Senators Say Administration Is Illegally Withholding a Secret Surveillance Court Ruling

Two Democratic senators who have overseen US intelligence for years say the Trump administration is illegally withholding a secret court ruling on the government's warrantless surveillance program, and they want an explanation by November 6. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Adam Schiff of California made the charge in a letter sent on Monday to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and Attorney General Todd Blanche. WIRED obtained the letter.

The ruling at issue came from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on March 17, 2026. According to WIRED, the court objected to search filters that let intelligence analysts pull Americans' communications out of intercepted data without the approvals, written justifications or records that the law requires. The court approved another year of surveillance under the program anyway.

A release deadline that passed in September

The opinion has never been made public. The government's own public documentation says rulings of this kind are reviewed for public release within 180 days of issuance, and that window closed on September 13. Intelligence officials are meanwhile pressing Congress to renew the surveillance authority by the end of the year.

"If this administration won't follow this simple statutory directive," the senators wrote to Clayton and Blanche, "it is unclear why Congress or the American people should trust this administration to follow any of the other legal limits to Section 702." The letter asks for an explanation of the delay and the names of the officials responsible, due by November 6.

A program still running after its lapse

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the government to collect the communications of foreign targets without a warrant, and Americans' messages can be swept into that collection. The authority lapsed on June 12, 2026, after Congress failed to renew it. Collection has continued under the court's March approval, which recertified the program for another year. Tech Times reported that the June lapse was the first since the authority was enacted in 2008.

Wyden is the longest serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Schiff chaired the House intelligence committee when Democrats held that chamber. Both men have tracked the surveillance program and its court oversight for years.

Earlier requests went unanswered

This is not the first request for the ruling. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton and Vice Chairman Mark Warner asked the administration in April to release the opinion within 15 days. Demand Progress, an advocacy group pressing for release, said in May that those 15 days had passed with nothing declassified.

On Monday, Demand Progress and 22 other groups, among them the American Civil Liberties Union and a conservative backed privacy group, wrote to congressional leaders urging them not to renew the program while the ruling stays hidden. CyberScoop reported that the dispute has run through three successive intelligence chiefs and two missed deadlines. The ruling remained unpublished when the senators sent their letter on Monday.