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'Hoard and Destroy'? Advocates Demand Federal Probe of Book-Burning by AI Giants
"AI companies are engineering a future where only the wealthiest incumbents can build high-quality AI models and operate as the sole holders of humanity's written works."
Aug 21, 2026
A coalition of American civil society groups on Friday called for a federal investigation into reports that artificial intelligence giants are mass-purchasing physical books, scanning them to train their AI models, and destroying them without regard for historical artifacts or the public good.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the coalition notes that "at least one top AI company, Anthropic, is known to have acquired millions of print books in bulk, scanned them into digital form, and discarded the physical originals." The letter notes that "this process leaves only the digitized text in the company's proprietary database for use in training its large language models behind products such as Claude."
The coalition, led by the Demand Progress Education Fund, pointed to an internal Anthropic memo that was made public as part of a copyright lawsuit against the company. The memo is headlined "Project Panama," which is described as "our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world."
"We use a 'soft codename' for it because we don't want it to be known that we are working on this," the memo states. "This document is visible to all Anthropic employees, but you should avoid talking about it in public areas, and the fact that we are working on this should not be shared with anyone outside Anthropic."
At one point, Anthropic reportedly considered approaching US libraries such as the New York Public Library for its massive book-consumption campaign. One court document describes how an Anthropic vendor's "hydraulic powered cutting machine" would "neatly cut" books for scanning. The scanning company would then "schedule with the recycling company to pick up the completed books," according to the filing.
Amazon is also reportedly engaged in a large book-buying operation, under which employees "cut the bindings off in order to scan the books more quickly."
"The AI industry is acquiring books on vast commercial scales to scan and destroy, all to keep that scanned text in a private database walled off from the world and subject to corporate censorship and manipulation."
The new letter to the FTC observes that "proxies and intermediaries now function as sourcing partners for AI companies, offering the buyers anonymity and brokering bulk book orders—including rare, out-of-print titles with few surviving copies." 404 Media reported last month that ISBNdb, which markets itself as "the world's largest book database," is offering "high-volume book acquisition services for AI companies."
"Books published before the rise of generative AI (such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini) command a premium because they are free of the AI-sourced text common in today's writing," the new letter adds.
The coalition argues that AI giants' mass book buying and subsequent destruction—dubbed the "hoard and destroy" practice—is part of an effort to "build and entrench their market dominance" by "corner[ing] the essential inputs of AI development."
"We ask the FTC to use its investigative authorities, including potentially under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, to determine whether and to what extent this practice forecloses competing AI developers and the public from a scarce, non-reproducible input and whether it constitutes an unfair method of competition under Section 5 of the FTC Act," the groups write.
"Through their practice of permanently destroying books en masse and thus removing those non-renewable resources from broader access, AI companies are engineering a future where only the wealthiest incumbents can build high-quality AI models and operate as the sole holders of humanity's written works—after having destroyed the originals to get there."
Kate Oh, special adviser to the Demand Progress Education Fund, said in a statement Friday that "the secretive and reckless way that major AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon are acting shows that there is real smoke here that the FTC needs to investigate."
"There is credible reporting that the AI industry is acquiring books on vast commercial scales to scan and destroy, all to keep that scanned text in a private database walled off from the world and subject to corporate censorship and manipulation," Oh added.
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Coalition Rejects Trump Admin Push to Let Kalshi, Polymarket 'Bypass State Gambling Regimes'
"We urge the commission to withdraw this proposal, enforce the rules already on the books, and return its attention to the derivatives markets it was created to protect—and which genuinely need its attention."
Jul 24, 2026
A coalition of consumer advocacy groups on Friday forcefully condemned the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's move to give prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket "a green light to bypass state gambling regimes."
Users of these platforms can bet on future events, from the outcome of a sports game to the language of a political speech, by buying "shares," or "contracts." The Trump administration claims the platforms are not gambling operations, but derivatives markets because, as Chair Michael Selig has noted, "Congress has entrusted the CFTC with the sole authority to regulate" those.
Various state leaders and organizations have pushed back, arguing that "calling a sports wager an 'event contract' does not transform it into a legitimate tool for managing economic risk," as Demand Progress Education Fund communications director Eric Naing said Friday. "The CFTC should not allow federal derivatives law to become a back door for nationwide gambling."
However, the CFTC has stuck to its position, publicly backed by President Donald Trump, who has declared that the agency must have "exclusive authority" over this "major industry," which "we must protect." The Republican—who infamously bankrupted multiple casinos—notably has a company exploring how to cash in on the sector.
The CFTC announced its proposed rules for prediction markets in March, followed by an update last month. In a Friday letter to the agency chair, Demand Progress Education Fund and 10 other organizations wrote that "we oppose the proposal in its entirety. It fails as a matter of law, as a matter of policy, and as a matter of institutional competence, and we emphatically urge the commission to withdraw it."
"When Kalshi and Polymarket launched just five years ago, they were curiosities; today Kalshi alone is valued at $22 billion and processes an annualized volume of $178 billion in trades every month," the coalition detailed. "This proposal should be understood for what it is: a green light for these immense and largely unregulated financial speculation platforms to offer sports betting nationwide and aggressively market it to the public, bypassing the community and mental health protections that states and tribal authorities have spent generations building to address the risks present in this type of speculative activity."
The fact that 89% of Kalshi's total fee revenue comes from sports-related contracts "should settle the question of whether these companies are derivatives exchanges or sportsbooks," according to the coalition, which also includes Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Better Markets, Center for Digital Democracy, New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center, Open Markets Institute, Oregon Consumer Justice, Oregon Consumer League, Protect Borrowers, Public Good Law Center, and Revolving Door Project.
However, the organizations also challenge the CFTC's interpretation of the Commodity Exchange Act, writing that the proposal's "framing inverts the statute's logic and Congress' intent, by treating contracts as presumptively allowed unless found contrary to the public interest through a case-by-case inquiry."
If the agency charges ahead with its current plans, "ordinary people will pay the price," the groups warned. "Expanded sports betting has increased personal bankruptcies, reduced household savings, and led to higher rates of domestic violence. Prediction markets supercharge these effects: they run 24/7 in your pocket and aggressively market to young adults, who may make low bets initially but ramp up their commitment over time. Seventy percent of users lose money, and 70% of all profits go to 0.04% of traders. Those outcomes define a casino that has figured out how to escape the regulations that casinos have to follow, like responsible gaming disclosures and financial stability protections for their customers."
"The proposal also does almost nothing to address the insider trading problem that makes prediction markets much more easily manipulated than the structures of ordinary gambling," the coalition wrote—just over a week after the White House had to address one of Trump's teleprompter operators allegedly using his access to the president's speech plans to make money on Kalshi.
The organizations further argued that "even if the commission were the right institution to police all of this, it is not capable of doing so. The CFTC, which oversees $400 trillion in US derivatives markets, has a budget frozen at $365 million... Adding nationwide responsibility for sports betting, entertainment wagering, and political gambling on top of that is not a proper expansion of the agency's mission, and it would mean that the farmers, manufacturers, and energy companies who depend on well-functioning commodity markets will pay the price."
"We urge the commission to withdraw this proposal, enforce the rules already on the books, and return its attention to the derivatives markets it was created to protect—and which genuinely need its attention," concluded the coalition. "The regulation of gambling and gaming belongs with the states and tribal authorities that have the experience, the tools, and the democratic accountability to do the job."
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‘Isn’t It Humiliating to Be Unable to Answer?’ Asks Ossoff After Trump Spy Chief Nominee Won’t Say Who Won in 2020
"You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you asked to lead America's intelligence community?"
Jul 15, 2026
Sen. Jon Ossoff on Wednesday put President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next director of national intelligence on the spot by asking him about the results of the 2020 presidential election.
During a confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Ossoff (D-Ga.) asked Jay Clayton, nominated by Trump to replace former DNI Tulsi Gabbard, who won the 2020 election.
"I'm not going to do this with you," Clayton replied.
Sen. Ossoff asks Trump's Director of National Intelligence nominee who won the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/J3u5mqHqTt
— Ossoff's Office (@SenOssoff) July 15, 2026
"This is a job interview," Ossoff said. "We have established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with the committee, yes? You do have an obligation to honest and forthright with the committee?"
"Yes," Clayton said.
"Who won the 2020 election?" Ossoff pressed.
"Like I said, I'm not going to get into that with you," Clayton said.
After former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Trump refused to concede, told multiple lies to sow doubt about the results, tried to enlist officials including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Vice President Mike Pence to illegally overturn it, and then incited a violent riot at the US Capitol when those efforts failed.
Ossoff told Clayton that he would keep asking him about the 2020 election results because "you're not being honest and forthright with the committee."
"I'm not going to engage in the theater," Clayton shot back.
After being pressed by Ossoff again, Clayton simply sat in silence, which appeared to make the Georgia Democrat incredulous.
"You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election," Ossoff said, "but you asked to lead America's intelligence community? Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions?"
"We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question," Ossoff continued. "Why can you not give it?"
Sean Vitka, executive director for Demand Progress, said after the hearing that Clayton's refusal to answer Ossoff's question was disqualifying.
"Clayton’s trainwreck hearing showed us that he is willing to deny objective reality to avoid upsetting the president," Vitka said. "Someone like that must not be allowed to be the director of national intelligence, who wields vast power and must lead the intelligence community with nonpartisan integrity and independence from political pressure."
Vitka added that Democrats serving on congressional intelligence committees need to understand "the clear danger someone like Clayton would pose as Trump’s point man on government surveillance."
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After NYT Subpoenas, Senate Dems Urged to Oppose Clayton for Trump Spy Chief
"Rewarding an official who is actively executing the White House's war on an independent press with the keys to the intelligence community would be a catastrophic mistake."
Jul 14, 2026
A coalition of progressive groups is pressuring Senate Democrats to oppose President Donald Trump's nomination of Jay Clayton III to lead America's spy agencies over his role in helping the administration use the legal system to attack journalists.
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that Clayton, who currently serves as the US attorney for Manhattan, had issued subpoenas to four of its journalists after they'd reported on security concerns related to the luxury jet gifted by the Qatari government, which Trump has begun to use in place of Air Force One against the wishes of the Secret Service.
The US Department of Justice said in a statement that the goal of the investigation was to prosecute leakers who spoke to the press about the plane's lacking security features. According to the Times, the FBI requested that it hold off publishing the story and reveal the names of its anonymous sources, which it refused to do.
A top newsroom lawyer for the Times described the subpoenas as "an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”
On Monday, the group Demand Progress and nearly three dozen other progressive advocacy groups sent a letter to Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.).
It urged them to oppose the nomination of Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence, a role previously held by Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned in May.
"The committee need not speculate how Clayton would exercise the enormous powers of the federal government: He is demonstrating it now," the coalition wrote. "A federal prosecutor who will weaponize the grand jury process against reporters—and their sources—to punish disclosures unwelcome to the president has shown the Senate the precise instinct that is disqualifying in a director of national intelligence."
"Rewarding an official who is actively executing the White House's war on an independent press with the keys to the intelligence community would be a catastrophic mistake," the letter continued.
The coalition emphasized that Clayton, whose confirmation hearing in the Senate is scheduled for Wednesday, has no experience in intelligence work, having spent most of his career as a corporate lawyer on Wall Street. He was tapped to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term and then to serve as US attorney for the Southern District of New York in his second.
"More troublingly," it said, "Clayton has spent his time in this position weaponizing his authority on behalf of the president, particularly by politicizing high-profile investigations."
As Trump came under fire for his relationship with the late child sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, Clayton was assigned to "take the lead" of a Department of Justice probe that selectively targeted a list of the president's enemies.
Clayton also oversaw the process of redacting files related to Epstein before their release to the public, which was met with criticism for including identifying information of abuse survivors, including nude photos, while blacking out the names of Trump and other prominent individuals despite a mandate from Congress.
The letter also notes Clayton's amplifying of Trump's debunked theories of election fraud in California as part of efforts to restrict mail-in voting, as well as his defense of Trump's $1.8 billion "slush fund," which a judge ruled this week constituted an improper act of self-dealing.
"We are living with the serious consequences of unqualified Trump loyalists, blindly pursuing the "MAGA" agenda at agencies like the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Education, Health and Human Services, and more," the letter concludes. "Adding the [intelligence community] to this list—especially in light of Clayton's shocking willingness to weaponize federal power to satisfy the president's political grievances... will have devastating consequences for our national security and the civil liberties of Americans."
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Watchdog’s Online Tracker Shows Which Candidates Are Being Showered With AI Industry’s Dark Money
"With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop, and how much they are spending.”
Jun 10, 2026
The artificial intelligence industry's super political action committees are dumping a heap of dark money into electing candidates from both parties to protect their interests on Capitol Hill amid growing public skepticism and backlash.
On Wednesday, the progressive advocacy group Demand Progress unveiled a new tool to help voters keep track of which midterm candidates are on the take.
The website, known as "AI Money Watch," is using Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings to track spending by the largest AI super PAC, Leading the Future (LTF), which has raised $125 million for into this year's midterms after being created last August to oust critics of the industry and protect allies.
"AI chatbots have been accused of flirting with children, discouraging people in distress from seeking help, and even offering instructions on how to plan a mass shooting—and billionaire AI CEOs are doling out millions to kill any safeguards that would stop this," said Demand Progress Action's AI policy adviser, Colin McGlynn, in a statement announcing the tracker. "With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop, and how much they are spending.”
The tracker allows users to view all 21 races in which LTF has spent money through its affiliated Democratic and Republican PACs and the 13 candidates it has endorsed.
While LTF has said it supports common-sense AI regulations to protect children and improve privacy, its affiliated nonprofit, Build American AI, has voiced opposition to state-level regulations and urged Congress to adopt a White House framework unveiled in March that calls for the federal government to preempt state AI laws.
Among LTF's principal backers are top MAGA donors, including OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and CEO Alex Karp.
But its top three beneficiaries are all Democrats. The group has spent more than $982,000 on advertising through its Democratic affiliate Think Big in support of Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), a centrist facing a progressive primary challenger, Michael Blake, in his Bronx district. Torres, whom LTF has endorsed, has been one of the most active legislators in the realm of AI, introducing a regulatory bill last year aimed at "unleashing AI innovation" that was described by critics as too industry-friendly.
LTF also threw over $1.1 million behind former Rep. Melissa Bean, an ex-investment banker, who won the Democratic primary for the open seat in Illinois' 8th congressional district with additional help from cryptocurrency and pro-Israel groups, which gave her the edge over her Justice Democrats-backed opponent Junaid Ahmed.
The group poured even more money, $1.4 million, into backing former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.—the son of the late civil rights icon—as he attempted a comeback after nearly 14 years out of Congress. The Democrat had said he wanted Illinois' economically marginalized 2nd District to be on the ground floor of the AI economic revolution.
By far the super PAC's biggest target has been New York State Assemblymember Alex Bores (D-73), whom it has bombarded with $5.7 million worth of negative ads to fight off his run in the state's 12th congressional district.
Bores, a former Palantir employee, has run proudly on his role in helping to enact one of the strongest state-level AI regulation frameworks in the country and made himself a target for LTF's benefactors. Think Big has described his legislation as “ideological and politically motivated" while Lonsdale has degraded him as a "random legislator in New York state" seeking to "harass and slow us down, and make us lose to China.”
LTF has also backed two pro-AI Republicans for US Senate through its GOP PAC American Mission—the hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham, who fought off an anti-interventionist primary challenger in South Carolina, and Rep. Andy Barr, who is gunning for the Kentucky seat long held by Sen. Mitch McConnell after comfortably winning his primary.
In a similar fashion to the cryptocurrency industry's $245 million push to put its allies in Congress and the White House in 2024, the AI industry's titanic effort to influence the midterms comes as its unchecked growth has left voters feeling increasingly uneasy and angry.
As Ryan Cooper explained on Wednesday for The American Prospect, "any messaging the PAC produces will almost certainly be dishonest."
AI as a business is quite unpopular, with 56% negative sentiment and just 38% approval in a recent NBC News poll. The data centers AI requires are even more unpopular, with a recent Heatmap News poll finding that Americans oppose them by a 71-21 margin—a 49-point swing in just one year.
When something is this unpopular, its associated PACs tend to carefully avoid mentioning what they actually care about. Instead, they run pretextual ads that raise unrelated pseudo-objections against their enemies. That’s how crypto took down Sen. [Sherrod] Brown (D-Ohio), and it’s how the Israel lobby took down Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). So, when some ad campaign is talking about housing, jobs, or whatever, and it’s funded by LTF, it will be vitally important to point out what is really going on.
McGlynn told Cooper that it's especially important to keep an eye on candidates like Torres, who claim to be in favor of some regulation but are receiving massive support from an industry that wants none.
“If you are going to take the money from the people that say, ‘No, don’t regulate anything,’ then you’ve lost credibility,” said McGlynn.
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Watchdog Says Don't Let Warner Hide Behind Pulte While Pushing Warrantless Spying Powers for Trump
“Warner’s opposition to Bill Pulte masks the fact that he is still the Democrats’ chief advocate for handing over unchecked spying powers to the Trump administration," said one progressive campaigner.
Jun 04, 2026
The watchdog group Demand Progress on Thursday warned that the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat is attacking civil liberties by collaborating with Republicans and the Trump administration to renew warrantless spying powers—even as he sounds the alarm over President Donald Trump's appointment of unqualified loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is pressing Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to use his influence to persuade Trump to reconsider appointing Pulte—a private equity firm founder and homebuilder who is currently director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—to the top intel post, which current Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard will officially vacate on June 30.
Warner this week called out Pulte's lack of relevant experience, as well as his "eagerness to use the authorities of government to pursue political retribution" against a number of Trump’s political foes for politically motivated mortgage fraud investigations.
However, critics including Demand Progress have pointed out Warner's critical role in whipping Democratic support for renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the US government to collect electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States without a warrant. Experts note that Americans’ data is also swept up during such surveillance, and civil society groups and some lawmakers from both parties have demanded reforms to prevent further abuse by federal agencies.
Section 702, which was reauthorized for two years in 2024, is set to expire next week. There is a legislative battle between lawmakers and intelligence officials who want to extend Section 702 largely intact—the so-called "clean" reauthorization backed by Trump and his allies—and privacy-focused legislators from both parties who want reforms, especially a requirement for warrants before searching Americans' communications.
A three-year proposal passed by House lawmakers in April did not include a warrantless requirement.
“Sen. Warner’s opposition to Bill Pulte masks the fact that he is still the Democrats’ chief advocate for handing over unchecked spying powers to the Trump administration," Demand Progress executive director Sean Vitka said Thursday. "Pulte obviously must go, but he’s also proof that this administration is eager and willing to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as a weapon."
"If Trump pulls Pulte, he can easily appoint another eager goon to fill the slot," Vitkaco stressed. "By focusing on Pulte and not broader reforms, Sen. Warner is not standing up for Americans or the Constitution, he is disguising his work to engineer warrantless mass surveillance against us."
"We know this because he’s been doing it publicly for months," he added. "An unprecedented, bipartisan movement is demanding privacy reforms, but Sen. Warner’s machinations threaten to derail this progress and hand Trump the surveillance powers he needs to threaten Americans and democracy itself for the rest of his administration.”
Demand Progress said that Warner "has conspicuously failed to join the chorus of Democrats and Republicans calling for reforms to FISA that would protect privacy and democracy itself."
"Warner, who is negotiating with Republicans and the Trump administration to renew FISA, has only commented on how bad Pulte is and notably stopped short of saying anything about FISA reform," the group continued. "This is particularly telling considering Warner’s history of promising future reforms to get FISA renewed and failing to deliver."
Demand Progress contrasted Warner's actions with those of his fellow Democrats, including Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who explicitly called for “reforms to ensure Americans’ privacy and rights are protected.”
Senate lawmakers could hold an initial procedural vote on extending Section 702 as soon as Thursday, with just a simple majority needed for the measure to advance. Future votes would require the support of 60 senators in order to avoid a Republican filibuster.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, warned Wednesday in a social media thread that the Section 702 extension supported by Trump, his Republican allies in Congress, and Warner "doesn’t just fail to curb warrantless domestic spying, it actually expands the government's ability to use 702 against Americans."
"Trump’s allies and Warner have produced a bill that purports to include reforms, but that makes no change whatsoever to existing standards and procedures for conducting backdoor searches, let alone a warrant requirement," she continued.
A "backdoor search" occurs when the government collects information about a US citizen when the surveillance was originally authorized for foreign targets and the government did not obtain a warrant before collecting the communications.
"These 'backdoor searches' are an affront to the Fourth Amendment," Goitein asserted. "They have led to widespread abuses, including FBI searches for the communications of members of Congress, campaign donors, journalists, and protesters across the political spectrum."
"There is broad bipartisan support in Congress for requiring the government to get a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications obtained under Section 702," she continued. "This reform has twice passed the House, and 76% of Americans support it."
"Unsurprisingly, Trump and his allies in Congress oppose this reform," Goitein wrote. "What’s more surprising is that key Democratic surveillance hawks, including Mark Warner and [Rep.] Jim Himes [D-Conn.], have teamed up with the Trump camp to ensure that his administration has continued warrantless access."
"Even more disturbing is the provision titled 'Restriction on Use of United States Person Information Acquired Under Section 702 in Criminal Prosecutions,'" she said. "Notwithstanding the Orwellian title, this provision actually *removes* existing restrictions on such use.
"Any member who is concerned with Pulte’s appointment should be aghast at the prospect of handing this administration warrantless access to Americans’ private communications and expanding its power to use those communications against Americans in court," Goitein added. "There is only one way senators can force leadership to permit amendment votes or otherwise negotiate: vote NO on the procedural motion that will take place in the coming days. Senators who support reform are the majority; they have real leverage. They must use it."
The Brennan Center for Justice and Demand Progress were among dozens of civil society groups that on Monday sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to "not abandon Americans' constitutional rights" and "reject any extension that does not include key bipartisan reforms that would protect Americans' privacy and civil rights and liberties."
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'This is Nuts': Critics Aghast as Trump Appoints 'Personal Henchman' as Acting DNI
"The president has chosen an official who has demonstrated not just willingness but eagerness to use the authorities of government to pursue political retribution," said US Sen. Mark Warner.
Jun 02, 2026
President Donald Trump shocked many observers on Tuesday when he appointed Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte to be his acting director of national intelligence, weeks after Tulsi Gabbard stepped down from the role.
In a Tuesday morning social media post, Trump announced that Pulte would be taking over as DNI while also remaining at his current post at the FHFA, which regulates government-sponsored housing enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
As noted by a Tuesday CNBC report, Pulte "has no prior experience in an intelligence role. His tenure at FHFA has been marked by his criminal referrals for mortgage fraud against Trump's political foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, whom the president has been trying to fire in an effort to stack the US central bank with political loyalists.
James was targeted for prosecution after she won a $450 million judgment against the president and his business in a civil fraud case.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairperson of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, delivered a scathing response to Trump's announcement.
"This appointment speaks volumes about what this president expects from the nation's top intelligence official," he said. "Rather than selecting a respected national security professional capable of delivering independent judgments, the president has chosen an official who has demonstrated not just willingness but eagerness to use the authorities of government to pursue political retribution."
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) also denounced the president's decision.
"Bill Pulte led Donald Trump’s efforts to charge and jail his political enemies, now he’s being rewarded with a job he has no business doing," Cortez Masto said. "Putting Pulte at the helm of the intelligence community risks American lives just so Trump can keep going after his political opponents."
Sean Vitka, executive director of Demand Progress, argued that Pulte's appointment was yet another reason for Democrats to oppose further extension of warrantless spying powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
"Congress must not sign away unchecked spying powers to the government," said Vitka, "when Donald Trump’s top spy is a man whose primary qualification is his willingness to weaponize sensitive information held by the government against the president’s political enemies."
Vitka specifically urged Warner to change course on his push to renew Section 702, particularly in light of Pulte's appointment.
"By supporting a FISA extension without any independent checks like warrant protections, Sen. Warner is putting the entire country at serious risk and enabling perhaps the greatest threat to American democracy we have seen in modern history," he said.
Journalist James Surowiecki expressed horror at Pulte's elevation to acting DNI.
"Even for Trump, this is nuts," Surowiecki wrote. "Bill Pulte, who's a [private equity] guy/real-estate developer with exactly zero intelligence experience, is going to be the new Director of National Intelligence—while also continuing to run FHFA and Fannie Mae/Fredde Mac!"
Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, issued a dire warning about Pulte potentially abusing US intelligence services to target Trump opponents.
"Fuck me, this is Bill Pulte," Moynihan wrote. "The guy who was using mortgage data to launch DOJ investigations against Lisa Cook, Letitia James, and [US Sen.] Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). He is being put in charge of national intelligence because of his track record of being willing to manufacture false allegations to target Trump's enemies."
Political commentator Keith Boykin described Pulte as Trump's "personal henchman" who "abused his position as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to send baseless criminal referrals against Letitia James and Lisa Cook."
National security attorney Bradley Moss, meanwhile, could not hide his disgust at Pulte's appointment in an all-caps social media post.
"WHAT THE... I QUIT," Moss wrote. "I GIVE UP. BILL PULTE??"
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Privacy Advocates Relieved Trump Allies 'Can't Get Their Warrantless FISA Reauthorization Across the Finish Line'
"Our bipartisan movement in defense of civil liberties is holding strong," a Demand Progress campaigner said after Congress passed a short-term extension to continue talks on a longer renewal.
Apr 30, 2026
Just a day after Democrats in the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives helped Republicans send a major spying bill to the Senate, despite warnings that it was dead on arrival there, both chambers on Thursday passed a 45-day extension to continue negotiations.
The Senate approved the stopgap bill for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—which allows the federal government to spy on electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States without a warrant—by a voice vote. The House signed off with a 261-11 vote, just hours before a previous short-term extension was set to expire.
President Donald Trump and his homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, have been demanding a "clean" extension of the program, while critical lawmakers from both parties and over 100 civil society groups have called for privacy reforms to protect Americans whose data is swept up in federal surveillance efforts.
Hajar Hammado, senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, one of the organizations leading reform calls, said in a Thursday statement that "intelligence agencies, the White House, and their allies in Congress have tried every trick in the book from fearmongering to misinformation, but they still can't get their warrantless FISA reauthorization across the finish line."
"The reason we keep ending up at this point is congressional leaders' refusal to allow votes on overwhelmingly popular, bipartisan reforms," she continued. "This 'my way or the highway' approach needs to stop."
According to Politico, US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters on Thursday that he and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) discussed the short-term extension during a closed-door meeting the previous day.
"I think there's already a pretty substantial dialog going on" between key Democrats and Republicans in both chambers, Thune added. "We're interested in looking at some ways in which it can be reformed... So we're entertaining those ideas at the moment."
Hammado declared that "when Congress returns, Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune must allow votes on amendments for real privacy protections or we'll keep repeating this farce over and over again. Our bipartisan movement in defense of civil liberties is holding strong, and we won't accept anything less."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime defender of privacy rights who had threatened to block the extension, highlighted on social media Thursday that he "secured a commitment that the FISA court opinion revealing abuses of Americans' rights will be DECLASSIFIED before Congress votes on reauthorization."
"The more Americans know about these abuses," he said, "the more they'll demand real reforms."
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'Dangerous and Shameful': 42 House Democrats Help GOP Send Trump Spying Bill to Senate
"It was these Democrats' responsibility to stand up against this administration, and they voted to stand down instead," said one campaigner.
Apr 29, 2026
Dozens of Democrats in the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives helped the GOP send a key spying bill to the Senate on Wednesday, earning sharp condemnation from the diverse movement that has called for privacy reforms.
The House voted 235-191 in favor of the bill released last week by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has been trying for months to get an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to President Donald Trump's desk.
FISA's Section 702 allows the US government to surveil electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information, without a warrant. However, Americans' data is also swept up, and civil society, along with some lawmakers from both major parties, has demanded reforms to prevent further abuse by federal agencies.
In the lead-up to the vote, progressives such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) warned that "this bill has no meaningful reforms to stop warrantless surveillance, directly undermining the Fourth Amendment" to the US Constitution, which is supposed to protect Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Another "Squad" member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), took to the House floor to blast Section 702 as "a dangerous mass surveillance tool" that "has been used to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters, members of Congress, journalists, and more."
However, 42 Democrats—including House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Jim Himes (Conn.)—still joined most House Republicans in advancing the legislation.
In addition to Himes, the Democrats who voted for the bill are Pete Aguilar (Calif.), Ami Bera (Calif.), Sanford Bishop (Ga.), Nikki Budzinski (Ill.), Janelle Bynum (Ore.), Ed Case (Hawaii), Kathy Castor (Fla.), Gil Cisneros (Calif.), Herb Conaway (NJ), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (NC), Lois Frankel (Fla.), Laura Gillen (NY), Jared Golden (Maine), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Josh Harder (Calif.), Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.), Steny Hoyer (Md.), Greg Landsman (Ohio), Susie Lee (Nev.), Kristen McDonald Rivet (Mich.), Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), Frank Mrvan (Ind.), Donald Norcross (NJ), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), Scott Peters (Calif.), Mike Quigley (Ill.), Josh Riley (NY), Brad Schneider (Ill.), Kim Schrier (Wash.), Terri Sewell (Ala.), Eric Sorensen (Ill.), Darren Soto (Fla.), Marilyn Strickland (Wash.), Tom Suozzi (NY), Derek Tran (Calif.), Gabe Vasquez (NM), Marc Veasey (Texas), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), and George Whitesides (Calif.).
"It's incredibly disappointing the House approved this measure," said Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, in a statement. "This bill is empty calories through and through. It contains no warrant for querying Americans' messages, and no meaningful reforms of any kind. The razor-thin procedural vote this afternoon makes clear that there's an appetite for reform, but House leadership took meaningful reforms off the menu."
"There is nothing in this bill that would have prevented the abuses of FISA 702 we've already seen—snooping on lawmakers, protesters, and campaign donors—and there is nothing that would stop even worse abuses in the future. A vote for this bill was a vote to give the FBI and other intelligence agencies a three-year blank check for surveillance abuse."
Hajar Hammado, senior policy adviser at Demand Progress—which helped convene over 100 artificial intelligence, civil rights, and other progressive groups pressuring Congress to include privacy protections in any renewal bill for the spying power—took aim at the House Democrats who supported the legislation.
"The 42 Democratic votes to advance Speaker Johnson and Donald Trump's surveillance agenda are dangerous and shameful," she declared.
"These Democrats defied their constituents and common sense to undercut meaningful privacy reforms in the House and instead voted to hand over sweeping spy powers to the Trump administration," she stressed. "This means continuing warrantless backdoor searches and allowing an increasing number of federal agencies to exploit the data broker loophole to supercharge AI and fuel mass domestic surveillance."
Hammado said that "their vote today has major consequences, as even 22 Republicans put principles over politics and voted against renewing FISA without warrant protections. It was these Democrats' responsibility to stand up against this administration and they voted to stand down instead."
While stressing that "no administration should have these powers," Free Press Action advocacy director Jenna Ruddock directed attention at "the champions for a clean extension of Section 702 in the Trump administration in particular," including the president's homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller.
"Stephen Miller has advocated against reforms to Section 702, claiming it is critical to his and Trump’s homeland security agenda, even as members of the administration refer to political opponents as 'enemies within,'" she noted. "Today, 42 Democrats joined 192 Republicans to co-sign Donald Trump and Stephen Miller's domestic surveillance agenda, jeopardizing the civil rights and liberties of every person in the United States."
Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker pointed out that House "Democratic leadership did not whip their members, enabling them to vote with Republicans and give Trump the surveillance powers."
While calling out the House Democrats who backed the bill, campaigners also set their sights on the Senate, where Punchbowl News reporter Anthony Adragna predicted that "it's DOA," or dead on arrival. Republicans have a slim majority in the chamber and, due to its rules, need at least some Democratic support to pass most bills, including this one.
A key issue is the central bank digital currency ban included in the House bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters on Wednesday that he may try to pass a 45-day extension instead. After a recent short-term extension, the spying authority is set to expire Thursday night.
"Now the fight moves to the Senate, where privacy champions in both parties are gearing up to try and stop this reckless giveaway to the surveillance state," Hammado said. She urged members of the upper chamber to join "bipartisan reformers" like Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) "in voting against any FISA measure that lacks real reforms like a warrant requirement to close the backdoor search and data broker loopholes."
Laperruque similarly said that "we hope senators will stand strong and reject this dangerous proposal."
Ruddock highlighted that "there is bipartisan legislation already introduced in both the House and Senate that would make desperately needed reforms to government surveillance powers."
"The Senate should reject the fake reforms in the current House bill and demand a vote on real reforms to Section 702, including a warrant requirement, and closing the data broker loophole," she said. "Our constitutional rights depend on it."
This article has been updated to include the names of the Democrats who voted for the bill.
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Key Democrats Under Pressure to Reject House GOP's New 3-Year FISA Extension
"Donald Trump and Stephen Miller want unfettered surveillance powers without any chance to enact protections, and Democrats must not give it to them," one campaigner warned.
Apr 23, 2026
A week after four Democrats helped Republicans pass a short-term extension of a controversial spying power with a dead-of-night vote in the US House of Representatives, Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday released a bill that would renew the authority for three years—double the amount of time the Louisiana Republican and President Donald Trump were previously pushing.
As that bill text circulated, Demand Progress—one of the scores of civil society groups calling for privacy reforms to be included in any renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—took aim at those Democrats: Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), Jared Golden (Maine), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), and Tom Suozzi (NY).
"Just like last time, Speaker Johnson's latest proposal lacks any meaningful privacy reforms, but this time, they're trying to renew FISA for three more years—twice as long as the Trump administration asked for," said Demand Progress senior policy adviser Hajar Hammado in a statement.
"Donald Trump and Stephen Miller want unfettered surveillance powers without any chance to enact protections, and Democrats must not give it to them," Hammado argued, referring to Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.
"We need Reps. Gottheimer, Suozzi, Golden, and Gluesenkamp Perez to stand with the rest of Democrats and hold Donald Trump accountable," the campaigner emphasized. "A vote in support of this FISA bill, especially procedural votes to advance it, is both a vote to allow Donald Trump to continue invasive, warrantless surveillance of private American citizens, and to sabotage even the chance of protecting privacy."
FISA's Section 702 allows the US government to surveil electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information, without a warrant. However, it's been abused at least hundreds of thousands of times by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alone—which has fueled calls for reforms, including closing the data broker loophole that agencies use to buy their way around the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.
"Speaker Johnson wants to pretend this bill is reform, but it's the same type of empty-calorie proposal that failed last week," warned Jake Laperruque, deputy director of Center for Democracy and Technology's Security and Surveillance Project. "There is nothing in this bill that would have prevented the abuses of FISA 702 we've already seen—snooping on lawmakers, protesters, and campaign donors—and there is nothing that would stop even worse abuses in the future."
"Members of Congress have a clear choice: They can support this proposal and give the FBI and other intelligence agencies a three-year blank check, or they can stand strong and demand real reforms to protect the American people," he said.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program, similarly stressed how the latest bill is "almost identical to the one that failed last week," explaining on social media that "the main 'reform' in Johnson's first proposal was a provision that merely restated existing law, under which the government may not 'target' Americans under Section 702 but may do so with a warrant or FISA Title I order."
"That provision was titled 'warrant requirement,' even though it imposed no new warrant requirement whatsoever. And it had zero relevance to the issue at the heart of the debate over Section 702, namely, backdoor searches," she noted. "Backdoor searches are not considered to be 'targeting' Americans for surveillance. Rather, they are searches of collected communications of foreign targets outside the United States for Americans' communications that were 'incidentally' swept in."
"Astonishingly, Johnson has chosen to feature this same do-nothing provision in his new proposal. This time, the drafters have dropped any pretense of creating new law and titled the provision 'Fourth Amendment Requirement for Targeting United States Persons,'" Goitein continued. "This is not a reform bill, and it's not a compromise. It's a straight reauthorization with eight pages of words that serve no serious purpose other than to try to convince members that it's NOT a straight reauthorization."
According to her: "House members didn't fall for it last week, and they shouldn't fall for it now. Speaker Johnson must allow the House to vote on the reforms that members and the American people are demanding, including a warrant requirement to access Americans' communications."
The GOP narrowly has the numbers to pass legislation with a party-line vote in the House, but some of the chamber's Republicans have joined in the calls for privacy reforms. Libertarian leaders, including Justin Amash, a former Republican congressman from Michigan, have forcefully spoken out against Johnson's efforts.
"House Republicans are spitting on the Constitution and spitting in all our faces," Amash said of the bill unveiled Thursday.
Calling out the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and vast US Intelligence Community, Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties at the libertarian Cato Institute, declared that "this is an HPSCI, SSCI, IC Trojan horse bill masquerading as something Fourth Amendment-compliant."
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) "is threatening to take over negotiations if the House GOP can’t resolve differences quickly," according to Politico. In the upper chamber, Republicans need at least some Democratic support to pass a reauthorization bill.
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