If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires in days. The bipartisan push to extend it without a single privacy reform is now accelerating, with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, and President Trump all lining up behind an 18-month renewal that preserves the government’s ability to search Americans’ communications without a warrant. The House Rules Committee meet to consider H.R. 8035, the bill that would keep Section 702 alive through late 2027. Johnson has refused to allow amendments, telling reporters that adding reforms would threaten the bill’s passage. That position blocks the one change that privacy-focused lawmakers in both parties have spent years fighting for: a requirement that the FBI get a judge’s approval before searching a database of Americans’ phone calls, emails, and text messages that were collected without individual court orders. Trump posted on Truth Social today, calling on Republicans to “get a clean extension of FISA 702 through the House of Representatives this week.” He wrote, “I am asking Republicans to UNIFY and vote together on the test vote to bring a clean Bill to the floor. We need to stick together when this Bill comes before the House Rules Committee today to keep it CLEAN!” The president, who told lawmakers to “KILL FISA” during the 2024 reauthorization debate, wrote in a March Truth Social post that “whether you like FISA or not, it is extremely important to our Military.” Grassley announced his support for the clean extension this morning after the Department of Justice agreed to revise rules governing congressional oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The DOJ committed to rolling back a Biden-era policy from November 2024 that had restricted how members of Congress could attend and observe FISC and FISCR proceedings, including banning note-taking and allowing the DOJ to exclude lawmakers from certain sessions. Those restrictions directly contradicted the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), which Congress passed in April 2024 and which explicitly required congressional access to the surveillance courts. “I applaud DOJ for lifting its restrictions on congressional oversight of FISC and FISCR proceedings. With Congress’s access fully restored, the Trump administration has faithfully implemented the reforms Congress called for in its last FISA reauthorization and proven its commitment to transparency and the protection of civil liberties,” Grassley said. “Section 702 is one of our nation’s most valuable national security tools. Especially given the current threat environment, it’s imperative Congress doesn’t allow this critical authority to lapse. We must ensure American lives aren’t put at risk by a potential Section 702 expiration on April 20. The best path forward is for the House to pass a clean, 18-month FISA extension.” The DOJ agreed to stop excluding members of Congress from surveillance court proceedings, stop banning note-taking, and stop preventing lawmakers from sharing information with appropriately cleared colleagues. These were things Congress already required by law. The DOJ was violating its own statute, got caught, and agreed to comply. Grassley is treating compliance with existing law as a reason to skip reforms that would protect 330 million Americans from warrantless searches of their private communications. Nothing about the DOJ’s procedural fix addresses the core problem with Section 702: the FBI routinely searches a massive database of communications collected under the program to find and read Americans’ emails, texts, and phone calls, all without getting a warrant. The FISA Court itself called the FBI’s compliance problems “persistent and widespread” in 2022. FBI queries targeting Americans’ data rose 35% in 2025, according to the latest transparency report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The agency asking Congress for more time is the same one running more warrantless searches than ever. When RISAA was passed in 2024, it included 56 reforms and a two-year sunset specifically so Congress could continue negotiating a warrant requirement. That negotiation never happened. Congress spent two years doing nothing, and is now treating the deadline it created as an emergency that makes reform impossible. The warrant amendment came within a single vote of passing the House in 2024, failing in a 212-212 tie. A federal district court ruled in 2025 that the Fourth Amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant before searching Section 702 data for Americans’ communications. The legal and political momentum for reform has only grown since RISAA passed. Leadership in both chambers is ignoring all of it. Johnson can only afford to lose two Republican votes on the procedural rule to bring H.R. 8035 to the floor. Multiple members of the House Freedom Caucus, including Reps. Lauren Boebert, Tim Burchett, and Anna Paulina Luna have threatened to block the rule vote. Some want the SAVE America Act, a voter identification bill, attached to the FISA legislation. Others want actual surveillance reforms. If Republican defectors hold, Johnson will need Democrats to get the bill through. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said his caucus will oppose the procedural rule, and 98 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have formally pledged to vote against a clean extension. If the clean extension passes, Section 702 continues through late 2027 with no warrant requirement, no closure of the data broker loophole that lets agencies buy Americans’ information commercially, and no accountability for the compliance failures that the FISA Court keeps documenting. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post FISA Section 702 Extension Faces House Vote With No Privacy Reforms appeared first on Reclaim The Net.