Former President Donald Trump does command attention in the Republican Party. But the establishment RINOs rage on.
And now Donald Trump is brawling with the GOP in Congress for making this unholy alliance with Democrats.
One of the major issues of the federal government today is absolutely the surveillance state that has been propped up by establishment politicians particularly ever since the 9/11 tragedy of 23 years ago.
The 9/11 tragedy rightly gave Americans cause for concern for national security, but it’s been abused as an excuse for the federal government to do whatever they want in the name of “national security” matters, even blatantly violating the constitutional rights of Americans.
The U.S. has been illegally spying on Americans without due process and without a warrant for decades now, and it’s only getting worse.
Recently, Congress had an opportunity to expire some of the laws that give the federal government the authority to unfairly and unconstitutionally spy on innocent American citizens. These authorizations come from sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.
FISA governs the authorization and oversight of electronic surveillance and other investigative activities conducted by the U.S. government agencies, primarily the FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA), in national security investigations.
Congress is required to periodically reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to ensure the continued legality and operation of the surveillance programs it authorizes.
Typically, certain provisions of FISA, such as those related to the authorization of surveillance programs and the establishment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), have sunset clauses that require them to be reauthorized after a certain period of time. These sunset provisions are designed to prompt regular review and debate over the necessity and effectiveness of FISA programs.
This last week, the House of Representatives was forced to vote on the issue of the expiring FISA policies that were set to expire this month.
The result? Establishment Republicans and Democrats joined together once again to back the nanny, Orwellian state and renew FISA once again for another two years.
The House approved a two-year FISA reauthorization package with a vote of 273-147, following heated debate within and across party lines regarding privacy concerns related to a FISA section aimed at surveilling foreign threats. The legislation now moves to the Senate.
Earlier in the day, House Republicans, in a party-line vote, pushed the bill past a procedural obstacle after previous setbacks earlier in the week. On Wednesday, a faction of Republicans, joined by Democrats, rejected a five-year FISA reauthorization bill with proposed reforms, leading to a revision of the renewal period to two years in the final bill passed on Friday.
Representative Anna Pauline Luna (R., Fla.), a prominent Republican opponent of the FISA renewal, plans to introduce a motion for reconsideration following the bill’s passage in the House. However, chances for the motion’s success seems slim as it heads for an early vote next week.
Without Senate passage and presidential approval, FISA authority is set to expire on April 19. However, the bill is anticipated to swiftly move through the Senate and onto President Joe Biden’s desk once the motion for reconsideration is defeated.
As the bill is headed to the U.S. Senate, it’s unlikely that there will be enough support to stop the bill from reaching Joe Biden’s desk as a number of the Washington, D.C. bureaucrats are facing a pressure campaign from their high-profile political party establishment members that don’t want to see FISA expire in anyway.
Donald Trump was in strong opposition to re-authorization of the sections of FISA that Congress was voting on, saying that the Act was used against him to spy on him illegally in Mar-a-Lago and eventually led to the raid of his house by the FBI and the DOJ.
“KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!! DJT,” Donald Trump shared on his Truth Social account.
Thus far, Joe Biden has given no indication that he would do anything other than sign the bill when it reaches his desk.
The Conservative Column will keep you updated on any developments in this story.
