### Secret Court Ruling on Section 702 Withheld from Congress **Senators Ron Wyden** (D-OR) and **Adam Schiff** (D-CA) have sharply criticized the Trump administration for allegedly withholding a crucial **Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)** ruling from Congress. This ruling, issued seven months ago, reportedly found fault with the search filters used by intelligence analysts to extract Americans' messages from intercepted data without proper approvals, justifications, or records, as mandated by law. Despite these objections, the **FISC** approved another year of surveillance under **Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)**. However, the ruling itself has never been made public, even though the administration's own guidelines stipulate that such findings should be reviewed for public release within 180 days of issuance. That deadline passed on September 13. ### Calls for Transparency and Accountability **Senator Wyden**, the longest-serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and **Schiff**, former chair of its House counterpart, have demanded an explanation for the delay and the names of the officials responsible by November 6. In a demand letter obtained by WIRED, the senators stated, "If this administration won’t follow this simple statutory directive, it is unclear why Congress or the American people should trust this administration to follow any of the other legal limits to Section 702." Civil liberties and government accountability groups, including **Demand Progress** and the **American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)**, have also urged Congress to refuse reauthorization of Section 702 until the legally mandated information about its operation is released. ### Broken Promises and Unanswered Questions Previous commitments to transparency have gone unfulfilled. In April, **Senators Tom Cotton** (R-AR) and **Mark Warner** (D-VA) pressed the administration to release the ruling within 15 days. In July, Attorney General **Todd Blanche** explicitly committed to declassifying it by the 180-day deadline. However, Director of National Intelligence **Jay Clayton**, who is legally responsible for declassifying the ruling, has made no such firm promise. Before his July confirmation, **Clayton** only stated that the government was "working arduously to expeditiously declassify" the opinion and had made it available to lawmakers. ### Details of the FISC's Findings While the full ruling remains secret, some details have emerged. A **FISA** court opinion declassified last year described a similar **FBI** tool, a "participants filter," which allowed agents to access messages of individuals in contact with surveillance targets. The Justice Department's National Security Division later informed the court that this tool had been running uncounted searches, leading to its temporary shutdown and subsequent rebuilding. This year's ruling reportedly went further, finding that tools used to filter intercepted data down to an American’s messages constitute searches of Americans, subject to the same legal limits. The court ordered these tools to be rebuilt, according to an April report by The New York Times, citing unclassified administration talking points. Senator **Alex Padilla** (D-CA) noted that the Justice Department is appealing portions of the ruling that limit the government's use of certain filtering tools. ### Discrepancies in Compliance Rates and Audit Practices Despite the court's findings, seven intelligence agency fact sheets from March 2026, including one dated the day of the ruling, cited a 98.9 percent compliance rate for **FBI** searches of Americans. These fact sheets also credited Section 702 with thwarting a planned terrorist attack on a **Taylor Swift** concert in Vienna. However, the Justice Department inspector general's October 2025 review of these searches placed the compliance rate at 98.6 percent and could not definitively conclude that "the FBI’s querying compliance issues are entirely in the past." Further questions arise concerning the **FBI's** auditing practices. While fact sheets claim **FBI** auditors review every such search, **FBI Director Kash Patel** closed the bureau’s Office of Internal Auditing last May, moving its auditors to another division. Moreover, search counts before 2025 reportedly omit queries run through the participants filter, searches that the government's own privacy watchdog states are "not possible to track." ### Lawmakers Hint at Deeper Revelations Lawmakers who have seen the ruling hint at its significant implications. **Senator Dick Durbin** (D-IL) urged colleagues to read it in a secure room, stating that it would surely impact their "opinion of the role of FISA and the rights of Americans." **Senator Wyden** has also warned about a classified interpretation of Section 702, relied upon by multiple administrations but kept secret. He predicts that when it is eventually declassified, "the American people are going to be stunned that it took so long and that Congress had been debating this authority with insufficient information." The Trump administration has until November 6 to respond to the senators. The court’s current approval of the program is set to expire in March. Surveillance reform advocates fear the administration may attempt to bypass legislative debate by attaching a renewal of Section 702 to the annual defense authorization bill, a tactic used in 2023.