Florida – The fight over FISA has returned to Washington with a familiar warning from Sen. Rick Scott of Florida: the government should not be able to search through Americans’ private information without first going to a judge.
Scott, a Florida Republican, stepped back into the surveillance debate this week by pressing a blunt message that has become a rallying cry for privacy-minded lawmakers in both parties.
“Law-abiding Americans shouldn’t be SPIED ON. That’s why we need to FIX FISA. Get a warrant!” he wrote in a post shared on X, amplifying his argument that Congress must place stronger limits on how federal agencies use intelligence databases involving U.S. citizens.
Law-abiding Americans shouldn’t be SPIED ON. That’s why we need to FIX FISA.
Get a warrant! pic.twitter.com/PGOIPkPOIL
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) May 13, 2026
The dispute centers on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a national security authority that allows the government to collect communications of foreigners located overseas without obtaining individual warrants.
Intelligence officials have long defended the tool as vital for tracking threats from foreign powers, terrorists, and hostile networks.
But critics say the same system has also opened a back door into the communications of Americans whose emails, calls, or messages are swept in when they interact with foreign targets.
That is where Scott and other reformers say the constitutional problem begins.
Once communications are stored, agencies can run searches using names, email addresses, phone numbers, or other identifiers tied to Americans. Privacy advocates call those searches “backdoor queries,” arguing that the government is effectively looking through Americans’ information without meeting the Fourth Amendment’s warrant standard.
The legal pressure on that argument has grown.
A federal district court ruling in the Hasbajrami case found that warrantless U.S.-person queries under Section 702 violated the Fourth Amendment, giving reformers fresh ground to demand that Congress write stronger protections directly into law.
Civil-liberties groups have since urged appeals courts and lawmakers to treat warrantless searches of Americans’ communications as a constitutional line that cannot be crossed casually.
Scott’s latest remarks also came after another chaotic reauthorization fight. Section 702 was renewed for two years in 2024 through the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, but the short timeline guaranteed that Congress would face the issue again in 2026.
In April, lawmakers approved temporary extensions after House efforts collapsed amid Republican infighting, bipartisan privacy objections, and pressure from national security officials warning against letting the program lapse.
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In his video, Scott framed the debate as more than a technical fight over intelligence rules. He described it as a warning about government power, political targeting, and the need to act before another administration abuses the same tools.
“As a result, the Clinton administration targeted my company and went after us,” Scott said, referring to the period when he opposed Hillarycare while building what he called the nation’s largest hospital company.
He then turned to more recent events, saying, “The first thing they did is they ate a contractor, and Booz Allen went out and stole my tax returns and gave it to ProPublica. The Biden administration did nothing to stop Booz Allen from doing that—nothing at all.”
Scott continued by saying that after January 6, “they targeted me and got my records,” adding that the only reason it became known was because of an investigation by Sen. Ron Johnson.
“So, I mean, this is ridiculous. So if you run a big company, you can be targeted. If you’re a senator, you can be targeted. If you’re a congressmember, you can be targeted. The only way this is going to stop is we make change.”
His warning was also aimed at Republicans who may be less worried about surveillance powers under a friendly administration.
“We can’t say, oh, gosh, the Trump administration is not going to do it,” Scott said.
“They’re not. They’re not going to weaponize government like they did against us and against Trump. But guess what? If we have another Democrat administration, they’re going to do it. So if we don’t make changes to this legislation, the same thing will happen down the road.”
Scott is not alone in demanding a warrant requirement. Sen. Mike Lee and Sen. Ron Wyden have pushed bipartisan legislation that would require stronger Fourth Amendment protections, including limits on warrantless searches of Americans’ data and restrictions on government purchases of private information from data brokers.
Supporters say those reforms would preserve foreign intelligence work while closing loopholes that expose U.S. citizens to surveillance without judicial approval.
For now, the debate remains unsettled. National security hawks argue that new warrant rules could slow urgent investigations. Privacy advocates answer that speed cannot become an excuse for bypassing constitutional safeguards.
Scott’s position leaves little room for compromise on that point. To him, the answer is simple: if the government wants to search an American’s private communications, it should first prove its case to a court.
