A Top Democrat Is Urging Colleagues to Support Trump’s Spy Machine
US Congressman Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, is privately lobbying his colleagues to preserve the FBI’s power to conduct warrantless searches of Americans’ communications, WIRED has learned, arguing that he has seen no evidence that the Trump administration is abusing its authority.
In a letter obtained by WIRED, Himes urges fellow Democrats to support the White House’s request to renew a controversial surveillance program that intercepts the electronic data of foreigners abroad. Although intended for foreigners, the program – authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – also sweeps large quantities of private messages belonging to American citizens.
Himes’ speech builds on the “56 Reforms” passed by Congress in 2024, which codified the FBI’s own internal protocols in place of constitutional mandates. In the letter, Himes says these changes are “working as intended” to prevent abuse nationally, citing a “greater than 99%” compliance rate over the past two years.
The structural foundations of this defense, however, have been fundamentally altered by recent changes within the FBI. Himes’ “99%” compliance measure, for example, was produced by the Office of Internal Audit – a unit that long served as a smoke detector designed to detect illegalities, but which no longer exists.
The unit was shut down by FBI Director Kash Patel last year. Landmark legal opinions based on its data had already revealed hundreds of thousands of inappropriate FBI searches. Without the auditors required to calculate failure rates, compliance mechanisms would have effectively stopped working, according to Himes.
In a statement, Himes’ office largely reiterated the positions outlined in his letter to his colleagues. “I am willing to make further reforms to Section 702, building on the many successful reforms we made to the reauthorization legislation two years ago,” he said. “A near-term reauthorization of Section 702 will allow Congress to fully debate the pros and cons of these suggested reforms – and determine whether compromise is possible – without putting our national security at risk by letting the program expire.”
As a member of the so-called Gang of Eight — a bipartisan group of lawmakers briefed on highly sensitive classified information — Himes has some of the deepest knowledge of the spy program. However, his letter contains several other assertions that appear fundamentally at odds with FISA’s oversight mechanisms.
“Because of the importance of oversight by all three branches of government,” Himes says, “any attempt to misuse the program would almost certainly come to the attention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and Congress.”
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a secret court that has no investigative arm to check FBI databases. Like Congress, its oversight role is purely reactive, relying entirely on the U.S. Department of Justice to self-report violations.
“Neither Congress nor the FISA Court conducts independent audits of FBI requests,” says Liza Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “They rely on the Justice Department to conduct thorough audits and to report the results honestly and promptly. This particular Justice Department has gutted internal controls and has been reprimanded by dozens of federal courts for providing inaccurate, misleading or incomplete information.”
There are no judges between the FBI and the private communications of millions of Americans, which Himes and other members of his committee say is necessary for the government to respond quickly to terrorist threats. Critics say that, given the current administration’s efforts to dismantle internal controls at the FBI, this is a huge vulnerability, exposing Americans to surveillance abuses that will take years to declassify — if they are ever reported.
