Amending the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008 to Extend the Authorities of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. We have been working hard on the 702 legislation with the kind of lodestar that we want to prove that, for the first time, the government is saying that liberty and security are not mutually exclusive; that we can do both.

To do that, we now have a letter that will be sent very shortly from Chairman Cotton and Ranking Member Warner to the DNI and the Attorney General. I just want to read this--it is very short--into the Record that will reflect this, and then we will have a brief colloquy, the majority leader and I, that is along the lines of what we talked about.

So Chairman Cotton and Ranking Member Warner write to the DNI and the Attorney General:

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice delivered to Congress a classified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinion and order, dated March 17, 2026. Under the law, your offices are currently conducting a declassification review for the purposes of making this FISC opinion and order publicly available, consistent with the protection of sources and methods, as soon as practicable. In order to inform the Senate debate on reauthorization of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, we expect that this declassification review will be completed, and the FISC opinion released publicly, within 15 days.

So, again, this is coming from the chairman of our committee, Chairman Cotton, and Senator Warner, our vice chairman. It is going to the DNI and the Attorney General, and to make sure that everybody understands the state of play here, a formal letter is being written, and we are just getting the signatures on that now. Everyone is waiting to hear where things stand.

And with that, let me yield to my colleague the majority leader.

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the majority leader states it correctly. That is my understanding as well. The point of this is to have some additional time. This is a very new period in this debate with, for example, AI driving so much of this. And you know, new tools require new rules, and we are going to be able to think about how to proceed with that in the future.

I yield my time. I thank the majority leader for, in effect, reaffirming what we have been working on. I think that this letter from the chair and the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, where I am proud to serve, to DNI and the Attorney General is a step in the right direction.

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