Senators say the Trump administration is illegally hiding a FISA court ruling

US Senators Ron Wyden and Adam Schiff say the Trump administration is breaking the law by keeping secret a FISA court ruling on how intelligence agencies search Americans' messages. In a letter to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and Attorney General Todd Blanche, first reported by WIRED on 26 October, they demand an explanation for the delay, and the names of the officials responsible, by 6 November.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued the ruling in March 2026. According to WIRED, the court objected to search filters that let analysts pull Americans' messages out of intercepted data without the approvals, written justifications or records the law requires. It still approved another year of surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

A deadline the administration agreed to

By law, significant FISA court opinions have to be declassified and published. The administration's own public documentation says such rulings are reviewed for release "within 180 days of issuance". That window closed on 13 September. The Brennan Center for Justice confirms the statutory deadline passed without any release.

The administration had already promised to publish it. In April, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Tom Cotton and vice chair Mark Warner asked for the ruling within 15 days so it could inform the Senate debate. In July, asked in writing whether he would declassify it by the 180-day deadline, Blanche answered "Yes." Clayton, who as DNI is legally responsible for declassification, only said before his confirmation that the government was "working arduously to expeditiously declassify" it.

"If this administration won't follow this simple statutory directive," Wyden and Schiff wrote, "it is unclear why Congress or the American people should trust this administration to follow any of the other legal limits to Section 702."

What is already known about the FISA court ruling

The New York Times reported in April, citing unclassified administration talking points, that the court found the tools agencies use to narrow intercepted data to an American's messages amount to searches of Americans. That means they fall under the same limits, and the court ordered them rebuilt. The Justice Department is appealing parts of the ruling that limit its filtering tools, Senator Alex Padilla said in a written question to Blanche.

A similar problem surfaced before. A FISA court opinion declassified last year described an FBI "participants filter" that let agents pick out people in contact with surveillance targets and read their messages. In February 2025 the Justice Department told the court the tool had been running searches nobody counted. The FBI switched it off and later turned a rebuilt version back on.

Meanwhile, intelligence agency fact sheets from March 2026 cite a 98.9% compliance rate for FBI searches of Americans and do not mention the court's findings. The Justice Department inspector general's October 2025 review put the rate at 98.6% and could not conclude that the FBI's querying problems were "entirely in the past". Senator Dick Durbin, who has read the ruling, told colleagues in June that it would change their view of "the role of FISA and the rights of Americans".

Why it matters now

Section 702 lapsed in June after Congress failed to renew it, but collection continues under the court's March approval, which runs until 17 March 2027. Intelligence officials want Congress to reauthorize the program by the end of the year. On Monday, Demand Progress and 22 other groups, from the ACLU to the conservative-backed Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability, urged congressional leaders not to renew it while the administration withholds the ruling.

Reform advocates say the administration may try to attach a renewal to the annual defense authorization bill, usually finalized in December, as Congress did with a four-month extension in 2023. Neither chamber's version of this year's bill includes it yet. The White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department did not answer WIRED's questions.