An NSA analyst ran classified spy searches on people he met through a dating app.
Now James Clapper and John Brennan are lobbying Congress to renew those same spy powers with zero reforms.
Boebert sent a letter Monday demanding to know if that analyst still works for the NSA – and the deadline to answer is six days before Congress votes.
NSA Analyst Used FISA 702 Databases to Run Warrantless Searches on His Dating App Matches
This isn't a hypothetical.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board documented it in their September 2023 report.
An NSA analyst accessed classified Section 702 databases – the same surveillance architecture built to track foreign terrorists and hostile governments – and ran searches on individuals he had met through an online dating service, on two separate occasions.
A second set of violations involved two NSA analysts who ran searches on a non-U.S. person they were considering as a tenant for a rental property.
It is not a personal background check service for government employees vetting romantic prospects or potential renters.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) sent a formal letter Monday to NSA Director Joshua Rudd calling the documented abuses "deeply troubling" and demanding a full accountability report within ten days.
Her first question: did the dating app analyst keep his job and his security clearance?
Her second: if so, why?
"These cases demonstrate a troubling willingness by some NSA personnel to treat sensitive foreign intelligence tools as a personal resource rather than a national security instrument," Boebert wrote.
Clapper and Brennan Are Lobbying Congress to Renew NSA Surveillance Powers With Zero Reforms
Here is where it gets worse.
Section 702 expires April 20 – six days after Boebert sent her letter.
And the people lobbying hardest to renew it without any accountability reforms are James Clapper and John Brennan.
These are the same two officials who oversaw the intelligence apparatus that surveilled Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and signed off on the Russia collusion operation.
Last week, a group of 50 former national security officials – Clapper, Brennan, former FBI Director Chris Wray, and others – sent a letter to Congress demanding a clean reauthorization with no warrant requirements and no reforms attached.
"We cannot afford to let our Intelligence Community lose this tool that helps keep our nation safe, even for a day," they wrote.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) wasn't buying it.
"Warrantless government spying on American citizens has been used by the deep state to target President Trump's campaign and associates, members of Congress, and hardworking, law-abiding Americans alike," Lee told Breitbart News.
"We should not rubber stamp such wide surveillance powers for the very agencies which have abused them without massive reforms."
FISA 702 Expires April 20 and Congress Has Not Fired a Single NSA Analyst for Abusing It
The dating app incident didn't happen in a vacuum.
Documented Section 702 abuses stretch across multiple agencies and years.
FBI agents conducted warrantless searches targeting 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign.
Agents also searched the private communications of a U.S. senator, a state court judge, and members of the public who had applied to participate in the FBI's Citizens Academy.
In March 2026, the FISA Court issued findings that compliance problems the Justice Department claimed to have fixed in early 2025 were still ongoing – and extended across the broader intelligence community, not just the FBI.
The NSA's own oversight board documented the violations.
Nobody was publicly fired.
Clapper and Brennan now want Congress to hand the same agencies another 18 months of the same authority, no questions asked.
Boebert's letter demands that Rudd disclose by April 23 the total number of NSA personnel disciplined, suspended, terminated, or stripped of clearances for illegal Section 702 searches in each calendar year from 2020 through 2025.
She also demanded to know whether any analysts were referred for criminal prosecution.
That answer is almost certainly no – and that is the whole problem.
Congress used to fix this kind of thing.
The Church Committee in 1975 exposed FBI and NSA surveillance abuses, put officials under oath, and forced sweeping reforms that lasted decades.
The lesson from that era is still true: without hard accountability and genuine consequences, intelligence agencies will spy on anyone they consider convenient – including your dating app matches, your senator, and you.
The vote is April 20.
The question Congress has to answer is whether Clapper and Brennan deserve to be taken seriously after everything they've done – and whether an analyst who used classified spy tools to vet his dates deserves another 18 months of access.
Sources:
- Sean Moran, "Exclusive: Rep. Lauren Boebert Demands Answers for 'Deeply Troubling Abuse of Power' by NSA Analysts," Breitbart, April 13, 2026.
- Sean Moran, "Deep State Actors James Clapper, John Brennan Urge Reauthorization of Spy Powers Authority Without Reforms," Breitbart, April 10, 2026.
- "Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Report on Section 702," PCLOB, September 2023.
- "Declassified Report Reveals NSA Broke Surveillance Rules," Project on Government Oversight, 2021.
- "Judge Renews Procedures for 702 Surveillance Program That Could Soon Lapse," Nextgov/FCW, April 2026.
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