Floor SpeechNeutral2026-04-29

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT

TaxesEnvironmentTradeCrime & Justice

Context

On 2026-04-29, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) delivered a floor speech titled "FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT" in the Senate. The speech addressed taxes and also covered the environment, trade policy. It referenced legislation including S2093, S2095, S2094.

Full Text

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 75 (Wednesday, April 29, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 75 (Wednesday, April 29, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S2093-S2095] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about a law that most people will have never heard of, but it is very, very important to our national security. That is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA as we sometimes refer to it. We are approaching the expiration of this section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act later this week, and time's a-wastin' for us to get this actually done. I know it is important for us to have debates and offer constructive suggestions about changes in these laws, but we cannot risk going dark on this essential intelligence-gathering law, which actually has empowered President Trump to help keep the country safe. Without getting into the merits of one of these proposals or another, let me just take a step back and talk about the importance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and national security. One of the major misconceptions about this is it is a law enforcement tool, but it is not. It is not primarily a law enforcement tool. Now, it is illegal to commit espionage in this country, but the main reason this is used is to collect information from people overseas on national security threats to the United States. And it allows the intelligence community to connect the dots to understand what our adversaries are up to. FISA was enacted in 1978 in order to provide more transparency and avoid overreach of surveillance of domestic actors. If you read the history of the FBI going back to the J. Edgar Hoover days, there was a lot of things that the FBI was doing under J. Edger Hoover that today we would blanch at and certainly consider illegal when it regards surveillance of U.S. persons. So FISA was enacted to make sure that we did not allow any unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens, but we did preserve the ability to gain information about foreign actors overseas on potential national security threats to the United States. Section 702, which is the provision that expires in a very short time now, was first enacted in 2008, and as I said, authorizes the U.S. Government to target foreign--hence, the name--the word ``foreign'' in the FISA--foreign intelligence collection of non-U.S. persons. Now, that is a bureaucratic way of just saying: American citizens are--you cannot surveil American citizens no matter where they are, even if they are overseas. It only authorizes surveillance of foreign intelligence collection for non-U.S. persons overseas outside of the United States. Unlike traditional criminal investigations where warrants are issued based on probable cause--that is, showing a probable cause to a judge that a crime has been committed, thus justifying issuance of a warrant to then search or collect information here in America--unlike that, intelligence [[Page S2094]] gathering is significantly different because it involves the monitoring of foreign intelligence to detect and prevent threats before they happen. So our criminal justice system is designed to investigate and prosecute crimes that occur after they happen. But the intelligence community needs these tools like FISA to be able to prevent bad things from happening. So it is forward-leaning rather than retrospective. President Trump has asked Congress to reauthorize this essential authority, as the current law properly balances intelligence needs with privacy protections of U.S. citizens. Let me just put a finer point on that. To allow this to expire would be an affront to the President; but also, it would essentially blind the President to this essential intelligence that he uses on a daily basis in his President's Daily Brief. Many folks are familiar with the fact that the President gets intelligence briefings on a daily basis, and it is called the PDR, President's Daily--PDB, excuse me, the President's Daily Brief. So the intelligence Agencies--notably the CIA or the Director of National Intelligence--will brief the President on national security threats. Mr. President, 60 percent--60 percent--of the information contained in the President's Daily Brief is a product of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. So to allow that to expire would basically handicap the President in terms of getting access to the information he needs in order to work within and U.S. Government to keep the public and our Nation safe. So 60 percent of the President's Daily Brief is a product of 702 of FISA. In 2025, a quarter--25 percent--of the national security Agencies-- that is our Signals Intelligence Agency--25 percent of their reports were comprised of information gathered under section 702. This information, of course, has allowed the U.S. Government to thwart terrorist attacks and to make sure that we protect the public at large. It has also helped us find and rescue American hostages and much more. In April of 2024, Congress responded to the concerns that some had raised about privacy of U.S. citizens by passing the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, the RISAA. RISAA, I guess. I am not sure how to pronounce it, but that is the acronym; RISAA, Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act. So these concerns which led to these reforms included incidents such as unlawful targeting of Carter Page, a Trump campaign aide, during the run-up to the President's election in 2016. But that is a different section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Obviously, Carter Page was an American citizen, and based on what I have said--you have heard me say--you can't surveil American citizens, whether they are at home or abroad without a warrant. So this would not apply to the Carter Page case; although, I agree it was an abomination where an FBI lawyer basically misrepresented the facts to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court who then issued a warrant on Carter Page. And the Justice Department has since admitted that it did not have probable cause to surveil him. So a different section--section 702 is different from the Carter Page example. So the R-I-S-A-A--RISAA--was crafted to address past abuses of the foreign intelligence surveillance authorities and privacy and civil liberty concerns while ensuring that the government had the capability in order to protect Americans from foreign threats. The provisions enacted into law have gone a long way to curb the likelihood of abuses that were happening under FISA authorities during the Obama and the Biden administrations. According to a recent report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the reforms that Congress passed under RISAA have had positive effects regarding the safeguarding of privacy and civil liberty. These included significant reforms to the way that the FBI can conduct U.S. person queries. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act section 702 is authorized overseas on a noncitizen, but if they communicate with an American citizen here in the United States, that information is maintained in a database by the intelligence Agencies. It is lawfully collected information, not for the purposes of a criminal investigation, but for purposes of collecting intelligence to be able to connect the dots and protect the Nation. Targeting refers to the actual collection of data on non-U.S. persons abroad who may be potential threats. While querying--or looking into-- the data that is collected in that process is different. It is worth repeating again. Only non-U.S. persons abroad may be targeted under 702. But RISAA, the reforms, include stronger oversight measures and consequences for violations of these new requirements, which is entirely appropriate. Part of this is not only to address potential violations but also to build the public's confidence that their own government is not spying on them as I have heard some people suggest. But perhaps the most significant reforms in RISAA were how these queries of lawfully collected information were conducted. Due to new requirements from RISAA, queries of U.S. persons already collected-- lawfully collected--information are now even further restricted and subject to three reviews. That is sort of a belt-and-suspenders approach to making sure we protect American citizens. Since 2023, the total number of queries of U.S. persons has dropped by 87 percent. According to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, within the first year after the enactment of these reforms, more than 98 percent of the FBI's queries of already lawfully collected information weren't compliant with these new requirements. The report concludes that, while the implementation of these reforms are still being studied, it is clear they are having a positive effect on the privacy of American citizens. Furthermore, FISA remains a very important tool that the U.S. Government uses in order to support our national security, which is why President Trump has been so adamant that we need to get this law reauthorized and not let it go dark. Last March, CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified that 70 percent of his Agency's success in countering advanced weapons proliferation and 90 percent of their success in interdicting synthetic drugs like fentanyl were the result of information acquired by using section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Section 702 allows the U.S. Government to vet foreign persons seeking to enter the United States for connections to terrorism and international drug trafficking operations. It is also a critical tool for combatting cyber threats. Section 702 proved particularly useful for the U.S. Government's efforts to crack down on illicit drug trafficking into the country. This intelligence has helped the United States, together with our fri

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FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 75 (Wednesday, April 29, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 75 (Wednesday, April 29, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S2093-S2095] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about a law that most people will have never heard of, but it is very, very important to our national security. That is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA as we sometimes refer to it. We are approaching the expiration of this section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act later this week, and time's a-wastin' for us to get this actually done. I know it is important for us to have debates and offer constructive suggestions about changes in these laws, but we cannot risk going dark on this essential intelligence-gathering law, which actually has empowered President Trump to help keep the country safe. Without getting into the merits of one of these proposals or another, let me just take a step back and talk about the importance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and national security. One of the major misconceptions about this is it is a law enforcement tool, but it is not. It is not primarily a law enforcement tool. Now, it is illegal to commit espionage in this country, but the main reason this is used is to collect information from people overseas on national security threats to the United States. And it allows the intelligence community to connect the dots to understand what our adversaries are up to. FISA was enacted in 1978 in order to provide more transparency and avoid overreach of surveillance of domestic actors. If you read the history of the FBI going back to the J. Edgar Hoover days, there was a lot of things that the FBI was doing under J. Edger Hoover that today we would blanch at and certainly consider illegal when it regards surveillance of U.S. persons. So FISA was enacted to make sure that we did not allow any unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens, but we did preserve the ability to gain information about foreign actors overseas on potential national security threats to the United States. Section 702, which is the provision that expires in a very short time now, was first enacted in 2008, and as I said, authorizes the U.S. Government to target foreign--hence, the name--the word ``foreign'' in the FISA--foreign intelligence collection of non-U.S. persons. Now, that is a bureaucratic way of just saying: American citizens are--you cannot surveil American citizens no matter where they are, even if they are overseas. It only authorizes surveillance of foreign intelligence collection for non-U.S. persons overseas outside of the United States. Unlike traditional criminal investigations where warrants are issued based on probable cause--that is, showing a probable cause to a judge that a crime has been committed, thus justifying issuance of a warrant to then search or collect information here in America--unlike that, intelligence [[Page S2094]] gathering is significantly different because it involves the monitoring of foreign intelligence to detect and prevent threats before they happen. So our criminal justice system is designed to investigate and prosecute crimes that occur after they happen. But the intelligence community needs these tools like FISA to be able to prevent bad things from happening. So it is forward-leaning rather than retrospective. President Trump has asked Congress to reauthorize this essential authority, as the current law properly balances intelligence needs with privacy protections of U.S. citizens. Let me just put a finer point on that. To allow this to expire would be an affront to the President; but also, it would essentially blind the President to this essential intelligence that he uses on a daily basis in his President's Daily Brief. Many folks are familiar with the fact that the President gets intelligence briefings on a daily basis, and it is called the PDR, President's Daily--PDB, excuse me, the President's Daily Brief. So the intelligence Agencies--notably the CIA or the Director of National Intelligence--will brief the President on national security threats. Mr. President, 60 percent--60 percent--of the information contained in the President's Daily Brief is a product of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. So to allow that to expire would basically handicap the President in terms of getting access to the information he needs in order to work within and U.S. Government to keep the public and our Nation safe. So 60 percent of the President's Daily Brief is a product of 702 of FISA. In 2025, a quarter--25 percent--of the national security Agencies-- that is our Signals Intelligence Agency--25 percent of their reports were comprised of information gathered under section 702. This information, of course, has allowed the U.S. Government to thwart terrorist attacks and to make sure that we protect the public at large. It has also helped us find and rescue American hostages and much more. In April of 2024, Congress responded to the concerns that some had raised about privacy of U.S. citizens by passing the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, the RISAA. RISAA, I guess. I am not sure how to pronounce it, but that is the acronym; RISAA, Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act. So these concerns which led to these reforms included incidents such as unlawful targeting of Carter Page, a Trump campaign aide, during the run-up to the President's election in 2016. But that is a different section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Obviously, Carter Page was an American citizen, and based on what I have said--you have heard me say--you can't surveil American citizens, whether they are at home or abroad without a warrant. So this would not apply to the Carter Page case; although, I agree it was an abomination where an FBI lawyer basically misrepresented the facts to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court who then issued a warrant on Carter Page. And the Justice Department has since admitted that it did not have probable cause to surveil him. So a different section--section 702 is different from the Carter Page example. So the R-I-S-A-A--RISAA--was crafted to address past abuses of the foreign intelligence surveillance authorities and privacy and civil liberty concerns while ensuring that the government had the capability in order to protect Americans from foreign threats. The provisions enacted into law have gone a long way to curb the likelihood of abuses that were happening under FISA authorities during the Obama and the Biden administrations. According to a recent report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the reforms that Congress passed under RISAA have had positive effects regarding the safeguarding of privacy and civil liberty. These included significant reforms to the way that the FBI can conduct U.S. person queries. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act section 702 is authorized overseas on a noncitizen, but if they communicate with an American citizen here in the United States, that information is maintained in a database by the intelligence Agencies. It is lawfully collected information, not for the purposes of a criminal investigation, but for purposes of collecting intelligence to be able to connect the dots and protect the Nation. Targeting refers to the actual collection of data on non-U.S. persons abroad who may be potential threats. While querying--or looking into-- the data that is collected in that process is different. It is worth repeating again. Only non-U.S. persons abroad may be targeted under 702. But RISAA, the reforms, include stronger oversight measures and consequences for violations of these new requirements, which is entirely appropriate. Part of this is not only to address potential violations but also to build the public's confidence that their own government is not spying on them as I have heard some people suggest. But perhaps the most significant reforms in RISAA were how these queries of lawfully collected information were conducted. Due to new requirements from RISAA, queries of U.S. persons already collected-- lawfully collected--information are now even further restricted and subject to three reviews. That is sort of a belt-and-suspenders approach to making sure we protect American citizens. Since 2023, the total number of queries of U.S. persons has dropped by 87 percent. According to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, within the first year after the enactment of these reforms, more than 98 percent of the FBI's queries of already lawfully collected information weren't compliant with these new requirements. The report concludes that, while the implementation of these reforms are still being studied, it is clear they are having a positive effect on the privacy of American citizens. Furthermore, FISA remains a very important tool that the U.S. Government uses in order to support our national security, which is why President Trump has been so adamant that we need to get this law reauthorized and not let it go dark. Last March, CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified that 70 percent of his Agency's success in countering advanced weapons proliferation and 90 percent of their success in interdicting synthetic drugs like fentanyl were the result of information acquired by using section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Section 702 allows the U.S. Government to vet foreign persons seeking to enter the United States for connections to terrorism and international drug trafficking operations. It is also a critical tool for combatting cyber threats. Section 702 proved particularly useful for the U.S. Government's efforts to crack down on illicit drug trafficking into the country. This intelligence has helped the United States, together with our fri