Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs is leading a bipartisan push to rein in the federal government’s sweeping surveillance powers, introducing legislation aimed at restoring long-neglected Fourth Amendment protections.
The bill, known as the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act (PLEWSA), would overhaul the controversial Section 702 authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and require federal agencies to obtain a warrant before searching communications involving U.S. citizens.
For years, critics across the political spectrum have warned that Section 702 — originally intended to monitor foreign terrorists and spies overseas — has effectively morphed into a tool for domestic surveillance of Americans.
Under current rules, intelligence agencies can collect communications targeting foreign nationals abroad. But when Americans’ emails, texts, or phone calls are swept up in those collections, the government can later search those databases without obtaining a warrant.
Biggs says that loophole has enabled widespread abuse.
“America’s intelligence community continues to conduct a warrantless, mass surveillance campaign on innocent citizens,” Biggs said. “Without serious reform, our Fourth Amendment rights will be all but gone.”
The numbers backing up those concerns are staggering. In 2021 alone, the FBI conducted roughly 278,000 improper queries of Americans’ data through FISA databases — including searches involving a U.S. congressman and political donors.
But the controversy surrounding federal surveillance didn’t start there.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans have repeatedly learned that intelligence agencies were secretly gathering massive amounts of personal data. The NSA PRISM surveillance program exposed in 2013 revealed broad government access to communications from major tech companies. The NSA bulk phone metadata collection program collected call records from millions of Americans for years before it was forced to shut down after public backlash.
More recently, federal authorities have been caught using surveillance databases to search communications linked to journalists, political protesters, campaign donors, and even lawmakers themselves.
PLEWSA seeks to close those loopholes by requiring a warrant for searches involving Americans, tightening oversight of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and preventing federal agencies from purchasing Americans’ private data from tech companies or data brokers to bypass constitutional protections.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan called the reforms “long overdue,” arguing that unchecked surveillance powers have eroded public trust.
Notably, the legislation has drawn support from lawmakers across the ideological spectrum, including Democrats such as Jerry Nadler and Pramila Jayapal.
For Biggs and his allies, the message is simple: protecting the nation doesn’t require sacrificing the Constitution. “The Fourth Amendment is not a suggestion,” Biggs said. “It’s the law.” He will be great as Arizona’s next Governor.
