Sponsors (2)
Introduced February 26, 2026 by Ted Lieu · Last progress February 26, 2026
The bill substantially increases transparency, standardized reporting, and notice protections around electronic surveillance—improving oversight and privacy safeguards for many Americans—while creating new administrative costs, potential disclosure risks that could harm investigations or individual privacy, and some operational/legal friction for courts, providers, and law enforcement.
Taxpayers, researchers, journalists, and civil-society groups gain much greater public, searchable, and machine-readable access to criminal-surveillance applications, orders, inventories, and aggregate counts, improving transparency and oversight of law enforcement electronic-surveillance use.
People whose communications or records are targeted receive stronger notice and documentation (including inventories of provider disclosures and records of over-collection), increasing their ability to understand and potentially challenge government access to their data.
Courts and judges get clearer procedural rules (redaction requirements, warrant execution/return alignment) and explicit oversight tools (authority to review/revoke delay orders), strengthening judicial safeguards and standardizing how electronic‑records orders are handled.
Individuals' sensitive information and law-enforcement operational details could be exposed if redactions fail or reporting reveals specifics, risking personal privacy, safety, and the effectiveness of investigations.
Courts, providers, and governments face substantial new administrative and compliance costs (redactions, inventories, standardized reporting, e‑filing upgrades), with taxpayers ultimately bearing much of the expense.
Greater public disclosure and stricter notice rules, and conditioning federal procedures on State compliance, could delay or complicate urgent investigations and prosecutions, hindering law-enforcement effectiveness in some cases.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Makes criminal-surveillance applications, orders, and inventories publicly searchable, tightens notice rules and reporting for electronic surveillance, and funds court implementation.
Requires public, text-searchable online access to the substance of applications for criminal-surveillance orders, the orders themselves, and related inventories; tightens notice, return, and reporting rules for government requests for communications and metadata; creates new judicial reporting duties and machine-readable public reports; and funds court implementation and state/tribal grants to help comply. Implements phased effective dates (generally two years, with longer delays for some State/Tribal courts), creates a new statutory framework for sealed criminal-surveillance orders, and revises who must be notified and how long notice can be delayed.