Once again we are seeing a Congress that has bickered back and forth among the power broker divisions scurrying to ensure they maintain their control over the American people as the onerous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was set to expire on March 15. Attorney General William Barr suggested last week that the bill should be extended with no alteration or discussion on the floor of Congress. President Trump wasted no time in letting all involved know that he would not sign the bill as it is because of the broad overreach it allows. In addition, even though it is termed the “foreign” intelligence surveillance act, the secret court established with the legislation has largely rubber-stamped any requests for warrants with almost zero investigation of government agency claims when they want to monitor common Americans. Among those Americans is the sitting president who must approve the legislation.
FISA Abuses
This is the very legislation that allowed the Obama Administration to actually spy on a U.S. presidential candidate who still won the election regardless of the previous administration working to stop that very result. Needless to say, this is the type of legislation President Trump abhors, and the FISA court itself could be in jeopardy of being eliminated because of the obvious abuses that are now under investigation. The problem of governmental overreach has never been more evident than it is concerning the ineptly-named Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Potential Non-governmental Interference Guarantee Violations
The FISA act gives the U.S. intelligence agencies broad powers to potentially violate the 4th Amendment based on a fear of governmental overthrow by a foreign power from within the nation. Just as with many other pieces of legislation that come through Congress, much of it was never read by any member who voted for it with exception of a very few. It was voted in after 9/11 as a knee jerk response with what both power broker parties want to call “bipartisan support” that is often actually code for giving the appearance that they can do something right sometime. And especially if it keeps the American people under absolute control under the guise of protection against foreign entities.
Misguided Policy
Legislation names in Congress are commonly named in reverse of what the legislation actually accomplishes or is intended to accomplish, and this controversial piece of legislation that Congress claims is necessary to “protect” the American people truly only ensures their power over those they claim to be protecting. The Trump wiretapping investigation alone proves this point. Congress has difficulty even cobbling together a financial aid action to help during what is being called a pandemic of the Coronavirus by the global behemoth World Health Organization. But when it comes to macro surveillance population management and control devices, they are all in all of the time by all parties and all members, for the most part.
Secrecy and Power
One of the major problems with the U.S. Congress is that they have used national security as an excuse to use secrecy as a tool to keep themselves in power under the claim of protection for their so-called constituents and stakeholders. Party affiliation matters not when their power is at risk. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act alone stands as a shining sore-thumb example of the representative body drive to maintain their power by giving themselves more power while claiming a fake victory of collective action that only results in improving their own stake in dominion over the U.S. people in general by highlighting potential foreign bad actors.
Make no mistake about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It will be extended in some form by Senate approval, and secrecy will once again be the key with power maintenance for both parties as the true objective.
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