tell us that Section 702 authority, a foreign intelligence authority, has been abused to access Americans’ communications,” he said in a statement. “It’s well documented and so is one of the most straightforward solutions—a warrant requirement to search Americans’ communications incidentally collected through Section 702 surveillance.”
A commission “could be helpful in further analyzing what additional reforms are needed or assessing the effectiveness of new reforms, but let’s not act like we don’t know what some of the main problems are and the potential solutions. Congress needs to do its job,” Scott said.
When lovers of liberty opposed spying programs found within the PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), they did so because the programs were clearly unconstitutional and surrendered way too much power to the government. But Trump and Trumpist Republicans supported them because they wanted to keep their power.
During the 2020 election season, Trump supported Mitch McConnell’s expansion of the PATRIOT Act, which would have expanded the administration’s power to spy on anyone, anywhere, at any time. In an amendment to the Act, McConnell proposed giving the attorney general’s office complete oversight of the FISA Court to ensure “accuracy and completeness” of FBI surveillance submissions to the secret Court. This amendment would have increased Bill Barr’s oversight — and that of future AGs — of Trump’s political enemies while simultaneously expanding government’s power to spy on every American.
In the words of Sen. Ron Wyden at the time (D-OR):
“Under the McConnell amendment, Barr gets to look through the web-browsing history of any American — including journalists, politicians, and political rivals — without a warrant, just by saying it’s relevant to an investigation.”
The Senate passed its version of FISA reauthorization, which included amendments to the original House bill passed back in March, so it was sent back to the House to hammer out the differences, and that’s when objections to the bill previously supported by Trump and friends started making headlines.
Unfortunately, Trump 2.0 and his cadre of loyalists fully intend to pick up where these past efforts have failed before FISA 702 expires in a few months.
During confirmation hearings, Republicans grilled Pam Bondi, John Radcliffe, and Tulsi Gabbard about FISA Section 702. And while you’d think that the Republican-led Senate would be looking for people who would commit to supporting the Constitution — specifically the Fourth Amendment which requires government get a warrant before spying on any particular person and forbids warrantless mass surveillance — these “defenders of the Constitution” demanded that each of these nominees support the expansion of warrantless mass surveillance under Section 702.
Tulsi Gabbard reversed her past opposition to mass surveillance under FISA Section 702 after being pressured by Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn to do so; and as someone who worked in the CIA during Trump’s first term, John Radcliff was already on board with the idea.
And then there was Pam Bondi — her Trumpism and gun control extremism already put her at odds with the Constitution — who went to great lengths to assure Republicans that she considered FISA 702 and the mass surveillance of Americans “legal” and a “very important tool” in the toolbox of the Department of Justice (via The Federalist):
“I would like to have a strategy to deal with the ISIS threat that’s beyond just the law enforcement model,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C. said to Bondi. “Does that make sense to you, that we should use every tool in the toolbox?”
Such an approach “includes wrapping in our state and local officials” and “better cooperation” across the nation and world, Bondi replied.
“Do you support reauthorizing FISA in 2025?” asked Graham.
“I believe [section] 702 is up in 2026,” Bondi said. “We will closely be looking at FISA as a very important tool.”
“Do you agree that 702 provides important intel-gathering capability to protect our nation?” Graham asked. Bondi called it “extremely important.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also pushed Bondi on the matter. He said 60 percent of the president’s intelligence brief comes from Section 702. “It’s been called the crown jewel of U.S. intelligence,” he said. “I’d like you just confirm here on the record that you will enforce that law, and you can support the law as it is written.”
“Senator, I haven’t read the entire 702 in front of you, but I will commit to reading that and doing everything I can to keep America safe again,” Bondi replied.
Cornyn suggested concerns about Section 702 are “misinformation.” “I think there’s a lot of misinformation with regard to how Section 702 works … it is not used to spy on American people,” Cornyn said.
Cornyn referenced a memo from former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe — Trump’s pick for CIA director — allegedly saying “a warrant requirement may not achieve its intended objectives and could hinder national security efforts.” Cornyn asked Bondi if she shares that concern.
“I would read his memo, and I will speak to you after I read his memo,” Bondi said. (Emphasis mine)
The bottom line is this: Trump and the majority of Congress, regardless of party, not only want to see government spying reauthorized, but they would also like to see it made permanent.
So, when Trump and the Republican Party tell you they oppose FISA 702 and the reauthorization of government surveillance programs, know that the exact opposite is true.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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