Sponsors (8)
The bill substantially strengthens oversight, privacy protections, and accountability for FISA §702 and related practices—giving courts, amici, OIGs, and Congress more visibility—at the cost of higher administrative and compliance burdens, risks of operational delays or classified exposure, and potential chilling effects on routine intelligence work.
Taxpayers and their elected representatives get much stronger, regular transparency and oversight: DOJ, DNI, and agency audit/reporting requirements (including unredacted audits to oversight committees, regular OIG reviews, DNI public summaries, and cross-agency notifications) will provide elected officials and the public clearer, more systematic visibility into FISA §702 and related practices.
Most U.S. persons (including immigrants and ordinary citizens) gain stronger privacy protections: limits on non‑court acquisition and querying of commercially obtained personal data, tighter minimization and destruction rules, and stricter controls/logging of queries reduce retention and misuse of Americans' personal information.
Individuals and civil‑liberties interests see improved legal representation and adversarial review in FISC matters because independent amici with privacy expertise can access materials, seek certification and appellate review, and raise novel privacy/civil‑liberties issues to the court.
Taxpayers and federal agencies will face substantial new administrative costs and workloads: frequent audits, expanded reporting, new recordkeeping, hiring/training, and compliance systems across DOJ, intelligence agencies, and private service providers will require funding and staff time.
Law enforcement and national security operations risk harm from disclosure: requiring more detailed/unredacted audits, broader reporting counts, and expanded amici access to classified materials could increase the chance that sensitive sources, methods, or operational details are exposed or become harder to protect.
Urgent, time‑sensitive investigations could be slowed: stricter pre‑approval, documentation, disclosure requirements, limits on purchasing commercial data, and broadened procedural reviews (including amici participation) may delay approvals or operational actions needed in emergencies.
Based on analysis of 14 sections of legislative text.
Strengthens audits, accuracy rules, reporting, judicial safeguards, and limits on intelligence acquisition of commercially obtained data about U.S. persons, with narrow exceptions.
Official title: Amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to reauthorize and reform certain authorities and to provide greater transparency and oversight.
Introduced February 23, 2026 by Mike Lee · Last progress February 23, 2026
Requires frequent, mandatory DOJ and Inspector General audits and new accuracy, disclosure, and reporting rules for foreign-intelligence collection and FISA processes; tightens judicial safeguards, adds amici with privacy expertise, and limits intelligence community acquisition of commercially obtained data about U.S. persons except under narrow exceptions. Creates new training, pre-query approvals, written justifications, and expanded public reporting and congressional notifications; allows short implementation delays for technical or staffing reasons.