Sponsors (4)
Introduced March 12, 2026 by Ronald Lee Wyden · Last progress March 12, 2026
The bill significantly strengthens privacy, oversight, and accountability for Americans and limits commercial-data driven surveillance, but does so at the cost of added compliance burdens and procedural limits that could slow some urgent law‑enforcement and intelligence activities and raise implementation and litigation costs.
People in the U.S. (everyday users, immigrants, taxpayers) will receive stronger privacy protections because the bill limits warrantless searches of communications, treats location/web/search records as protected, and requires deletion of covered information after five years absent documented need.
Americans are better protected from commercial-data driven surveillance because the bill restricts law enforcement purchase/use of sensitive commercial data (including biometrics), and limits use of unlawfully obtained commercial data as evidence.
The public, Congress, and oversight bodies gain substantially more transparency and formal oversight through required public reporting, declassification of significant FISC opinions, semiannual certifications to Congress, and expanded audit/reporting duties for DOJ/DNI/PCLOB.
Federal investigators and national security personnel may face meaningful delays and reduced access because the bill tightens query and access limits and increases warrant/approval requirements, potentially slowing urgent threat or criminal investigations.
Agencies and private providers will incur substantial administrative and compliance costs from logging, reporting, preservation, auditing, destruction, and related new processes (including higher PCLOB pay), which could be funded by taxpayers and burden smaller companies.
Evidence obtained under emergency or other novel exceptions could be excluded if subsequent authorization is denied or procedures were flawed, which may force prosecutors to drop or lose important evidence in active cases.
Based on analysis of 11 sections of legislative text.
Limits government targeting and querying of communications, location, and web/search data about U.S. persons, restricts buying data from brokers, raises warrant protections, and boosts oversight and reporting.
Tightens limits on how intelligence and law enforcement may collect and search communications, location, and web/search data that involve U.S. persons or people believed to be in the United States. It adds new legal definitions, forbids intentionally targeting covered persons for certain foreign-intelligence acquisitions without a court order or warrant, and bars routine searching of covered information returned by foreign-intelligence queries unless a narrow exception applies. Also restricts government purchase and use of personal data from commercial data brokers, raises warrant or court-order requirements for historical location, web-browsing, and search-query records, protects vehicle event data from warrantless federal searches, requires inspector-general audits and expanded public reporting, and creates new transparency and compliance rules for courts, intelligence agencies, and providers.