Washington, D.C. — On Thursday, more than 100 organizations—including local grassroots, state, and national groups— joined Demand Progress and Free Press Action in sending a letter to the 42 House Democrats who voted in favor of Republican leadership and the Trump Administration’s three year reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without meaningful privacy reforms. The letter urges these Democrats to reconsider their position against reforms and to shield Americans from warrantless mass domestic surveillance.
At the end of April, the House passed a measure that would have reauthorized Section 702 for three years, without any meaningful reforms to protect Americans’ privacy against warrantless domestic surveillance. 42 Democrats joined 192 Republicans to advance the bill, which was blocked by the Senate. Subsequently, Congress passed a 45-day extension of Section 702, which will expire on Friday, June 12. Today the House rejected legislation to reauthorize this powerful surveillance authority by 218-to-198 vote.
In the letter—which includes the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause, Center for Biological Diversity, Public Citizen, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, and dozens of grassroots groups from across the nation, including many Indivisible chapters—signatories expressed their disappointment and alarm over the April 29th vote to reauthorize Section 702 without warrant protections. Among the reasons for concern discussed in the letter are the dismantling of oversight mechanisms that monitor for abuses of Section 702 and White House directives like the 2026 Counterterrorism strategy and national security presidential memoranda that outline plans to target “left wing extremists.”
The following is a statement from Free Press Action Government Relations Director Amanda Beckham:
“This administration has given absolutely no reason to assure lawmakers that it will use Section 702 for foreign intelligence surveillance as intended. Trump already established that he will use every tool at its disposal to go after anyone who challenges his ideology and agenda. Pulte is just a symptom that highlights the problems with minor reforms that rely on the executive policing itself. Strong protections like a warrant requirement and closing the data broker loophole are the only way to make sure that a program meant for foreign intelligence isn’t weaponized to deprive Americans of our constitutional rights.”
The following is a statement from Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Hajar Hammado:
“No Democrat should be voting to give Donald Trump and Stephen Miller the unfettered surveillance powers that they have asked for. Bill Pulte’s appointment is a clear sign that Trump intends to weaponize all levers of the government against his political enemies and even if he were removed, a different henchman would be substituted to carry out this agenda. These 42 Democrats need to reverse course and support privacy reforms before it’s too late. The only way to protect our privacy and stop this abuse is to enact warrant requirements so that the government has to go to a court first before it accesses the personal data of Americans.”