Section 702: America's mass surveillance law has lapsed, on paper

At midnight on June 12, 2026, Section 702 of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) expired. It was the first time since the law was passed in 2008. With no deal in Congress, the United States’ main mass surveillance tool lost its legal basis. It is a win, but mostly a symbolic one.

What is Section 702?

Section 702 lets the NSA compel American companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple and phone carriers to hand over the communications of foreigners located outside the United States. No individual warrant is needed. The only requirement is that the goal be to gather “foreign intelligence”, a very broad notion.

In 2025, the program had 349,823 targets. And targets are never alone. Everyone they talk to, Americans included, ends up in the databases. The FBI then searches them for Americans without a warrant, a practice known as “backdoor searches”. A secret 2022 ruling, made public in 2023, revealed more than 278,000 improper FBI searches, targeting among others people arrested at the protests after George Floyd’s murder, suspects in the Capitol attack and 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign.

If you are not American, Section 702 offers you almost no protection. Wherever you live, if you use an American service, your communications can be collected without anyone having to convince a judge.

What happened

In April 2024, Congress renewed Section 702 for only two years, until April 20, 2026. So the reform debate came back this spring. At its core, should the FBI finally need a warrant before searching Americans’ communications?

A five-year deal collapsed in April. Congress passed two short extensions, then the House of Representatives passed a three-year renewal with no warrant requirement, which the Senate never took up. In June the crisis deepened for political reasons. Democrats refused any renewal while Bill Pulte was acting Director of National Intelligence, then Donald Trump demanded that a voter ID bill be attached. On June 11, the House rejected one last extension. At midnight the next day, the law expired.

Why the collection goes on

Every year, a secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), approves the “certifications” that govern the program. The latest were approved on March 17, 2026 and remain valid until March 17, 2027. Until then, companies must keep cooperating or face fines of at least $250,000 a day. According to the Brennan Center, they are.

So the program now runs without a law, on court authorizations alone. And as of late September 2026, Congress still has not renewed it.

Why it is still a win

For years, renewing Section 702 was a formality. In 2026, for the first time, those demanding a warrant held out long enough for the program to lapse. The real deadline is now March 2027. Any renewal will require a new negotiation, and reform advocates have gained leverage.

We should be clear-eyed, the lapse owes as much to political gridlock as to pressure to protect privacy. But it proves that a mass surveillance program is not eternal.

And elsewhere?

In 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU struck down the Privacy Shield, the data transfer deal with the United States, partly because of Section 702. Its successor, the 2023 Data Privacy Framework, survived a first challenge in September 2025, and the ruling has been appealed.

Other countries rarely protect foreigners better. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights condemned the United Kingdom’s bulk interception regime for lack of safeguards. Germany stands out. In 2020, its Constitutional Court ruled that its foreign intelligence service must respect the fundamental rights of foreigners abroad too.

What you can do

Use end-to-end encrypted messaging, such as Signal. A company cannot hand over what it cannot read.
Encrypt your files before storing them in an American cloud.
To keep your providers from knowing which sites you visit, use Tor Browser.
In the European Economic Area, you can file a complaint about US surveillance through your data protection authority.

Section 702: America’s mass surveillance law has lapsed, on paper