Ranking Member Raskin’s Statement on the NDO Fairness Act

Washington, D.C. (January 30, 2026)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, issued the following statement on the upcoming House vote on H.R. 6048, the bipartisan NDO Fairness Act:

“I am pleased that leadership has scheduled H.R. 6048, the NDO Fairness Act, for prompt consideration this week.

“The NDO Fairness Act addresses a fundamental flaw in surveillance law. When the Department of Justice seeks a court order to obtain your phone and email records, they routinely ask for an accompanying nondisclosure order—preventing your service provider from telling you that the government has accessed your account. As a matter of law, that nondisclosure order can last forever. As a matter of Department policy, nondisclosure orders now typically last one year. Even when our investigators can be trusted to be professional and good faith actors, many of these orders are unnecessarily and unfairly long. They prevent us from any recourse, or even routine oversight, until well after the period of discovery and surveillance. The NDO Fairness Act would shorten the length of time our service providers can be silenced and require the government to show a judge why a longer order might be warranted.

“This legislation is reasonable, it is bipartisan, and it has twice passed the House by overwhelming margins already—only to be blocked by Senate Republicans each time. 

“Now, in a twist stranger than fiction, these same Senate Republicans who blocked any legislative reform of the Non-Disclosure Order when government officials obtain phone records of citizens were shocked and outraged to learn that the Department of Justice sought their own phone records while investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. It has been well reported that, as Trump’s mob was breaking its way into the Capitol, these Senators were receiving calls from President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and others attempting to pressure Congress into accepting fraudulent election certifications signed by fake electors. This review of call records was totally standard practice and it would have been shocking if federal prosecutors had not sought records of these calls. But years later, when the nondisclosure orders finally expired and they learned their own records had been taken under the practice these Senators supported, they suddenly cried foul. Instead of engaging with us on a legislative solution to protect every American, they snuck a provision into a government funding bill that gives each of them a $1 million personal payout for each lawful nondisclosure order the government obtained. Amazingly, they passed a law that protects only themselves. Lindsay ‘Moneybags’ Graham has made clear that he intends on making full use of this provision for a multimillion-dollar jackpot payday. This outcome would be laughably absurd and profoundly corrupt to the core.

“The House has already unanimously voted to repeal this dishonest, self-dealing payout, and the House is prepared to vote again on a real solution to his problem. The NDO Fairness Act will rein in the government’s ability to seek any American’s communications records without timely notice. It is time for the Senate to do the right thing by joining us to pass this legislation for general reform to benefit all Americans and repeal the blatantly corrupt provision that gives U.S. Senators—and only U.S. Senators—a multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded bonanza.”