US courts to publish annual spyware usage data starting 2029
Original: US courts will start publishing how often the government uses spyware
Why This Matters
First-ever public accounting of judicially authorized spyware use marks a significant transparency milestone in government surveillance oversight.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts confirmed it will track and publicly disclose government spyware usage in wiretap operations starting with the 2028 Wiretap Report, to be published in 2029, following a push by Senator Ron Wyden.
The U.S. judiciary will begin publicly reporting how often judges authorize wiretaps carried out using hacking tools and spyware — classified under the federal term 'network investigating techniques' (NITs) — starting with the 2028 Wiretap Report, to be published in 2029. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts confirmed the change to TechCrunch, noting that reporting forms and procedures must first be updated to accommodate the new categories. The FBI has employed hacking tools since at least 1998, but no public count of such deployments has existed. The existing annual Wiretap Reports already detail wiretap authorizations broken down by court level, state, crime type, and interception method — including audio, oral, and electronic taps. The new 'spyware/hacking' category will cover real-time interception of communications such as Signal and WhatsApp calls and messages. It will not cover cases where authorities remotely hack a device to extract stored data, which falls under search warrant law rather than wiretap law. The change came after Democratic Senator Ron Wyden pressed the Administrative Office on the matter, criticizing what he called unnecessary secrecy around government surveillance techniques.