TL;DR: Speaker Johnson's third attempt at reauthorizing FISA Section 702 collapsed on April 28, 2026, when the House Rules Committee recessed without a deal. Freedom Caucus members still demand a warrant requirement for searching Americans' communications. House Democrats are whipping against any rule that doesn't include reforms. Johnson tried to sweeten the deal with a ban on central bank digital currencies, and Senate Majority Leader Thune immediately called it "dead on arrival." Section 702 expires Thursday, April 30. The options now: another short-term patch, a Senate-first deal the House gets forced to swallow, or the first lapse of warrantless surveillance authority since it was created in 2008.
Three Tries. Three Failures.
Monday night, the House Rules Committee gathered to hammer out a rule for Speaker Johnson's latest FISA Section 702 bill. They left without one [1].
It was Johnson's third attempt. The first two (a five-year extension and an 18-month stopgap) both failed on the House floor when conservative Republicans refused to vote for any bill that didn't include a warrant requirement for FBI searches of Americans' communications [2].
This time, Johnson came back with a three-year extension through 2029. No warrant requirement. Some new compliance reporting. And a bizarre add-on: a ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a central bank digital currency [3].
The Freedom Caucus wasn't impressed. "They keep coming back with the same stuff," Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told reporters. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) was more specific: "Still no warrants, still no CBDC, still no penalties to amount to anything" [1].
When the Rules Committee reconvened Tuesday morning, members were told there was still no deal. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) summed it up: "When we showed up, we were told there is still no deal" [1].
Democrats Aren't Coming to the Rescue
Johnson could potentially pass the bill with Democratic votes. He won't get them.
House Democratic leadership is actively whipping members against voting for any FISA rule that doesn't include warrant protections. Nearly 100 House Democrats have lined up against a clean Section 702 reauthorization. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who previously reversed his support for 702 after the FISA Court revealed ongoing compliance failures, called the bill out directly: "The bill before us today leaves the Trump administration in charge of policing its own abuses" [4].
About 50 House Democrats proposed amendments to close the loophole that lets intelligence agencies buy Americans' location and communications data from commercial data brokers without a warrant. All of them were blocked by the closed rule the Rules Committee approved in the earlier round [4].
That closed rule, blocking any vote on warrant amendments, is the core problem. In 2024, a warrant amendment failed on a 212-212 tie vote. Leadership learned the lesson: don't let it come to a vote at all. But the tactic that worked last time backfired now. Without even the possibility of a reform vote, both flanks have reasons to say no [4].
The CBDC Poison Pill
Johnson tried to buy conservative votes by attaching a ban on Federal Reserve digital currencies to the FISA bill. It was a play for libertarian-leaning Republicans who see CBDCs as a surveillance tool, which, to be fair, they potentially are.
The problem: the Senate doesn't want it. Majority Leader John Thune called the CBDC provision "dead on arrival" in the upper chamber [3]. Adding it guaranteed the Senate would reject the House bill, meaning even if Johnson somehow passed it, the whole thing would die across the hall.
That's not legislative strategy. That's a gesture. And the Freedom Caucus saw right through it.
What Happens Thursday
Section 702 expires at midnight on April 30. Three things could happen:
Scenario 1: Another short-term extension. Congress already did this once: a 10-day patch on April 17 that kicked the deadline from April 20 to April 30. Thune said another temporary extension is "on the table to ensure that we don't have a blackout" [3]. Senator John Kennedy was blunter: "We're nowhere near to working it out" [3]. This is the most likely outcome.
Scenario 2: The Senate goes first. The Senate could pass its own clean three-year extension and dare the House to reject it with the clock at zero. This forces Johnson into a corner: accept the Senate version or let 702 lapse. The Senate had a procedural vote scheduled for Tuesday [3].
Scenario 3: 702 lapses. If Congress does nothing, the authority expires. Existing surveillance orders continue until their individual authorizations run out (typically within a year), but no new orders can be issued. The intelligence community has been warning for weeks that a lapse would create gaps in monitoring foreign targets, particularly with Iran tensions escalating [5].
A fourth scenario exists but is functionally dead: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) introduced the Surveillance Accountability Act (H.R. 8470) that would reauthorize 702 with a warrant requirement. It has bipartisan support but leadership has blocked it from reaching the floor.
The FISA Court Already Said the FBI Can't Be Trusted
The irony of this whole fight: the government's own secret court has already said the current system isn't working.
In March 2026, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that compliance problems the DOJ claimed to have fixed in early 2025 are actually ongoing, and extend beyond the FBI across the intelligence community. Agents are using "filtering" tools to query Americans' data in ways that skirt existing safeguards [6].
The FBI conducted 3.4 million warrantless searches of Americans' communications in 2021 alone. That number includes searches targeting Black Lives Matter protesters, political campaign donors, elected officials, and a state judge who complained about police abuses [5][6].
Johnson's bill proposes more reporting requirements but no warrant. More transparency about abuse, but no mechanism to stop it. It's like installing a dashcam after refusing to fix the brakes.
What You Can Do
- Contact your representative. The EFF's "We Need You" campaign makes it easy to tell your members of Congress to demand warrant protections. The vote could happen any day this week.
- Use encrypted communications. Signal, not regular SMS. End-to-end encrypted email. Whether 702 gets reauthorized with or without reforms, encrypted communications are harder to sweep up in bulk collection.
- Watch the vote. If 702 passes without a warrant requirement, your communications can be searched without a judge ever signing off. If it lapses, new surveillance orders stop but existing ones continue. Either way, the data broker loophole means the government can still buy your location data on the open market.
Sources
- Punchbowl News: "Once again, House Republicans are a mess" (April 28, 2026)
- Axios: "Senate clears short-term FISA extension" (April 2026)
- Washington Times: "Republicans at an impasse to advance FISA reauthorization before Thursday deadline" (April 28, 2026)
- Nextgov: "House readies vote to renew FISA 702 without a warrant amendment" (April 2026)
- CBS News: "Controversial surveillance program faces uncertain future" (April 2026)
- Brennan Center for Justice: "Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" (updated April 2026)
Published: April 29, 2026