Wyden and Lee Introduce the Government Surveillance Reform Act, Requiring a Warrant Before Agencies Buy Americans' Data From Brokers

Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mike Lee (R-UT), with Representatives Warren Davidson (R-OH) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), introduced the Government Surveillance Reform Act on March 12, 2026. Cosponsors: Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cynthia Lummis, Reps. Sara Jacobs and Pramila Jayapal.

The bill bans federal purchases of Americans’ data from data brokers without a warrant, and separately reforms FISA Section 702 — requiring warrants for federal access to Americans’ communications collected under it (with emergency exceptions), prohibiting reverse targeting, repealing the “make everyone a spy” provision, and strengthening oversight.

The legislative fact is less interesting than what it concedes. A bill is needed because the conduct is currently lawful. Agencies barred from collecting this data directly may buy the same data on the open market, and no court order is required, because a purchase is not a search. Wyden’s own framing: “Advances in technology, from AI to the explosion of Americans’ data available for purchase, have far outpaced the laws protecting Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.” Lee: “It is imperative that Congress enact real reforms to protect our civil liberties, including warrant requirements and statutory penalties for privacy violations.”

That is the gap this corpus documents from the other direction all year, and the sequence is worth reading against this bill’s date. Six days after introduction, FBI Director Patel confirmed warrantless purchase of commercial data (March 18). Two weeks after that, NPR documented purchase-instead-of-warrant as standing practice and 72 lawmakers demanded a DHS OIG probe (March 25). In June the Supreme Court held in Chatrie that geofence location data implicates the Fourth Amendment — and FISA Section 702 lapsed for the first time since 2008. In June ICE placed a $9.97M order for an ITIN data subscription four months after courts blocked the IRS channel.

So the loophole the bill would close was, across the same year, confirmed by the agency using it, documented as routine, condemned by 72 members, narrowed at the margins by the Supreme Court, and used again to buy taxpayer identifiers. No floor action on the bill is recorded here.

The coalition is the other notable feature: ACLU, Americans for Prosperity, Brennan Center, Center for Democracy & Technology, Consumer Choice Center, Demand Progress, Due Process Institute, EPIC, Fight for the Future, Muslim Advocates, NACDL, Restore the Fourth, Free Press Action, POGO and others endorsed it — left and right civil-liberties organizations on the same bill, matching the Wyden-Lee, Lofgren-Davidson sponsor pairing. Warrantless data purchasing is one of the few surveillance questions where that coalition still forms.

Sourcing note. The March 12 date, all sponsors and cosponsors, the data-broker and § 702 provisions, both quotes, and the endorsing organizations are from Wyden’s own Senate press release, read directly — a primary source for the bill’s introduction and contents, though naturally a sponsor’s characterization of its own bill. The capture ledger dated this to March 1 and gave a bill number of S.4082; the March 1 date is corrected to March 12 per the release, and the bill number is not carried — the press release does not state it, and it was not verified against Congress.gov. The ledger’s claim that the bill’s “best chance” runs through the FISA reauthorization debate is FedScoop’s analysis, not confirmed congressional scheduling, as the ledger’s own fact-check noted; it is not carried as fact. No markup, floor vote, or committee action is established here, and given that § 702 lapsed in June the reauthorization vehicle the analysis assumed may no longer exist in the form described.