- Press freedom group calls for transparency on how authorities monitor VPNs
- This follows a warning that Americans using a VPN could be treated as foreign targets.
- Advocates urge Congress to pass Government Oversight Reform Act
The pressure for answers regarding warrantless government surveillance of virtual private networks (VPNs) is growing. Press freedom advocates are now publicly demanding transparency from U.S. lawmakers about how intelligence agencies monitor citizens’ traffic trying to protect their digital privacy.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has entered the fray, warning that millions of Americans, as well as journalists who rely on the best VPN to protect their sources and circumvent censorship, could be inadvertently drawn into overseas espionage operations.
Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and Executive Order 12333, intelligence agencies have broad authority to monitor foreign communications without a warrant.
However, because a VPN routes traffic to a remote location before connecting to the web, the user’s true location is hidden. As the lawmakers’ letter points out, the government believes that data of unknown origin should be treated as foreign and is therefore “subject to few privacy protections.”
A threat to press freedom
For the FPF, this default assumption that unknown traffic belongs to a non-US person is a huge red flag. By treating all VPN users as “aliens,” the government could expose Americans to uncontrolled surveillance.
“And not just journalists, VPNs are privacy tools used by millions of Americans,” they added.
Since VPN providers typically mix data from hundreds or thousands of users on a single server, intelligence officials could potentially monitor web traffic to trace connections, sending legal requests to web service providers to learn more about which users are connecting from a given IP address.
Using a VPN can subject Americans to government surveillance without a warrant. We need much more transparency and stricter limitations on how the government can use this data to circumvent Americans’ privacy rights. https://t.co/hJQgh0M8tiApril 13, 2026
The FPF also highlighted a futuristic and growing threat to digital privacy. While premium VPNs provide a robust encryption layer that secures web traffic from Internet service providers, intelligence agencies reportedly continue to collect large amounts of encrypted data.
The foundation warned that this data could be stored for “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks. In this scenario, attackers copy encrypted traffic today in hopes of reading it tomorrow using exponentially more powerful quantum computers.
According to the FPF, Google security researchers have warned that the industry should prepare for this potential risk “as early as 2029”.
Calls for surveillance reform
To prevent intelligence agencies from exploiting foreign surveillance powers, FPF urges Congress to implement strong safeguards before deciding whether to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA.
Chief among their demands is closing the “backdoor search loophole,” which would require the government to obtain a legal warrant before searching Americans’ communications collected under Section 702.
The Foundation also calls for ending the “data broker loophole,” which currently allows federal agencies to purchase sensitive data on citizens that would normally require a warrant to access.
Supporters argue that passing the government surveillance reform bill would solidify these crucial changes. Until then, FPF says the public deserves clarity: “It is therefore crucial that the American public has answers about how our intelligence community monitors our VPN traffic.”
