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Congress let the spy law die at midnight on June 12, the first time Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has lapsed since 2008. The spying didn't stop. Current authorizations run on certifications the FISA court approved in March 2026, and they continue until at least March 17, 2027, Congressman Jamie Raskin said, as quoted by CBS News. As of September 21, no reauthorization has passed, and the Brennan Center's tracker, updated September 17, lists none.
The FBI's own count shows what the program does. From December 2024 to November 2025, the Bureau searched Section 702 data for U.S. persons 7,413 times, up from 5,518 the year before, a rise of 34.3%, according to a March 11, 2026 FBI letter to Senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin reported by Nextgov/FCW. The Brennan Center, citing a Justice Department inspector general report, says the FBI did not track a whole category of these searches, so the true total is unknown.
The law lapsed in June. The searches have paper until March.
By the Numbers
7,413: FBI searches of Section 702 data for U.S. persons, December 2024 to November 2025, up from 5,518 the year before, per an FBI letter reported by Nextgov/FCW, March 2026
34.3%: the increase, with one category of searches the FBI did not track at all, per the Brennan Center, March 2026, updated April 2026
235-191: House vote on April 29 for a three-year extension with no warrant requirement, per Nextgov/FCW, April 2026
198-218: House vote on June 11 rejecting another short-term extension, per CBS News, June 2026
March 17, 2027: the earliest date current Section 702 authorizations run out, per Congressman Jamie Raskin as quoted by CBS News, June 2026
How a spy law dies
On April 29, the House passed a three-year extension of Section 702, 235-191, with no warrant requirement for searches of Americans, per Nextgov/FCW. The bill also carried a ban on a central bank digital currency, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune rejected that pairing. On April 30, Congress passed a clean short-term extension to June 12 instead, CNBC reported.
On June 11, the House voted 198-218 against another short-term extension, CBS News and Axios reported. At midnight the statute lapsed, The Hill reported. The certifications did not lapse with it.
A search is not a wiretap. That's the problem.
Be precise about what 7,413 means. These are not new wiretaps. They are searches, run without a warrant, through communications the government already collected while targeting foreigners abroad, looking for a U.S. person: a citizen, a green-card holder or an American company.
An agent does not need a judge for that. A narrow exception requires a court order for certain content searches in criminal investigations, and the April House bill again declined to require a warrant for the rest.
I can't tell you whether your name sat inside one of those 7,413 searches. You can't find out. And with a whole category uncounted, the FBI's own number can't fully answer either.
Some of it never needed the law.
Section 702 is the surveillance Congress fights about. Buying data is the surveillance that needs no warrant at all. On March 18, FBI Director Kash Patel told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the Bureau buys commercially available information, including location data, The Register reported. That reversed Christopher Wray's March 2023 statement that the FBI had stopped.
The NSA made the same move with browsing. In January 2024 it acknowledged buying records of the websites Americans visit from data brokers, CNN reported. No statute requires a warrant for either purchase. Your phone is the informant, and nobody had to recruit it.
Now the watchlist unit wants a forecast.
In March 2026, the FBI's procurement division posted a request on SAM.gov asking vendors about predictive AI for the Threat Screening Center, the unit that runs the terrorism watchlist. The models it describes would look for patterns and correlated attributes across existing government datasets, Military.com reported September 5.
Reason's July 28 story framed the request as the FBI seeking AI for a "political watch list." That phrase is Reason's, not the FBI's. Reason also reports that the center's mission now cites NSPM-7, the presidential memorandum titled "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence," which the White House issued on September 25, 2025. It turns one year old on Friday.
A request for vendor proposals is not a program. But put a predictive model inside a watchlist unit whose mission now names political violence, and the question shifts from what a person did to what a person resembles. That shift is the whole warrant fight, moved into software.
The best case for 702 deserves a straight answer.
The case for keeping it is serious. If the government lawfully intercepts a foreign target overseas and that target is talking to someone in Ohio, refusing to look at what it already holds would be a strange kind of blindness. These searches collect nothing new. In September 2023, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent federal agency, unanimously agreed that Section 702 is "highly valuable."
The numbers help that side too. Even at 7,413, the FBI's count sits far below its 2022 level, per the Brennan Center, a critic of warrantless searches, though a change that stopped counting repeat searches of the same term separately muddies that comparison. And 235 House members voted in April to keep the program for three years with no warrant rule.
My answer: a warrant rule would not make the government go blind. The question is whether an agent may type an American's name into that pile without a judge, and whether anyone should trust the count when the Bureau skipped a whole category. A warrant does not stop the search. It puts a judge between the search box and your name.
This fight has no home team.
Every president since 2008 has held this power and handed it to the next one. If you trust today's FBI director with that search box, picture the director you fear sitting at it. If you fear today's, picture the one you would trust, and ask whether a promise from either is worth more than a judge.
Forward this to one person who heard the spy law expired and figured that settled it.
Sources
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, press release on its Section 702 report, September 28, 2023.
Brennan Center, on the truth behind Section 702 query statistics, citing DOJ Inspector General report 26-002 (October 2, 2025).
CBS News, on the House vote against a short-term Section 702 extension, June 11, 2026.
Axios, on the Section 702 expiration fight, June 11, 2026.
The Hill, on the expiration of Section 702, June 2026.
Brennan Center, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: 2026 resource page, updated September 17, 2026.
Nextgov/FCW, David DiMolfetta, on the FBI's March 11 letter reporting Section 702 queries, March 12, 2026.
Brennan Center, analysis of Section 702 query statistics, March 24, 2026, updated April 6, 2026.
Nextgov/FCW, on the House's three-year Section 702 extension, April 29, 2026.
CNBC, on the 45-day Section 702 extension, April 30, 2026.
The Register, on Director Patel's testimony about commercial location data, March 19, 2026.
CNN, The NSA buys Americans' internet data, newly released documents show, January 26, 2024.
Military.com, Haley Fuller, on the FBI's request for predictive AI, September 5, 2026.
Reason, Daniel Boguslaw, on the FBI's watchlist AI request, July 28, 2026.
The White House, Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence (NSPM-7), September 25, 2025.
Burn Notice: Congress let the law die in June. The searches are living on court paper until March.
Michael