Sponsors (4)
Introduced March 12, 2026 by Ronald Lee Wyden · Last progress March 12, 2026
The bill substantially strengthens privacy, transparency, and oversight of government surveillance—giving Americans greater legal protections and public visibility—while trading off greater costs, administrative burdens, and reduced operational flexibility for intelligence and law‑enforcement agencies that could slow some investigations.
Most Americans and people in the U.S. (consumers, immigrants, vehicle owners) gain stronger privacy protections because the bill generally requires warrants or FISC orders before collecting content, location, browsing, recent electronic messages, vehicle event-data, and restricts purchases/use of sensitive commercial data about people in the U.S.
The public, Congress, and oversight bodies get substantially more transparency because the DNI/AG/FBI must publish expanded unclassified reports, the FISC must declassify and release significant opinions more quickly, and agencies must report queries, certifications, and audits in machine‑readable and public formats.
Independent and internal oversight of intelligence and law‑enforcement surveillance is strengthened through mandatory IG audits, PCLOB studies, expanded amicus authority, agency minimization/audit rules, and new internal investigative and sanctioning requirements.
Federal intelligence and law‑enforcement personnel may have reduced collection flexibility and slower investigations because the bill narrows surveillance authorities and increasingly requires warrants or FISC orders for activities that previously could proceed more quickly.
The bill imposes substantial new administrative, reporting, audit, declassification, and training requirements on agencies, courts, and private providers, increasing compliance costs paid by taxpayers and businesses and diverting staff time to paperwork.
Greater declassification and more granular public reporting risk revealing sensitive methods, targets, or whether small providers/individuals were subject to orders, potentially creating operational or safety risks for investigations and affected persons.
Based on analysis of 11 sections of legislative text.
Makes broad, detailed changes to U.S. surveillance and privacy law that tighten when and how intelligence and law‑enforcement agencies may collect, query, retain, and use communications, location, web‑browsing, and other sensitive data. It adds new statutory definitions and court procedures, limits warrantless access and “reverse targeting,” restricts purchases of U.S. person data from data brokers, creates new warrant rules for location and browsing data, expands oversight and reporting requirements, and imposes personnel accountability and minimization rules across intelligence and law‑enforcement agencies. Establishes new electronic query logging, retention limits (generally 5 years unless preserved), stricter judicial involvement for acquisitions affecting people in the U.S., enhanced transparency (detailed public and congressional reports), IG audits, and penalties and personnel sanctions for violations, while including limited emergency exceptions and a short implementation‑delay authority for technical readiness.