Wyden to Force Declassification of Secret Court Opinion on FISA “Serious Abuses”

On Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) proposed a short-term extension of FISA in exchange for declassifying a major opinion from the top government surveillance court, which revealed continuing violations of the controversial authority. Wyden’s proposal follows the passage of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) bad faith FISA bill that likely will not be taken up by the Senate. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) then objected to Wyden’s proposal, likely catalyzing an unprecedented, if illusory, statutory sunset of Section 702. Cotton is perhaps the most vociferous surveillance hawk making the misleading claim that any statutory sunset of Section 702 would amount to “going dark.”

Demand Progress is part of a bipartisan coalition urging Congress to close loopholes in the law that allow the government to bypass the courts to surveil Americans.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“Tom Cotton and the Senate should accept Sen. Wyden’s deal if they don’t want Section 702 to expire. As we’ve seen over and over again in the House, any path forward that lacks meaningful privacy reforms is doomed to fail. Further, the American people deserve, and policymakers need to see, what violations the FISA court found. It is alarming that those who are fearmongering most over the statutory expiration of Section702 are now embracing it to hide the truth.

Sen.Cotton is trying to keep his colleagues and Americans in the dark about how the government is violating the law to surveil us—the very same law some claim is never abused. Senators opposing this deal risk plunging us into uncharted waters, including a sunset of FISA and cancellation of the upcoming recess to sort this all out. Unlike Speaker Johnson and Tom Cotton, Sen. Wyden is offering a viable path forward, instead of incompetent, bad faith machinations to thwart any votes on real reforms.”