This Monday, news emerged the House GOP would not, contrary to previous reports, be voting on any of the current bills that would reauthorize and reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Apparently, the prospect of reauthorizing FISA – a bill titularly dedicated to keeping track of foreign threats, but now increasingly (and illegally) used to surveil American citizens – was a bridge too far, and the Rules Committee was forced to pull both of the current FISA bills in response to intense backlash from within the conference. Where originally, Speaker Mike Johnson had planned to follow what was referred to as a “Queen of the Hill” approach, where both bills would be voted on by the House, and only one that received the most votes would go to the Senate, now, instead, the House will be attempting to put together one single bill that addresses all concerns. As Judiciary Committee member Darrell Issa (R-CA) put it, “We should take the time it takes to get one bill and take the time it takes to get it right.”
We are encouraged by this. What we are less encouraged by are two related facts: Firstly, the House will be voting on the National Defense Authorization Act this Thursday, which seems likely to pass, despite the fact that the act in question includes a short-term extension of FISA until April 19, 2024.
If the act needs to be revised (and it clearly does), then why extend its authority until next April? Is the concern that their own constituents may be surveilled and tyrannized by Joe Biden’s out-of-control FBI really something that House GOP members find so trivial that they’re not even willing to strike it from a bill whose only legitimate purpose is to fund the Department of Defense (DOD)? Is this not a worthwhile use of political capital to them?
For some, unfortunately, the answer appears to be “no.” Particularly troubling is the case of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH), whose own version of a FISA “reform” bill was described even by the Leftist Intercept magazine as “the largest expansion of domestic surveillance in decades,” while only including a warrant requirement for FBI officials to spy on Americans under achingly specific circumstances. When Turner was confronted about this within the Republican conference by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), one of the authors of the Judiciary Committee’s competing bill, who accused Turner of “f*cking lying” about the Judiciary bill, Turner’s response was to accuse Davidson of supporting legislation that would let child pornographers walk free. Which, we suppose we have to give him credit for at least knowing how to use the Find and Replace function on his Bush-era talking points about “letting the terrorists win.”
Here’s the basic reality, which Turner and all the other neocon deep state coddlers still in the GOP conference refuse to understand: yes, there are innocent and even praiseworthy uses for FISA. But if a law permits the government to abuse its own citizens, particularly when those citizens are your own constituents, it does not matter what good ends it can be put toward. It must either be reformed to remove the potential for abuse, or blocked altogether. Not to mention, we find it naïve to the point of absurdity that Turner believes the FBI would use FISA to surveil child pornographers, rather than parents protesting the inclusion of soft-core child pornography in schools. It only takes one look at the recent history of the FBI to know which is more likely.
But let’s take this even further: many elements of the US justice system enable wrongdoers to walk free, on the theory that imprisoning the innocent is a greater sin. The Founders did not design the system this way out of an abundance of sympathy for criminals; rather, they did so because they remembered the cruelty and persecution visited upon political opponents by English judges like the infamous “bloody judge” George Jeffreys. And indeed, were it possible to ask Jeffreys what he thought of the American justice system, one can imagine complaints very similar to Turner’s, when it comes to FISA reform.
Jury trials? Way to be soft on crime. Star Chambers never let traitors go.
No cruel and unusual punishment? How will we prosecute murderers, if we can’t make them confess on the rack?
Habeas Corpus? What are you, an anarchist? Some people need to be murdered in the Tower of London.
The Founders saw the flaws in this reasoning, and so should the House GOP, particularly now that – like Jeffreys – our own class of law enforcement officials is more interested in persecuting political and religious dissenters than actual criminals. In fact, our current crop arguably worse than Jeffreys, whose infamous “bloody assizes” at least condemned actual, literal violent rebels. Whereas the current deep state’s version of the “bloody assizes” is sentencing January 6th protesters to decades-long prison sentences for such offenses as knocking over bike racks. Say what you like about January 6th, but the Monmouth Rebellion, it ain’t.
And nor is reauthorizing FISA for the sake of “attaboys” from the DC professional class worth it. The House GOP’s “national security” caucus needs to wake up and realize what time it is. But more than that, they need to be reminded what the founding principles of America were, regarding justice, and not rest until American citizens are entitled to the full protection of those principles, both in spirit and in law. To do otherwise is to subject Americans to a police state wearing the cheap papier mache mask of democracy, which is why Ben Franklin famously said that those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. By the same token, sacrificing liberty for “national security” will just ensure that everything about our nation worth securing is already lost.
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