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Congressional Daily Record
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April 29, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. 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.
Intelligence Surveillance Act later this week, and time's a-wastin' for us to get this actually done.
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.
let me just take a step back and talk about the importance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and national security.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
of foreign intelligence to detect and prevent threats before they happen.
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.
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.
intelligence briefings on a daily basis, and it is called the PDR, President's Daily—PDB, excuse me, the President's Daily Brief.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
likelihood of abuses that were happening under FISA authorities during the Obama and the Biden administrations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
friends, to identify the supply chain for precursor chemicals coming from China and used to make synthetic drugs like fentanyl in Mexico. And it also has allowed the intelligence Agencies to seize machinery in China that would have been able to produce millions of pills per hour— these pill pressers, these automated pill pressers. Section 702 also allows our Border Patrol to seize these pill pressers at the border.
So some people are suggesting it ought to go dark; we ought not to extend it. It makes no sense when you begin to look at how effective it has been in keeping the country safe.
Section 702 is also important in counterterrorism. Information acquired under that section has allowed the FBI to identify a potential terrorist threat, in October of 2023, related to the Israel-Gaza conflict. The FBI was able to warn the Department of Defense and the relevant host nations about this threat against American troops.
discover and thwart a planned terrorist attack against a high-profile concert in Europe.
section 702 has helped the United States protect our citizens against foreign threats.
consumer of this information. Again, 60 percent of his daily intelligence brief is composed of section 702 intelligence. And, of course, the President is responsible for the protection of all of our citizens and U.S. interests, and that is why he has asked us to reauthorize this critical authority.
President Trump recently wrote on Truth Social to say:
With the ongoing successful military activities against the
Terrorist Iranian Regime, it is more important than ever that
we remain vigilant, PROTECT our Homeland, Troops, and
Diplomats stationed abroad, and maintain our ability to
quickly stop bad actors seeking to cause harm to our People
and our Country.
showing the world that the United States is, once again, a power to be dealt with. It is imperative we equip the President and the entire administration, working with Congress in an oversight capacity, like on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on which I serve. It is important that we equip the Trump administration with the tools and authorities they need to maintain deterrence and, hopefully, peace through strength.
We cannot allow this authority to expire. It would be foolhardy and reckless to do so.
I hope all of our colleagues in both Chambers will not tie the President's hands behind his back while we have Americans in active combat overseas.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). Without objection, it is so ordered.