Surveillance Accountability Act

Summary

Requires the government to get a warrant based on probable cause before accessing most data, metadata, or personal information held by third parties (like ISPs, cloud providers, telecoms, financial services, and data brokers), and limits warrantless collection with narrow exceptions. Creates a new private right of action to sue persons acting under U.S. authority for violations of Fourth Amendment rights and allows courts to award attorney’s fees to prevailing plaintiffs (not the United States).

• Government must generally obtain a probable‑cause warrant to access data, metadata, or personal information held by third parties.
• Warrantless access to information from ISPs, cloud providers, telecoms, financial services, and data brokers is broadly barred except for narrow, listed exceptions.
• Contractual third‑party waivers of warrant protections are invalid unless knowing, voluntary, and explicit.
• Publicly exposed information cannot be treated as automatic authorization to collect or analyze biometric or vehicle‑movement data without informed consent.
• Creates a new statutory private right of action allowing suits for Fourth Amendment deprivations by persons acting under U.S. authority.
• Courts may award reasonable attorney’s fees to prevailing plaintiffs, but not to the United States.
• Defines key surveillance and search terms and adds the new rule to Title 18 with construction clauses preserving other constitutional rights.
• Includes an exclusion preventing federal employees from suing their federal employer or the United States for conduct within the scope of employment.
• Provides a severability clause so remaining provisions survive if part of the law is invalidated.
• No explicit new funding or implementation timetable is included in the text provided.