Bill Barr can’t be trusted to reform unconstitutional FISA surveillance – Washington Examiner

Attorney General William Barr wants the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to be renewed pronto with no questions asked. If any reforms are needed, he promises to take care of them himself: Dont worry yourself, America.

Is Barr kidding?

First, a short history lesson. Due to the officials within the government, including Presidents Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and no doubt many before them, using federal resources to spy on citizens and political opponents, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978. The law set up rules and a court designed to protect our Fourth Amendment privacy rights.

The goal was noble: FISA and its court would give the green light on going after terrorists while, ostensibly, protecting U.S. citizens from unconstitutional intrusions. Then, in the wake of 9/11, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, which lowered FISA standards. This, too, was supposedly for the sole purpose of targeting terrorists.

But by 2003, according to the New York Times, The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.

The newspaper reported, The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching law to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders.

Obviously, what was originally promised concerning the scope of the Patriot Act has changed significantly. This point was driven home in the 2006 movie The Departed, in which Boston police officers and the FBI are surveilling gangsters, and the police captain exclaims, The Patriot Act! I love it! I love it! I love it!

Far from just focusing on terrorists, the Patriot Act has become an extraconstitutional law enforcement tool. It has overwhelmingly been used to catch drug dealers more than terrorists. The Washington Post reported in 2011 that after a decade, the Patriot Act ha[d] been used in 1,618 drug cases and only 15 terrorism cases.

In 2013, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to the world that the U.S. government was spying on everyone in every way imaginable. Former President Barack Obama attacked Snowden and insisted that government agents were "not abusing [their] authorities to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails."

In fact, the government was doing all of these things. By 2019, many wondered if the U.S. government had spied on President Trumps campaign exactly the kind of Watergate-style corruption that inspired FISA in the first place.

Obviously, FISA is badly in need of reform.

With FISAs expiration looming in mid-March, Barr held a lunch briefing on Tuesday that most Republicans came out of agreeing to pass a clean extension, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell leading the pack. Barr assured them that any changes that needed to be made to prevent Trump or citizens from being spied on illegally again are actions he would take internally.

Yeah, right. It should be noted here that Barr believes the Patriot Act doesnt go far enough.

When libertarian-leaning Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee voiced their objections to what essentially amounts to a reformless FISA extension, Barr reportedly told them criticizing U.S. government surveillance was dangerous. Why? Because it supposedly helps terrorists. This debate is just about terrorism. Nothing else.

Sound familiar?

In a series of tweets, Lee laid out what reforms he believed needed to be made before FISA should be renewed and added in a later tweet:

Its a safe bet that most Americans would agree. Sadly, the attorney general could care less about FISA reform. After all, Barr is asking citizens to entrust him with protecting the same constitutional rights he has abused for decades.

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.

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Bill Barr can't be trusted to reform unconstitutional FISA surveillance - Washington Examiner