As anticipated by highly frustrated observers (me included), the House of Representatives has provided a two-year extension of the FISA-702 surveillance authority, with no substantive restrictions. While the issue is enough to make a person break things, the outcome does not come as a surprise.
Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier he was against FISA-702 extensions after seeing the evidence of thousands of Americans illegally captured under surveillance. According to the DOJ Office of Inspector General, the 14 month total of illegal searches for 2021 exceeded 1.1 million. Yes, THAT’s MILLION, and the searches were done by over 10,000 federal employees and contractors who have access to the personal electronic data of every American.
However, now that House Speaker Johnson is a member of the intelligence “gang of eight” and getting briefings from the intelligence community, he now sees value in the FISA-702 surveillance program regardless of the constitutional damage created in the aftermath of warrantless searches, a 4th Amendment issue.
The DC intelligence briefings are filled with pearl-clutching nonsense; however, none of the primary people in DC are willing to take on the intelligence community except Donald J Trump. This reality is one of the core reasons why the IC attack President Trump. The IC is a weaponized assembly of corrupt intelligence operatives from a broad spectrum of agencies, and nothing they say with authority can be trusted against the context of their self-interest.
WASHINGTON DC – The House on Friday passed legislation reauthorizing a controversial government surveillance power — capping off a monthslong debate marked by acrimonious GOP infighting.
The 273-147 bipartisan vote is a win for embattled Speaker Mike Johnson, who has struggled publicly to bridge the deep divides within his conference. But it also puts him at odds with some of his biggest conservative critics, 88 of whom opposed the bill, as he faces the threat of an ouster vote.
The bill still needs to get through the Senate and to President Joe Biden’s desk by the April 19 deadline for reauthorizing the spy power.
Friday’s vote comes just two days after 19 Republicans prevented Johnson from even bringing a bill to the floor to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the intelligence community to collect the communications of foreign targets without a warrant.
Another dramatic turn came just ahead of the bill’s final passage, with a proposal to require warrants when searching foreign data collected by the surveillance program for information related to Americans failed on 212-212 tie.
The Biden administration and members of the Intelligence Committee waged an intense lobbying effort ahead of the vote; Attorney General Merrick Garland was calling members on Friday to urge their support for the bill and opposition to the warrant requirement, according to a person familiar with the conversations who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
In a bid to get his holdouts on board, Johnson shortened the reauthorization period for the program from five years to two years — which caused heartburn in some corners of the Biden administration and would put the next wiretapping fight in a potential second Trump term, if the GOP’s standard-bearer wins in November. (read more)
Don’t get too upset about this; this outcome was always going to be what happens. After spending several days trying to convince people in DC a few months ago, I realized the effort was futile.
We the People are in an abusive relationship with our government, and nothing is going to happen until the abused finally say, ‘enough is enough’ and stop allowing themselves to be victimized by a weaponized government.
Saying “enough is enough” takes a myriad of approaches, including extreme compliance and I will explain my thinking in greater detail very soon. You will understand much better when you understand what lawful non-adherence to their manufactured pretending looks like….
