Severe weather cost the United States an estimated $115 billion in 2025 alone, according to Climate Central's tally of billion-dollar disasters , a tolllows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect communications from foreign targets located outside the United States, has now lapsed for the first time since 2008.
What Section 702 Does
Section 702 authorizes surveillance programs targeting non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States to collect “foreign intelligence information” with the compelled cooperation of U.S. service providers, without individualized court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Supporters have long argued it is indispensable: the government says more than 60% of the president’s daily intelligence briefing relies on information collected under Section 702.
Critics, however, point out that though the program targets non-U.S. persons abroad, it sweeps in an untold but significant amount of Americans’ communications, which agencies can then query, often without a warrant, raising serious Fourth Amendment concerns.
What Just Happened
At 12 a.m. on Saturday, June 13, 2026, the spy authority known as Section 702 lapsed, after President Trump’s pick to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies complicated its renewal. Democrats opposed extending the authority after the president announced that he had selected Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to temporarily serve as director of national intelligence.
A bipartisan compromise had been expected to come with some reforms aimed at tackling privacy concerns, but Democratic leaders demanded a guarantee that Pulte would not serve as interim director while Trump’s new nominee, Jay Clayton, proceeded through confirmation.
Does Surveillance Actually Stop?
Not immediately. The FISA Court approved the most recent certifications in March 2026, locking in Section 702 surveillance authority until March 2027. The law makes clear that these certifications, and the directives issued to companies under them, are grandfathered, they remain valid until their expiration date, even if the underlying statute expires.
However, the implications worsen every day: while the 702 database would remain available to search, the data in that database will become increasingly out of date. There is also a practical concern: some carriers have privately warned they will stop cooperating once the statute lapses, fearing legal liability without an active law behind the government’s requests.
The Oversight Problem
Privacy advocates warn the lapse creates a perverse outcome. When Title VII lapses, the collection capability survives through other authorities, but the oversight architecture built specifically around 702, FISC programmatic review, minimization procedures, congressional reporting, and the compliance regime, goes with the statute. An intelligence community that keeps the capability while shedding the oversight is not a comforting outcome.
A March 2026 FISA Court opinion added urgency to reform efforts: the court found that a compliance problem the DOJ claimed to have fixed in early 2025 is in fact ongoing and extends beyond the FBI, with the use of “filtering” tools to query Americans’ information an issue across the intelligence community.
What Comes Next
Congress is expected to return to the issue when it reconvenes from recess, with the operational deadline now running to roughly March 2027 when the existing court certifications expire. The debate will center on the same unresolved questions: whether to require warrants for queries of Americans’ data, how to narrow the definition of who can be compelled to assist with surveillance, and how to add guardrails on the use of AI tools to analyze collected communications.
The outcome will determine not just how the United States gathers foreign intelligence, but how much oversight Americans retain over a surveillance program that, even in lapse, continues to operate.