End the FISA Court!
Free countries don’t let intel officials spy on its citizens.
A few brave Republicans are pushing to let the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—the tool a politicized Department of Justice has repeatedly abused—expire at the end of the year.1 Bully for them but it’s unlikely to happen.
How do I know? Personal experience, that’s how.
Among the other things that came to light (again) with the House grilling of FBI Director Christopher Wray this week was the improper ‘intelligence gathering’ on domestic protestors (including January 6th participants) under FISA’s Section 702.2
The Durham Report details the Bureau’s ‘weaponization’ of the law to spy on political opponents. As some of us knew from the outset, there was never “any actionable evidence of collusion” by anyone in the Trump orbit, but it didn’t stop the FBI from lying on its application for a warrant in the secret court.3
Nevertheless, the uber-hawks (see Liz Cheney below) who dominate the GOP caucus still aren’t likely to go along. In fact, back in the 115th Congress, I was a lonely Republican vote to scrap FISA based on what I was seeing in regard to the whole Russian-collusion fantasy. To put it mildly, recent events have only confirmed my suspicions.
Frankly, it’s a big reason why I wrote Party Animal, The Truth About President Trump, Power Politics & the Partisan Press. If you’ve read the chapter, From Russia With Love, you know the whole inside story on the Cold War surveillance court. If you haven’t, here’s an excerpt from the book which is now available in audio format as well.