The fundamental question cutting through Capitol Hill right now is whether the intelligence community can be trusted with power that was unsafe in other hands. On that question, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the expiration of the authority would be "devastating" to the safety of Americans. Yet his argument for renewal exposes a genuine tension in American governance.
Section 702 of FISA authorises surveillance of foreign nationals outside the US, but expires April 20. The law is a tool national security officials call indispensable. But there is a catch: when surveillance targets a foreign person overseas, it can sweep up the communications of Americans who speak with them. That incidental collection requires no warrant under current law.
For years this power was contentious. But last Congress, the authority passed with bipartisan support. The measure made some changes aimed at making sure the government could not misuse the authority, but it did not include a warrant requirement regarding the searching of Americans' information. Himes at that time was comfortable with renewal.
This year is different. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the expiration of the authority would be "devastating" to the safety of Americans. But he said it's understandable that his colleagues would have questions about renewing a surveillance authority for an administration that's acted with contempt for the Constitution. That is the heart of the problem: Himes believes the tool is necessary, but he does not believe the current government deserves it.
Consider the position of his own party. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a Section 702 supporter, said "It's going to be a harder lift on the Democratic side. I mean, Trump has shown utter disdain for the law and for the Constitution and for norms". Meanwhile, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who voted in favor of reauthorizing Section 702 in 2024, wrote in a letter that "Times have changed. The safeguards put in place in 2024 have been badly eroded by the Trump Administration".
So Himes finds himself defending a tool against his own caucus. According to internal reporting, he has told colleagues he has not observed abuses by FBI Director Kash Patel. That claim warrants scrutiny. FBI Director Kash Patel, another past FISA critic, told lawmakers the FBI has gone beyond what the 2024 reforms require. He said the bureau now requires supervisory and legal approval before U.S. person queries proceed. If Patel's claims are accurate, then perhaps Himes' observation is defensible on narrow grounds.
But the counter-argument carries real weight. Himes himself acknowledges that the broader administration is untrustworthy. Himes said that the issue has come up in conversations with fellow Democrats, though it hasn't changed his plans to push for its renewal. "I was comfortable when we had a president who actually showed some respect for the law, but this is a different presidency in which a day doesn't go by that a federal court doesn't say that the administration is breaking the law". That is not a ringing endorsement of the character of those who will use this power.
What makes this genuinely complex is that both positions contain truth. The intelligence community does depend heavily on Section 702. Former CIA, FBI, NSA, and DIA leaders in both parties have backed the authority. It provides "more than half of the important, actionable intelligence that the president and the commander in chief relies upon". Letting it lapse would create a real gap in capability.
Yet the concern about abuse is not paranoia. The FBI told Congress in a letter the number of its searches about Americans in a foreign intelligence database shot up 34 percent in 2025 as compared to the final year of the Biden administration. That is not evidence of Patel abusing Section 702 specifically, but it suggests intensified interest in Americans' data under this administration.
The real failure here is institutional. If Himes must choose between necessary security powers and a government he cannot trust, the problem is not Himes. It is that the administration has made accountability impossible. Himes said "the good news is that we're really seeing a dramatic improvement in the administrative protections around the use of these authorities," noting improvement on "U.S. person queries," where analysts search the massive 702 database for information about Americans. That is evidence-based reasoning. But it sits uneasily beside his own public warnings about the administration's contempt for law.
Congress faces a vote on this by April 20. Himes is right that losing Section 702 would be strategically costly. But Democrats right to demand more oversight are asking something reasonable: if you do not trust the executive, why grant it expanded power? The fact that we must choose between those goods reflects a breakdown in the mutual respect between government branches. Himes is trying to split the difference. It is hard to say he succeeds.