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project on government oversight
Rights and Tech Coalition Calls On Congress to End Warrantless Mass Surveillance
"The American people do not want the government to bypass the courts and buy our private information in bulk from data brokers."
Mar 19, 2026
With Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives aiming for "a straightforward extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, next week," a diverse coalition on Thursday renewed calls for Congress to impose "much-needed privacy protections against government agencies' warrantless mass surveillance of people in the United States."
Section 702 empowers the US government to spy on electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information, without a warrant. However, Americans' data is also collected, and advocates and lawmakers have long demanded reforms to the abused authority, which is set to expire next month unless reauthorized.
As President Donald Trump's White House—including Stephen Miller, his pro-spying deputy chief of staff—pushes for a "clean" reauthorization, 133 artificial intelligence, civil rights, and other progressive groups convened by Demand Progress and the Project On Government Oversight sent a Thursday letter to Republican and Democratic leaders in both chambers of Congress.
The coalition's letter argues that "FISA's sunsets were designed to prompt Congress to consider privacy protections" and calls for "closing the data broker loophole" that intelligence and law enforcement agencies use to buy their way around the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which is supposed to protect Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.
"Data brokers sell private information about all Americans, often surreptitiously obtaining that data from our phones and other internet-connected devices," the letter explains. "This information paints a mosaic of each and every American's life, which exposes where we sleep, what we believe, whom we vote for, and a staggering amount more."
The loophole "facilitates mass surveillance and circumvents FISA reforms Congress enacted in 2015 to prohibit domestic bulk data collection," the missive continues. Closing it "would ensure government agencies obtain judicial approval before buying information about people in the United States from data brokers if it would otherwise require a court order to seize."
"This would establish a critical legal process to protect privacy before such warrantlessly acquired information is fed into artificial intelligence surveillance systems, and help avert looming and unprecedented threats to Americans' civil liberties," it adds, citing a poll that shows 80% of Americans think the government should have to obtain a warrant before being able to buy such data.
The letter also highlights recent reporting from The New York Times that the US Department of Defense wants AI companies to "allow for the collection and analysis of unclassified, commercial bulk data on Americans, such as geolocation and web browsing data," and appears to have already secured one agreement that could permit any use the government deems lawful.
Demand Progress executive director Sean Vitka warned in a Thursday statement that "by rushing to renew FISA without any reforms, Congress is poised to allow AI companies and government agencies to supercharge mass domestic surveillance systems with our location and web browsing data—all without a warrant or any involvement from the courts."
"The American people do not want the government to bypass the courts and buy our private information in bulk from data brokers," Vitka stressed. "To protect Americans' privacy, our Fourth Amendment rights and the fundamental liberties that privacy protects, Congress must close the data broker loophole before renewing the government's surveillance power."
The letter—whose other signatories include the ACLU, Amnesty International US, Center for Democracy & Technology, Consumer Action, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Fight for the Future, Friends of the Earth US, MoveOn, No Tech for Apartheid, Peace Action, Progressive Democrats of America, Reporters Without Borders, and more—points out that "several already introduced pieces of legislation both reauthorize Section 702 and effectively close the data broker loophole."
Among them is the bipartisan Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act, introduced last month by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), and backed by organizations including Demand Progress.
"Section 702 is a valuable tool to help keep our nation safe," Durbin said at the time. "However, it's being used to conduct thousands of warrantless searches of Americans' private communications. That's unacceptable. Our bipartisan SAFE Act is a commonsense solution to continue protecting our country from foreign threats—while safeguarding Americans' civil liberties and privacy."
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Musk's SpaceX Likely Paid 'Little to No Taxes' Despite Lucrative Government Contracts
Patriotic Millionaires, an organization that lobbies for higher taxes on the wealthy, said the report was a "reminder of how unfair our tax code is."
Aug 15, 2025
Although Elon Musk's space exploration company SpaceX has benefited over the years from several lucrative government contracts, it has largely avoided paying any taxes to the federal government.
The New York Times reports that SpaceX has "most likely paid little to no federal income taxes since its founding in 2002 and has privately told investors that it may never have to pay any."
The reason that the company has gotten away with paying practically no taxes, writes the Times, is that it takes advantage of a tax benefit commonly referred to as a net operating loss carryforward "that allows it to use the more than $5 billion in losses it racked up by late 2021 to offset paying future taxable income." This tax benefit was initially limited in its scope, but congressional Republicans and US President Donald Trump in 2017 scrapped its expiration date for all companies, thus letting SpaceX and other firms take advantage of it indefinitely.
Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, told the Times that this tax benefit was intended to help struggling firms weather tough times to stay in business, but that it was "clearly not intended for a company doing so well" as SpaceX.
In its review of SpaceX's internal documents, the Times found that SpaceX had paid a small amount of taxes over the years, although none of them were to the federal government.
"In one document, the company said it expected to pay $483,000 in income tax to foreign governments and $78,000 in state income tax in 2021," writes the paper. "Separately, it reported paying $6,000 for income taxes in 2020 and 2021, but did not disclose if the payments were for federal, state or local governments."
What makes SpaceX's tax avoidance particularly noteworthy is its own dependence on the federal government for business. In 2020, the Times found, federal contracts accounted for nearly 84% of the firm's total revenues.
Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans who advocate for higher taxes on the rich, wrote on X that SpaceX's almost total lack of tax payments to the federal government was yet another piece of evidence about the tax system being rigged for the big corporations.
"SpaceX has secured billions in government contracts over the years," they wrote. "In return, it has likely paid... $0 in federal income taxes—and may never have to. Just in case you needed a pre-weekend reminder of how unfair our tax code is!"
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'Authoritarianism 101': Observers Decry DOJ's Lawsuit Against Maryland Federal Bench
"It's hard not to see this challenge as further escalation by the administration of its opposition to courts that have sought to check illegal government conduct," said one lawyer and director at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Jun 26, 2025
In an escalation of the Trump administration's tense relationship with the judiciary, the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday sued the entire 15-judge bench of Maryland's U.S. District Court over a recent immigration-related order, a move that was met with alarm by several observers.
The lawsuit comes in response to an order by Chief Judge George L. Russell III, who in May imposed a stay for a period of two days on the deportation of any immigration custody detainee in Maryland who files a petition for habeas corpus, which is a legal action challenging the lawfulness of a person's detention. The plaintiffs in the new case are the United States and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
According to The Washington Post, the complaint makes the case that the order was "unlawful" and "antidemocratic." It also alleges that the order runs afoul of Supreme Court precedent and intrudes "on core Executive Branch powers." Russell's order applies not only to cases before him, but also the 14 other district judges in Maryland, per the Post.
"President [Donald] Trump's executive authority has been undermined since the first hours of his presidency by an endless barrage of injunctions designed to halt his agenda," said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "The American people elected President Trump to carry out his policy agenda: This pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand."
Adam Bonica, a political science professor at Stanford University, called the DOJ's core claim in the lawsuit "stunning." On his Substack, Bonica wrote that the DOJ is essentially arguing that the Trump administration is being injured "by the very existence of judicial oversight."
Several legal experts characterized the lawsuit as an attack on judicial independence, as did the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.
"This isn't about process. It's about punishing judges for rulings the administration doesn't like. That's authoritarianism 101," the group said in a post on X on Wednesday.
Alicia Bannon, the director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, added that "if the administration's challenge is successful, it will be far easier to evade the courts altogether in future immigration cases."
"It's hard not to see this challenge as further escalation by the administration of its opposition to courts that have sought to check illegal government conduct," she said.
The judges named in the lawsuit have ruled on major cases involving the Trump administration this year. For example, Judge Paula Xinis, one of the defendants, is overseeing the high-profile case of a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year. He is back on U.S. soil now after the Trump administration delayed returning him to the country.
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