Rand Paul's FISA Fix: Get a Warrant Before Searching Americans

Senator Rand Paul is moving to close one of the most criticized loopholes in federal surveillance law: the use of FISA — a statute built to track foreign threats — to sweep up and search the communications of American citizens without a warrant.

Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, intelligence agencies collect enormous volumes of foreign communications. Because Americans talk to foreigners, Americans' emails, texts, and calls get pulled in too. The FBI has then run "U.S. person queries" on that pile — searching Americans' data without probable cause, without a judge, without a warrant. Declassified FISA Court opinions and DOJ Inspector General reports have documented large numbers of improper queries, including searches tied to protesters, political donors, and at least one sitting U.S. senator.

Paul's amendment takes the position the Fourth Amendment already demands: if the government wants to read an American's communications, it needs probable cause and a warrant from a real court — not a rubber stamp from the secret FISA Court, and not a backdoor search of data the government already happens to be holding.

This is the part of the process that actually matters. FISA reauthorizations run on a ticking clock, and the warrant-requirement fight gets killed or watered down almost every cycle. Amendments like this one are the lever — they force a roll-call vote where senators have to go on record either defending warrantless searches of their own constituents or voting to require a warrant.

A few things worth doing:

• Call both of your senators and ask, on the record, whether they will vote yes on a warrant requirement for U.S. person queries.
• Track the roll call when it happens. Primary season is when that kind of vote actually lands.
• Push back on the "national security is too important for due process" framing. The Fourth Amendment was written specifically for the cases where government is most tempted to skip it.

The FISA Court issues its orders in secret. The only reason any of the documented abuse is public at all is because inspectors general, journalists, and a handful of persistent senators forced it into the open. Keeping that pressure on — and rewarding the people who actually file the amendments — is how this gets fixed rather than quietly reauthorized for another several years.

Source: [@Senator Rand Paul on X](https://x.com/Senator Rand Paul/status/2046368254617166099)