TL;DR: On April 1, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its 13th Annual Statistical Transparency Report covering 2025 surveillance numbers. Section 702 targets increased again, continuing a climb from ~246,000 in 2022 to ~269,000 in 2023 to ~292,000 in 2024. FBI warrantless "backdoor searches" of Americans' data rose 35% to 7,413, but the FBI admits it failed to track an entire category of searches using an "advanced filter function," meaning the real number is unknown. The FISC initially denied a new counternarcotics certification, then approved it two months later. Almost two-thirds of the President's Daily Brief contained 702 intelligence in 2025. This report dropped 19 days before Section 702 sunsets on April 20.
The Timing Says Everything
April 1, 2026. Nineteen days before Section 702 of FISA expires. That's when the intelligence community decided to show you their homework.
The next day, April 2, the gutted Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (down to a single member) released its own report endorsing 702's powers. Then FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Senate Republicans to push for a clean reauthorization with no privacy reforms.
Three reports and a lobbying blitz in the same week. All while Congress is on recess and can't ask follow-up questions until April 14.
If you think the timing is a coincidence, I have a wiretap warrant to sell you.
702 Targets: The Line Only Goes Up
The ODNI report confirms Section 702 targets increased again in calendar year 2025. The agency's own language: "an increase consistent with increases seen in previous annual reports."[1]
Here's what "consistent increases" looks like when you plot the numbers:
- CY2022: ~246,000 targets
- CY2023: ~269,000 targets
- CY2024: ~292,000 targets
- CY2025: Increased again (exact figure in full report PDF)
Remember: each "target" can generate collection of communications from dozens or hundreds of contacts. Section 702 nominally targets foreigners overseas, but every email, call, or message between a target and an American gets swept into the database. And then the FBI searches that database without a warrant.
FBI Queries: Up 35%, And That's the Number They Admit To
According to a March 11, 2026 letter from FBI Acting Assistant Director Ted Groves to Senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin, the FBI conducted 7,413 US person queries in the reporting period ending November 2025, a 35% jump from 5,518 in the prior period.[2]
The FBI and ODNI spin this as progress. After all, the number was 57,094 in 2023 and a jaw-dropping 3.4 million in 2021.
But there's a problem the headline numbers hide.
An investigation by Just Security found that the FBI failed to track an entire category of US person searches using an "advanced filter function." The filter wasn't disabled until early 2025. That means the 5,518 and 7,413 figures are undercounts: the FBI itself doesn't know how many searches it actually ran.[3]
From the Just Security analysis: "The FBI failed to follow statutory requirements for an entire category of U.S. person queries. Because the FBI neither tracked nor audited these queries as required by law, the total number of backdoor searches in 2024 and 2025 remains unknown."[3]
Only 28% of FBI queries in 2025 actually returned results. The other 72% were fishing expeditions: searching Americans' communications and coming up empty. That's a warrantless search of your data that turned up nothing, filed away, and never disclosed to you.
The "Sensitive" Searches Nobody's Tracking
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) dropped a bombshell in a March 12 Senate floor speech. He reported that so-called "sensitive" warrantless searches (queries targeting journalists, political organizations, and religious groups) more than tripled.[4]
Think about who's in charge right now. The FBI's Deputy Director who approves these sensitive searches was Dan Bongino (the conspiracy theorist) before being replaced by Andrew Bailey. Sen. Wyden called this "a blaring alarm warning of abuses" given the current administration's enthusiasm for investigating journalists and political opponents.
The FBI Inspector General asked the Bureau to keep a simple spreadsheet tracking which sensitive searches the Deputy Director approved or denied. The FBI refused.[4]
And then Wyden added this: there's another classified Section 702 abuse that "when it is eventually declassified, the American people will be stunned."
The Counternarcotics Certification: Denied, Then Approved
Buried in the report is a significant development. Congress amended Section 702 in April 2024 to allow surveillance targeting international drug trafficking, specifically "international production, distribution, or financing of illicit synthetic drugs."
On February 20, 2025, the FISA Court denied the government's first counternarcotics certification. The FISC found that NSA and CIA procedures "did not satisfy the requirements of the Fourth Amendment and FISA statute" because they failed to include the heightened "necessity standard" for handling Americans' data.[5]
The government revised the procedures. On April 9, 2025, the FISC approved the amended certification.[6]
Why does this matter? Because drug trafficking surveillance will inevitably sweep up Americans: people in the drug supply chain, people who talk to people in the supply chain, people who are merely suspected. The FISC itself flagged that NSA and CIA "might acquire a larger number of communications of or concerning U.S. persons, including those engaged purely in legitimate business."
The court said no once. Then the government revised its paperwork and the court said yes. Two months. That's how long a Fourth Amendment objection lasted.
Two-Thirds of the President's Daily Brief
The PCLOB's companion report noted that almost two-thirds of the President's Daily Brief contained Section 702 intelligence in 2025.[7] That's up from 60% in 2023 and 59% in 2022.
The intelligence community uses this statistic as their trump card: 702 is too important to reform. If the president needs it every morning, how can Congress let it expire?
But the argument works both ways. If one surveillance program supplies most of the president's intelligence, that's not a sign of a healthy intelligence apparatus. That's a sign of dangerous dependence on a single collection method, one that happens to vacuum up Americans' communications along the way.
What Privacy Groups Are Saying
The reaction from civil liberties organizations has been scathing.
EPIC Senior Counsel Jeramie Scott said the report "further supports the need for serious reform" and that "the FBI continues to conduct warrantless searches of Americans' communications at a rate of hundreds of searches a day." Going from millions to thousands, Scott argued, "is to distract from the clear need for reform."[8]
CDT's Jake Laperruque dismissed the single-member PCLOB's companion report as "not a real PCLOB report" but "a BethCLOB report," referring to Beth Williams, the sole remaining member after Trump pushed three Democrats to resign.[7]
The ACLU's Kia Hamadanchy said the watchdog board "was designed to be multi-member and independent... The report is a product of a single member hostile to civil liberties."[7]
Sen. Wyden was bluntest: "She just put out a report that says Trump needs to do more warrantless spying on Americans. No one should fall for it."[4]
15 Days
Section 702 sunsets on April 20, 2026. Congress returns from recess around April 14. That gives lawmakers roughly one week to decide whether to reform, reauthorize, or let the program expire.
The Trump administration wants a clean extension: no warrant requirements, no data broker loophole closure, no restrictions on sensitive searches. Senator Tom Cotton pushed for an 18-month extension with zero amendments.
On the other side: 98 Congressional Progressive Caucus Democrats oppose clean extension. A coalition of 130+ organizations demands the data broker loophole be closed. The Wyden-Lee Government Surveillance Reform Act represents the most comprehensive reform proposal in half a century.
The ODNI transparency report is many things. Transparent isn't one of them. It's a political document, released at a political moment, making a political argument: trust us, the system works.
The FBI can't even count its own searches. The system doesn't work. And we have 15 days to decide if that matters.
References
- ODNI Press Release: 13th Annual Statistical Transparency Report (April 1, 2026)
- Nextgov: FBI Queries of Americans' Data Under FISA 702 Rose 35% in 2025
- Just Security: The Truth Behind Section 702 Query Statistics
- Sen. Wyden: Calls for Reforms to FISA Section 702 (March 2026)
- ODNI: February 2025 FISC Certification D Opinion (Denial Order)
- ODNI: March 2025 FISC Amended Certification D Opinion (Approval)
- Nextgov: Single-Member Surveillance Watchdog Backs 702 Powers, Raising Independence Questions
- EPIC: FISA Section 702: Reform or Sunset