Double standards. This is what's wrong with our country, it's all about who you know. We're all citizens first. This enduring issue manifests profoundly in the realm of privacy rights under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702. Today, I am reaching out to you, fellow citizens, with the urgent need to reform this act.

FISA Section 702 permits the government to collect and scrutinize the communication of foreigners outside the United States, but in doing so, it also sweeps up a substantial amount of communications from American citizens. Consequently, our private messages are at risk of being accessed without a warrant, undermining our fundamental right to privacy which is enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.

Currently, the lack of explicit warrant requirements for accessing Americans' private communications under Section 702 creates an unacceptable loophole. This loophole is not just a matter of legal technicality but a profound infringement on our civil liberties. Our privacy should not be contingent upon arbitrary decisions by the government.

Reforming FISA Section 702 to mandate a court warrant before any government agency can access Americans' private messages is a logical step to safeguarding our constitutional rights. Such a reform ensures that our rights are prioritized and protects against unnecessary surveillance.

We propose that Congress act with haste to amend this section. This requires the full cooperation and support of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the President. The demand is straightforward - demand a warrant, protect our privacy, uphold our rights.

Let us stand together, as equal citizens, to insist upon an equitable system that leaves no room for double standards. Please add your name to this petition to insist that our government take action now. Sign today to protect our fundamental rights.

WHY THIS PETITION EXISTS
My name is Curtis Henry. I am a citizen, a father, an Ohioan, and a small business owner in Crawford County. I am not a lawyer. I am not a politician. I am someone who found out what is happening to every American's private communications — and I could not stay quiet about it.
This petition is not left. It is not right. It is not political. It is constitutional. And the facts behind it should make every American — regardless of party — demand change before June 2026.
WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW
There is a law called FISA Section 702. Most Americans have never heard of it. That is exactly the problem.
Under this law, the National Security Agency, the FBI, and the CIA are authorized to collect the communications of foreign nationals located outside the United States. That sounds reasonable. Here is what they did not tell you:
Every American who has ever communicated with anyone outside the United States — through email, text, phone, social media, or an AI platform — may have their messages sitting in a government database right now. And federal agents can search through those messages using your name, your email address, or your phone number without ever asking a judge for permission.
No warrant. No court order. No notification to you. Ever.
The FBI ran more than 3 million warrantless searches of Americans' private communications in a single year. There are currently 350,000 surveillance targets, and every American connected to any of them is potentially exposed. Any company — your email provider, your messaging app, your AI platform — can be served with a secret government directive to hand over your data. They face $250,000 per day in fines if they refuse. They are legally prohibited from telling you it happened.
This is not a theory. This is not speculation. This is documented, confirmed, and currently legal.
THE INJUSTICE THAT PUSHED ME TO ACT
Here is what broke something in me when I learned it.
The FBI was caught improperly searching the private communications of a sitting United States Senator. There was accountability. The Senator knew the law. The Senator had lawyers. The Senator had standing to fight back.
You do not have any of those things.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2013 — in a case called Clapper v. Amnesty International — that ordinary American citizens lack the legal standing to challenge surveillance they cannot prove occurred. And because you are never told your communications were searched, you can never get that proof. The system is designed so that you can never reach the courthouse door.
Think about what that means. The people who wrote this law are protected from it. The people who vote on whether it continues are protected from it. Ordinary Americans — the people that government is supposed to serve — are not.
That is not a two-party system. That is a two-tiered system. And it was built by both parties, over nearly two decades, while most of us had no idea it was happening.
WHAT A FEDERAL COURT ALREADY DECIDED
In January 2025, a federal district judge in New York — the Honorable LaShann DeArcy Hall — issued a ruling that had never been issued before in the history of this law. She found that the FBI's warrantless searches of Americans' private communications collected under Section 702 violate the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The Fourth Amendment. The one that says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
A court agreed with us. Congress does not have to wait for the Supreme Court to confirm it. Congress can fix this right now, before the June 2026 vote.
The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are fighting this case at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. They are taking it as high as it needs to go. But court cases take years. The congressional vote is in weeks.
WHAT BOTH PARTIES DID
I want to be specific here because the temptation will be to make this partisan. It is not.
Section 702 was created in 2008 under a Republican administration after 9/11. It was reauthorized under President Obama. It was expanded under a Democratic Congress in 2024 — adding a provision that can force millions of ordinary Americans and businesses to secretly spy on behalf of the government. It was extended again in April 2026 under a Republican Congress and signed by President Trump.
Both sides built this. Both sides extended it. Neither side has required a warrant.
Documented warrantless searches under this law include searches of Black Lives Matter protesters, journalists, political commentators, 19,000 donors to a single congressional campaign, an FBI agent's family member searched because the agent's mother suspected an extramarital affair, and — as mentioned — a sitting United States Senator.
The FBI violated its own rules governing these searches 278,000 times in a single recorded year.
This is not a partisan failure. This is an institutional one. And the only way to correct it is public pressure from citizens who refuse to be sorted into teams while their rights are stripped away.
WHAT WE ARE DEMANDING
We are asking Congress to do five specific things before the June 2026 vote:
ONE — Require a probable-cause warrant before any government agency searches the private communications of any American citizen collected under Section 702. This is what the Fourth Amendment already requires. This is what the court already ruled. Congress simply needs to write it into law.
TWO — Close the data broker loophole. Right now, government agencies can simply purchase your private data from commercial data brokers — location history, browsing history, financial patterns — without ever needing a court order. If they need a warrant to collect it directly, they should need a warrant to buy it.
THREE — Prohibit reverse targeting. This means using surveillance of a foreign person as a deliberate pretext to gather intelligence on Americans that person communicates with. This is the backdoor around your rights that Section 702 currently allows.
FOUR — Repeal the 2024 "make everyone a spy" expansion. The 2024 reauthorization included a provision that dramatically expanded who the government can force to assist in surveillance — potentially including landlords, tech workers, and small business owners. This provision should be repealed entirely.
FIVE — Require notification. If your communications were accessed by a government agency, you have a right to know — within a reasonable timeframe, with appropriate national security exceptions. The current default of permanent secrecy is not accountability. It is impunity.
WHY JUNE 2026 IS THE MOMENT
Congress passed a 45-day extension of Section 702 in late April 2026 after failing to agree on a longer renewal. That means the next vote is coming in June 2026.
After that vote, whatever is decided becomes law for potentially years. The window for reform is open right now. Petition signatures, constituent calls, and public pressure before a vote carry more weight than anything after it.
Every name on this petition is a constituent who is watching. Every signature is a message to every member of Congress that this issue will follow them to November. Every share of this petition extends that message to someone who did not know this was happening.
You cannot vote on this law directly. Your representative can. Make sure they know where you stand before they cast that vote.
A NOTE ON WHAT I BELIEVE
I believe in national security. I believe this country faces real threats and that intelligence agencies need real tools to address them.
I also believe the Fourth Amendment is not optional. I believe that a law that protects senators but not citizens is not equal justice. I believe that a system designed to make it impossible for ordinary people to challenge their own government's behavior is not democracy.
I believe that making harmful things harder to access — whether that is alcohol, information used to harm children, or the private communications of law-abiding Americans — is not weakness. It is the job of people in power to protect those without it.
That is why I built this petition. That is why I am asking you to sign it.
One person at a time. That is how this changes.
— Curtis Henry, Crawford County, Ohio
SOURCES:
ACLU National Security Project · Electronic Frontier Foundation · Brennan Center for Justice · U.S. v. Hasbajrami (E.D.N.Y. January 2025) · Office of the Director of National Intelligence Annual Statistical Transparency Reports · NPR · TechCrunch · Congress.gov 119th Congress Records