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Rights Groups to Dems: Don't Give Stephen Miller What He Wants on Mass Surveillance
“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States."
Mar 12, 2026
More than 90 civil society groups on Thursday urged congressional Democrats to "stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers" by renewing "without new safeguards" a highly controversial surveillance authorization historically abused by federal agencies.
Free Press Action and Demand Progress are leading the call to senior Democratic lawmakers to not reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—a controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—without first enacting privacy reforms.
“Section 702 has been used to conduct millions of warrantless ‘backdoor’ searches for the phone calls, text messages, and emails of people in the United States,” the groups said in a letter to six senior Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York.
Free Press Action & 90 civil-society groups call on Democratic leaders to stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) without new safeguards.Our statement: www.freepress.net/news/massive...
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 11:32 AM
The groups—which include the ACLU, Center for Biological Diversity, Color of Change, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Indivisible, National Immigrant Justice Center, Public Citizen, and UltraViolet Action—cited recent reporting from Politico stating that Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's xenophobic deputy chief of staff, supports extending the program that empowers federal agencies to surveil and collect the data of noncitizens abroad without a warrant.
As Free Press Action explained Thursday:
Congress has until April 20 to reauthorize Section 702. Stephen Miller is a leading advocate for extending Section 702 without any reforms, and President Trump is now openly supporting this approach. The groups urge Democratic members of Congress to refuse to reauthorize these powers without key reforms, including reforms to the government’s warrantless querying of communications of people in the United States without prior court approval. Such surveillance allows government officials to conduct sweeping backdoor searches, accessing the private communications of millions of people.
“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States,” the letter adds. "These surveillance authorities have long jeopardized privacy, and efforts by Miller to continue them without meaningful reforms and sufficient oversight are deeply troubling.”
The groups emphasize the imperative to close the so-called backdoor search loophole—via which domestic law enforcement agencies can access Americans’ communications without a warrant—and the data broker loophole, which lets the government to buy its way around Fourth Amendment proscriptions on warrantless search and seizure by purchasing sensitive information from private vendors.
I've long been sounding the alarm on Section 702 of FISA, and secret, legal loopholes the government uses to spy on Americans. The program is up for reauthorization in April and I'll be fighting like hell to make sure the current program doesn’t get rubber stamped.
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— Senator Ron Wyden (@wyden.senate.gov) March 11, 2026 at 10:41 AM
Earlier this month, more than 70 congressional Democrats demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans’ location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act, which would protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance by requiring authorities to obtain a FISA Title I order or a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications.
The civil society groups that signed the letter are also urging lawmakers to fix the "overbroad" expansion of electronic communication service providers and remove barrier to the FISA legal process.
"There are terrifying risks to reauthorizing government surveillance powers that have been abused to spy on protesters, immigrants, journalists, and even political candidates under any presidential administration," said Jenna Ruddock, advocacy director at Free Press Action. "People across the country and on both sides of the aisle agree, and overwhelmingly support urgently needed reforms to FISA."
“This White House in particular has relentlessly labelled perceived political opponents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ justifying in their minds the relentless surveillance and persecution of those who oppose the administration’s agenda," Ruddock added. "Congress must insist on these common-sense reforms and put the civil and constitutional rights of Americans above the authoritarian desires of Miller and others in the Trump administration.”
Demand Progress senior policy adviser Hajar Hammado said that “Democrats do not want this or any administration to have the power to trawl through Americans’ private emails and texts without warrants. Democratic leaders need to listen to the people and not just rubber-stamp the spy powers that Miller is asking for."
"This extends beyond partisan politics," Hammado continued. "No president should have the powers to hoover up Americans’ private communications, force janitors and security guards to spy on other Americans for them, or circumvent court orders by purchasing sensitive information about people in the United States from data brokers."
"As the government’s plans to supercharge surveillance with AI come into view," she added, "Congress must enact real reforms to curb invasive government spying.”
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ACLU Sues to Uncover 'What the NSA Is Hiding' About Its Use of Artificial Intelligence
"AI tools have the potential to expand the NSA's surveillance dragnet more than ever before," the civil liberties group warned.
Apr 26, 2024
The ACLU on Thursday sued the National Security Agency in an effort to uncover how the federal body is integrating rapidly advancing artificial intelligence technology into its mass spying operations—information that the agency has kept under wraps despite the dire implications for civil liberties.
Filed in a federal court in New York, the lawsuit comes over a month after the ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking details on the kinds of AI tools the NSA is using and whether it is taking any steps to prevent large-scale privacy abuses of the kind the agency is notorious for.
The ACLU said in its new complaint that the NSA and other federal agencies have yet to release "any responsive records, notwithstanding the FOIA's requirement that agencies respond to requests within twenty working days."
"Timely disclosure of the requested records [is] vitally necessary to an informed debate about the NSA's rapid deployment of novel AI systems in its surveillance activities and the safeguards for privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties that should apply," the complaint states, asking the court for an injunction requiring the NSA to immediately process the ACLU's FOIA request.
In a blog post on Thursday, the ACLU's Shaiba Rather and Patrick Toomey noted that AI "has transformed many of the NSA's daily operations" in recent years, with the agency utilizing AI tools to "help gather information on foreign governments, augment human language processing, comb through networks for cybersecurity threats, and even monitor its own analysts as they do their jobs."
"Unfortunately, that's about all we know," the pair wrote. "As the NSA integrates AI into some of its most profound decisions, it's left us in the dark about how it uses AI and what safeguards, if any, are in place to protect everyday Americans and others around the globe whose privacy hangs in the balance."
"That's why we're suing to find out what the NSA is hiding," they added.
BREAKING: We just filed a FOIA lawsuit to find out how the NSA — one of America's biggest spy agencies — is using artificial intelligence.
These are dangerous, powerful tools and the public deserves to know how the government is using them.
— ACLU (@ACLU) April 25, 2024
The ACLU filed its lawsuit less than a week after Congress approved a massive expansion of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), warrantless spying authority that the NSA has heavily abused to sweep up the communications of American journalists, activists, and lawmakers.
With their newly broadened authority, the NSA and other intelligence agencies will have the power to enlist a wide range of businesses and individuals to participate in their warrantless spying operations—a potential catastrophe for privacy rights.
Rather and Toomey warned Thursday that the growing, secretive use of artificial intelligence tools has "the potential to expand the NSA's surveillance dragnet more than ever before, expose private facts about our lives through vast data-mining activities, and automate decisions that once relied on human expertise and judgment."
"The government's lack of transparency is especially concerning given the dangers that AI systems pose for people's civil rights and civil liberties," Rather and Toomey wrote. "As we've already seen in areas like law enforcement and employment, using algorithmic systems to gather and analyze intelligence can compound privacy intrusions and perpetuate discrimination."
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Privacy Defenders Decry 'Spy Draft' in Section 702 Renewal Advanced by Senate
"It's not about who RISAA allows the government to spy on, it's about who RISAA allows the government to force to spy," explained one critic.
Apr 18, 2024
Civil liberties defenders on Thursday decried the U.S. Senate's advancement of the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, which critics say lawmakers are trying to ram through without protection against warrantless surveillance and with a provision that would effectively make every American a spy whether they like it or not.
Senators voted 67-32 in favor of a cloture motion to begin voting on RISAA, a bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires on Friday. FISA—a highly controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—allows warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. citizens but also often sweeps up Americans' communication data in the process.
In a 273-147 vote last week, House lawmakers passed RISAA, including an amendment critics say dramatically expands the government's unchecked surveillance authority by compelling a wide range of individuals and organizations—including businesses and the media—to cooperate in government spying operations.
This so-called "Make Everyone a Spy" clause would allow the attorney general or director of national intelligence to force electronic communication service providers to "immediately provide... all information, facilities, or assistance" the government deems necessary.
"This bill would basically allow the government to institute a spy draft," Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, warned Thursday. "It will lead to significant distrust between journalists and sources, not to mention everyone else."
"It's not about who RISAA allows the government to spy on, it's about who RISAA allows the government to force to spy," he added. "Regardless of whether the end target of the surveillance is a foreigner, it's indisputable that the people the government can enlist to conduct the surveillance are Americans. And what's more, these civilians ordered to spy would be gagged and sworn to secrecy under the law."
In addition to the "Make Everyone a Spy" provision, civil libertarians have sounded the alarm over the House lawmakers' rejection of an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the legislation.
Critics accuse Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and colleagues including Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) of trying to rush a vote on RISAA while disingenuously claiming Section 702's powers will expire with the law on Friday. That's a misleading claim, as a national security court earlier this month approved the government's request to continue a disputed surveillance program even if Section 702 lapses.
"There is simply no defense of Majority Leader Schumer and Sen. Warner's duplicity," Sean Vitka, policy director at the progressive advocacy group Demand Progress, said in a statement. "House Intelligence Committee leaders poisoned this bill with one of the most repugnant surveillance expansions in history, and apparently the administration was too busy attacking commonsense privacy protections to notice. They know it, we know it, and now the American people know it."
"There can be no mistake: Sens. Schumer and Warner just helped hand the next president an unspeakably dangerous weapon that will be used against their own constituents," Vitka added. "And there is only one vote left to stop it."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—who
said earlier this week that the bill would dragoon the American people into becoming "an agent for Big Brother"—on Thursday argued that "this issue demands a debate about meaningful reforms, not a rushed vote to rubber-stamp more warrantless government surveillance powers."
In an attempt to tackle the warrantless surveillance issue, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on Thursday proposed a RISAA amendment that would require the government to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before accessing Americans' private communications.
However, the amendment contains exceptions to the warrant requirement in the event of unspecified emergencies and cyberattacks.
"If the government wants to spy on the private communications of Americans, they should be required to get approval from a judge—just as our Founders intended," Durbin said in a statement. "Congress has a responsibility to the American people to get this right."
The Biden administration and U.S. intelligence agencies vehemently oppose the Durbin-Cramer amendment. The White House called the measure "a reckless policy choice contrary to the key lessons of 9/11 and not grounded in any constitutional requirement or statute."
"The amendment outright bars the government from gaining access to lawfully collected information using terms associated with U.S. persons," the administration added. "Exceptions to that prohibition are narrow and unworkable. They are insufficient to protect our national security."
On Wednesday, the House also passed the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act, which would prohibit the government from buying Americans' information from data brokers if it would otherwise need a warrant to obtain the data, which includes location and internet records. The Senate will now take up FANFSA.
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