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CIVIC HERALD
S 4082 · 119th Congress · SenateIn committee

Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2026

Provisionalunreviewed: issue tags, provisions, stakeholders
People affected—The text broadly affects Americans whose communications and data may be collected and all federal agencies conducting surveillance, but it names no specific population count; the bill requires the DNI to publish an estimate rather than stating one.
Fiscal magnitude—The operative text contains no appropriation, fee, or dollar figure; it restructures surveillance authorities and procedures rather than funding programs.
Reach88rigor: heuristic llm
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Issues

What this bill touches.

Role of government−55Personal data & privacy+82Security vs. privacy+90Ethics & oversight+78

The sign shows the bill's direction on each issue (+ toward, − away); the number is its magnitude. Color never encodes good or bad, and never party.

Who it affects

Who it helps · who it burdens.

Who it helps

  • Americans whose communications or data are swept into surveillanceGain new protections: the government generally needs a court order or warrant before searching or accessing their foreign-intelligence-collected information, location, web-browsing, search-query, and email records, and unlawfully obtained information cannot be used against them.provisional
  • FISA Court advisers (amici curiae) and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight BoardGain expanded authority, expertise requirements, mandatory roles, pay parity, and new reporting and review responsibilities over surveillance applications.provisional

Who it burdens

  • Federal intelligence and law-enforcement agenciesTake on new duties and limits: they must obtain warrants or court orders before many queries and acquisitions, keep detailed records of every search, report compliance to Congress, destroy improperly held or aging data, and submit to Inspector General audits.provisional
  • Data brokers and commercial sellers of personal dataLose the intelligence community as a customer for datasets of Americans' personal data, because agencies may not acquire such 'covered data' absent a court order, consent, or a narrow exception.provisional
  • Communication service providersMust respond only to warrants for stored content, location, web-browsing, and search-query records, follow new disclosure-minimization procedures, and submit certain ongoing certifications to Congress; some entities are removed from the class that can be compelled to assist.provisional

Dollar-level funding (FEC sector totals) is coming in a later phase.

What it does

The provisions, in plain language.

  1. Bars federal officers and employees from looking at Americans' communications and other sensitive information returned by a search of foreign-intelligence data, unless a court order or warrant already covers that person; narrow exceptions allow access only for a genuine imminent threat of death or serious injury, with the person's consent, or for defensive cybersecurity, each of which must be reported to Congress within 14 days.

    new FISA Title VII covered-query section, subsec. (b)-(d)provisional

  2. Makes any of an American's information accessed in violation of the new query rules unusable: it cannot be used as evidence or shared in any court, grand jury, agency, or other government proceeding, and cannot later be used or disclosed against the person without consent except to prevent death or serious bodily harm.

    new FISA covered-query section, subsec. (d)provisional

  3. Requires that any search of foreign-intelligence data be reasonably likely to find foreign-intelligence information and made for a significant foreign-intelligence purpose, and requires the government to create and keep an electronic record of each search and access (the search terms, date, the officer's identity, and the facts justifying it), including attributing automated searches to the responsible officer; agencies must report on compliance to Congress within 90 days.

    new FISA covered-query section, subsec. (f)-(j)provisional

  4. Prohibits federal officers from intentionally targeting any person in order to acquire the information of a particular known American, unless there is an imminent life-or-death emergency or the person consents, with emergency targeting reported to Congress within 14 days.

    new FISA reverse-targeting sectionprovisional

  5. Bars the intelligence community from buying or otherwise acquiring datasets of Americans' personal data (data linkable to a person or to a household device, including from data brokers) unless a court has authorized it, the person consented, or a narrow exception applies; the data is treated as covered even when anonymized but re-linkable, while truly public records are excluded.

    new FISA commercial-data section, subsec. (a)-(b)provisional

How your members of Congress line up

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Timeline

How it moved.

  1. Mar 12, 2026Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  2. Mar 12, 2026Introduced in Senate

The original text

Read it for yourself.

Read the original text →

Sources & provenance

Congress.govrefreshed 23 days ago

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