Ignore FISA 702 rhetoric. Republicans love warrantless government spying.
[UPDATED] Despite the rhetoric coming out of Washington this week concerning FISA 702 “reform,” odds are that Republicans in Congress (under orders from Donald Trump) will ignore the Constitution and liberty by reauthorizing the Orwellian legislation with little or no change to ensure that warrantless government spying we’ve come to know since 9/11 will continue.
After extending the original April 20th deadline this past weekend, FISA 702 will expire on April 30 unless it is reauthorized or the SAFE Act — a band-aid being pushed by Sen. Mike Lee. But in the name of liberty, neither should happen (via an op-ed by Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute):
The countdown on a key U.S. surveillance capability has begun, with Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) set to expire on April 20 absent its reauthorization by Congress. We should let it. Originally sold to the public as a counterterrorism-related surveillance response to the 9/11 attacks, the Section 702 program has morphed into far more than a “foreign intelligence information” collection tool. And recent efforts to reform, rather than repeal, the legislation fall short.
Section 702 authorizes the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect communications of non-U.S. persons located abroad without a warrant. However, because of the structure of the global telecommunications system, the text messages, phone calls, and other digital data of people in the United States are invariably captured during FISA Section 702 collection activities. That information is stored in databases that are queried by the NSA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and even some Central Intelligence Agency personnel—all without having to obtain a warrant from a federal judge before conducting such searches. The prior abuses of such Section 702 collection and warrantless database querying are well documented.
[Recently], a bipartisan group of senators introduced a 116-page bill—the Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act—ostensibly designed to bring an end to nearly 20 years of constitutional rights violations under Section 702. But the legislation includes several fatal flaws, potentially allowing for the continuation of warrantless searches and unrestricted data collection targeting Americans. (Emphasis mine)
Contrary to the soul-searching rhetoric being fed us by Trump and the Republican Party, the fact is that they have no problem with allowing FISA 702 to continue unchecked because they are big fans of warrantless government spying.
This lying hypocrisy of Trump and Co. concerning their objection to warrantless government spying was on display only months ago when Sen. Tom Cotton led a quiet push for an 18-month “clean reauthorization” of FISA 702 in the hope that Republicans could kick the can down the road until after the 2026 midterms — assuming we have them — when they can work on ways to make it permanent if they retain control of Washington.
The SAFE Act is a non-starter in the FISA 702 “reform” discussion. Do you remember the USA FREEDOM Act? It was a law pushed by Mike Lee back in 2015 in response to NSA spying under FISA and was supposed to reign in government’s blatant abuse of power. When the legislation passed, it was supposed to bring an end to bulk collection of metadata by the NSA and rein in the FISA Court, but it didn’t.
In the end, the FREEDOM Act failed, the NSA continued spying, the FISA Court kept all its power after Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress approved the “periodic congressional reauthorization” of FISA Section 702 in 2018 until December 2023 — putting it past the 2020 presidential campaign — when Mike Johnson and the Republican Party controlling the House at the time joined Joe Biden and the Democrats to reauthorize FISA 702 until April 2026, which brings us to where we are today.
From the beginning of his second term in office, Trump and the Republican Party made it clear that government power over all things was paramount to protecting and defending liberty, which is why they went right to work to ensure that FISA and government spying lives forever.
During their confirmation hearings, Pam Bondi, John Radcliffe, and Tulsi Gabbard were grilled by Republicans about FISA Section 702. And while you’d think that the Republican-led Senate would be looking for people who would commit to supporting the Constitution, these charlatans demanded that each nominee commit to supporting the expansion of warrantless mass surveillance.
Tulsi Gabbard reversed her past opposition to mass surveillance under FISA after being pressured by Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn to support FISA — John Radcliff was already on board having previously worked in the CIA during Trump’s first term — and Pam Bondi assured Republicans that she considered FISA and the mass surveillance of Americans “legal” and a “very important tool” in the toolbox of the Department of Justice.
Donald Trump and the Republican Party are lying liars telling lies when they say that they want to get rid of FISA 702. For example, consider Trump’s call last month for an 18-month (just like Cotton) “clean extension” due to security concerns surrounding his unconstitutional war against Iran — an idea supported by Republicans in Congress (via TheHill.com):
President Trump made his first public call for a clean extension of the nation’s warrantless spy powers Wednesday, pointing to the ongoing conflict in Iran as a rationale.
Trump, through legislative channels, has called for an 18-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
In shifting positions, Trump has gotten some notable [Republican] lawmakers to move with him. (Emphasis mine)
A “clean extension” of FISA 702 like the one being pushed by Cotton and Trump would be the ultimate display of government arrogance and a complete disregard of liberty (via The Record):
“A clean refresh of FISA Section 702 would show utter disrespect for the American people,” according to Jeramie D. Scott, senior counsel and director of the Project on Surveillance Oversight at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
“We don’t need a reform commission to tell us that Section 702 authority, a foreign intelligence authority, has been abused to access Americans’ communications,” he said in a statement. “It’s well documented and so is one of the most straightforward solutions—a warrant requirement to search Americans’ communications incidentally collected through Section 702 surveillance.” (Emphasis mine)
Though FISA originated during the Cold War to gather foreign intelligence information, the current debate over Section 702 began around 2008, when Republicans joined the Democrat majority to legalize a surveillance program secretly created by the National Security Agency after 9/11. FISA Section 702 allows our government overlords to track the electronic communications of foreign terrorists, spies, and hackers without obtaining a warrant, but it has also provided government with communications data from an unknown number of Americans.
And here’s something to ponder: In a shocking post made on X yesterday, Thomas Massie revealed that he had read two top secret FISA documents: The secret FISA Court opinion regarding FBI noncompliance with FISA Section 702 statutory requirements, and a letter sent by Senator Wyden to the House that revealed ‘a secret government interpretation of FISA law.’ (Emphasis mine)
Despite the rhetoric coming out of Washington, the SAFE Act won’t “reform” FISA 702 nor will a “clean extension” of existing law. To see warrantless government spying come to an end, Donald Trump and the Republican Party need to end their hypocrisy and do all they can to strike FISA from the books before liberty in America is lost forever.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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