The Government wants to spy on you. The Government is spying on you. Shocking right? Congress recently voted to “reform” its ability to conduct electronic surveillance on Americans. The insane part is this new expansion of powers strips the requirement for a search warrant before the government rifles through your data. FISA courts (super-secret squirrel courts for spies) used to be our safeguard against warrantless electronic surveillance, though it wasn’t in practice. With the passage of this new law, the Feds have dropped all pretense of protecting civil liberties and have bypassed the 4th amendment entirely.
We live in a connected world; there is no doubt about that. It’s just a fact of life that I can open my phone and log into any number of social media sites and see what friends and family are posting. People post things they want people to see or mindless political nonsense. There is a certain, though somewhat unreasonable, expectation of privacy (social media uses our data for profit, etc.). We curate our friends list so that the audience for our posts is who we wish to share with. We keep records of our finances and bank logins; Apple or Google tracks our movement. All without fear that what we are doing is subject to search by the Government. We honestly have no reason to believe we’re being tracked, but that doesn’t mean we ever should, either. That is the issue: our rights should be protected by the people who swore to protect them.
We used to expect that if suspected of a crime, the feds would have to show cause to a judge and get a warrant with a scope of what they could look for and where. Again, this will no longer be the case. In my mind, the Republicans bear the lion’s share of the blame for this betrayal. Speaker Johnson has broken faith with his party members and has sided with the Democrat left and the White House to broker a deal that expands the spying powers of the Feds. Representative Dan Crenshaw (“R”, TX) , the former Navy SEAL with an eye patch, has favored this bill, siding with the White House and President Biden. It isn’t shocking, given his track record of RINO antics. My friend Glen Greenwald can explain it better.
Dan Crenshaw claims the bill favored by him, the Biden WH, and FBI/NSA/CIA provides major reforms to domestic warrantless spying.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 12, 2024
That NSA and FBI would support meaningful reforms is laughable. Read @LizaGoitein, one of the country's best privacy experts, on their bill: https://t.co/1Ce6Pk0Qk1 pic.twitter.com/2xwYR8Abmt
Now, why would any “conservative” vote against due process beyond the obvious “We are your Masters, serf!” or “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about”? Well, the answer is… FISA made exceptions for members of Congress and the president.
GUESS who gets an exemption from the massive domestic surveillance expansion in the FISA reauthorization bill?
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) April 21, 2024
Members of congress.
They need permission to spy on members of Congress.
This is absolutely insane.
🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/1sEg1FXrzt
So, of course, they’re okay with it now. If you’re a law-abiding citizen, why should you care? You don’t plan on breaking any laws, nor are you likely to do so in the future. Wrong, most people will break laws every single day. Whether it be traffic laws or financial laws (did you know you’re supposed to track and report to the IRS, Venmo, and or PayPal transactions over 200 dollars?) and with the Government adding new laws every year, it’s hard to know what exactly will or won’t be illegal.
Are you willing to roll the dice and give cart blanche to a government that has repeatedly shown that it cannot and should not be trusted? Fine, you trust the Government when your team has power, but not when the other guys do. Are you willing to give the other team tools to kill you?
The scary part is that you can be under investigation and have your entire electronic identity picked over in secret by some nameless faceless fed that didn’t like that your team won an election. Your team’s voters need to be punished. Or what about a sitting president using this to purge his political opponents like we’re in Soviet Russia? These government powers are almost always abused, overused, and weaponized. And this has been going on since the passage of the Patriot Act (we locked up Asians during World War 2 for “reasons”).
What can be done to mitigate the fallout of this disastrous vote for the average American? Not much. You could consider a VPN or virtual private network like Surf-Shark or NordVPN for encrypting and hiding our internet traffic, though using a VPN alone is grounds for suspicion from the feds.
Even still, a VPN provides end-to-end data encryption only, not machine security, nor does it protect against the feds kicking your door in at 4 am and taking your electronics. My advice is to consider strong passwords, deal in cash as much as possible, and assume all your data is being tracked.
Perhaps the worst part of this is the betrayal from the GOP. Especially Speaker Johnson. A man whom I at one point had supreme confidence in, the guy that “didn’t get rich in Washington,” turns out he’s just bad at making money and is as big of a RINO as I’ve seen in my life (along with ole Eye-patch McCain). But in a tie vote in the house where he could and would have represented “common sense,” he cast his lot in with the Left and left us in 4th amendment purgatory.
The very Republicans who rail against the “weaponization of government” just voted *for* more weaponization of government. Congress didn’t just reauthorize FISA 702, they dramatically expanded its scope. Blaming Democrats is easy, looking ourselves in the mirror is harder. Wake… pic.twitter.com/jopJtY3uqC
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) April 20, 2024
I never in my life thought I would write these words… I hope the ACLU steps up and challenges this.
References:
- Amiri, Farnoush, and Mary Clare Jalonick. Biden signs bill extending a key US surveillance program after divisions nearly forced it to lapse – The Washington Post. Accessed April 21, 2024. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/04/20/fisa-donald-trump-surveillance-congress-johnson/21c82f3a-fed1-11ee-87ac-20f7e67cbe29_story.html.
- Johnson, Julia, and Fox News. “Senate Passes FISA Surveillance Tool Renewal Minutes after Midnight Deadline.” Fox News, April 20, 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-fisa-surveillance-renewal-avoiding-lapse.
Nakashima, Ellen, and Shane Harris. U.S. officials scramble to stop major internet firms from ditching FISA obligations – The Washington Post. Accessed April 21, 2024. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/19/fisa-702-surveillance-internet/.
Images:
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dan_Crenshaw_(46479206421).jpg
Social Media:
- Greenwald, Glenn. “Dan Crenshaw Claims the Bill Favored by Him, the Biden WH, and FBI/NSA/CIA Provides Major Reforms to Domestic Warrantless Spying.That NSA and FBI Would Support Meaningful Reforms Is Laughable. Read @lizagoitein, One of the Country’s Best Privacy Experts, on Their Bill: Https://T.Co/1ce6pk0qk1 Pic.Twitter.Com/2xwyr8abmt.” Twitter, April 12, 2024. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1778813782275334357?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1778813782275334357%7Ctwgr%5E465e7e994388299b3bf263014e38f6b8f9802bac%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frealrepublic.com%2F%3Fp%3D1434elementor-preview%3D1434ver%3D1713711023.
Silver, Wall Street. “Guess Who Gets an Exemption from the Massive Domestic Surveillance Expansion in the FISA Reauthorization Bill?Members of Congress. They Need Permission to Spy on Members of Congress.This Is Absolutely Insane. 🚨🚨🚨 Pic.Twitter.Com/1seg1fxrzt.” Twitter, April 21, 2024. https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1781859424111333760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1781859424111333760%7Ctwgr%5E465e7e994388299b3bf263014e38f6b8f9802bac%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frealrepublic.com%2F%3Fp%3D1434elementor-preview%3D1434ver%3D1713711023.
Ramaswamy, Vivek. Accessed April 21, 2024. https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1781784210551824843?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1781784210551824843%7Ctwgr%5E465e7e994388299b3bf263014e38f6b8f9802bac%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frealrepublic.com%2F%3Fp%3D1434elementor-preview%3D1434ver%3D1713711023.
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