When Attorney General William Barr met with Republicans last month seeking a clean extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, persistent civil libertarian Sen. Rand Paul raised hell about it. After expressing his constitutional concerns about privacy to President Trump, the Kentucky Republican tweeted:
Spoke with @realDonaldTrump . He agrees that the secret FISA court (intended to be used on foreign spies) should be forbidden from ever spying on or investigating Americans, and that Congress should act NOW to make sure of that!
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) February 27, 2020
Now, Congress is acting — to pass so-called reforms that still allow spying on U.S. citizens, which means there is little real reform at all. The House voted on Wednesday to pass this weak “reform” and FISA extension, and the Senate is set to consider it as soon as Thursday.
Many Republicans are locking arms to oppose this gross infringement on Fourth Amendment rights, such as Rep. Andy Biggs and Sen. Mike Lee:
I’m opposed to this FISA reauthorization that we are voting on today.
It’s not enough to meet Americans halfway with their constitutional rights. The 4th Amendment is in the Constitution/Bill of Rights for a reason.
This bill doesn’t come close to protecting all Americans. pic.twitter.com/1NnNVfFJOE
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) March 11, 2020
Even where the House FISA / PATRIOT Act deal claims to offer modest protection for political candidates and elected officials, it doesn’t provide the same protection for the American people! @realDonaldTrump has asked for real FISA reforms, not fake ones. Sad!
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) March 11, 2020
Lee has vowed to filibuster the bill in the Senate. His concerns were echoed by Reps. Chip Roy and Thomas Massie as well:
The FISA draft is more than disappointing… it provides protections for politicians but not citizens. @realDonaldTrump should veto rather than perpetuating the very deep state swamp he went to DC to drain. #FISAReform
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) March 10, 2020
The Patriot Act Reauthorization on the floor tomorrow is a sham and won’t fix the provisions that allowed the unconstitutional spying on @realDonaldTrump and other Americans.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 11, 2020
So, who does think the current bill represents real reform? Republican leaders, along with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other prominent House Democrats such as Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler.
Nadler even said Tuesday of the bill, “It greatly increases civil liberties protections. Not as much as I would want or, apparently, as much as she would want, but it’s what we could get.”
That’s comforting.
This process sure has made for some strange bedfellows.
FISA’s strange bedfellows:
— Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff, McCarthy, Nunes, Jordan support the legislation the House will vote on today
— Lofgren, Paul, Lee, Massie opposed.
“It’s not real reform,” Lofgren says. “Ridiculous,” Nadler responds. W/ @mkraju https://t.co/ldNkj7vnTR
— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) March 11, 2020
This is Swamp 101. The most vocal opponents of extending FISA without genuine reform are the most liberal members of the Democratic Party and some of the most libertarian-leaning and Constitution-minded Republicans.
Most of the deal-makers, meanwhile, are largely part of the same establishment “swamp” President Trump vowed to drain. That same establishment insists that if virtually unlimited government surveillance powers aren’t kept intact, our safety will suffer. But fearmongering is simply what the guardians of Washington consensus do. They insist real reform or fidelity to the Constitution is dangerous extremism. They’re wrong.
One opponent of the current bill, Republican Rep. Warren Davidson, explained his opposition Wednesday in a column for the American Conservative:
Between the surveillance of the Trump campaign and the even more damning revelation that the FBI repeatedly abused a different provision of FISA to collect phone and email records from tens of thousands of American citizens, members of Congress should have an appetite for change.
They should.
But, if President Trump truly believes FISA courts should be forbidden from spying on Americans, he can veto this bill and demand further reform. Trump is still the one man who can stop this assault on our most basic rights.
UPDATE: This article was updated to reflect the bill’s passage in the House.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
