Lawmakers want to sunset FISA

We live in a time of overcentralized and surveillance governments. This means more loss of freedom (if any left). No matter if you are honest and clean, you can get caught in this toxic web.

There is no privacy in America as the Deep State scarfs up every bit of electronic communication transmitted anywhere.

But it’s not just the people being spied upon. It has become increasingly apparent that the surveillance state is spying upon itself. It seems someone in the District of Criminals has dirt on everyone, and everyone has dirt on someone.

But a tipping point may have been or is about to be reached. Conservative Republicans on the Hill are worried that the same spying apparatus that led to the intercepts of Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn may be sweeping up too many people (meaning politicians) and flouting what few laws Congress has passed to control it.

Flynn’s conversation with a Russian ambassador was captured through a “legal” use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provision that prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence information transmitted agents of foreign powers. The FISA court is little more than a rubber stamp for the federal alphabet soup agencies’ spying desires (though it’s interesting to note than a Barack Obama administration request to spy on Trump associates was so blatantly political it was initially turned down).

Flynn’s identity was later “unmasked” as a political weapon to wield against Trump by Obama-friendly Deep State operatives like Susan Rice and James Clapper. As the scandal around the unmasking grew, it became increasingly obvious that FISA surveillance was being used throughout government to spy for political gain on members of the Trump team and congressweasels themselves.

House Judiciary Committee member Representative Ted Poe (R-Texas) said he wouldn’t be surprised if the NSA was surveilling him and other members.

“The spying by our government on Americans cannot be tolerated, and it is being tolerated,” Poe, who voted in 2008 to extend the FISA program, told McClatchy news service. “Nothing would surprise me about what the NSA does. Unfortunately, they cannot be trusted.”

FISA is set to expire on December 31, 2017, and there are rumblings that the House will let it die. Its reauthorization is being discussed in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today. But as McClatchy reports:

Arthur Rizer, a national security director at the R Street Institute, a libertarian-leaning conservative think tank, said the mood on Capitol Hill “has shifted dramatically,” especially among emboldened members of the rebellious Freedom Caucus—a congressional bloc of conservative and libertarian Republicans allied with the Tea Party movement who stormed back to relevance in the debate on a proposed overhaul of Obamacare.

“It’s like a perfect storm,” he said “There are enough Republicans who are Trumpites, and they see the intelligence community as the enemy.”

“They are trying to strategize how best to attack this issue,” Rizer said, noting that he had met with several Freedom Caucus members and said that one spoke of his deep dissatisfaction with existing surveillance powers granted to intelligence agencies under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“He said, ‘I will vote for sunset over re-authorization.’ I had never heard a Republican say that,” Rizer said, declining to identify the lawmaker.

Some lawmakers think re-authorization is in trouble without significant reforms.

“They don’t have the votes to pass it. It is that bad,” [a] Republican aide said.

Despite being the target of the Deep State through FISA, the Trump White House is pushing for its re-authorization. This indicates to me that Trump is still under the control of the Deep State, which will not relinquish its power without a fight.
Growing cadre of lawmakers want to sunset FISA - Personal Liberty®