Traitors! Congress Votes To EXTEND Unconstitutional Spying On Americans!
The US House this morning joined the Senate in approving the massive, trillion dollar National Defense Authorization Act where Congressional leadership snuck in authorization for the government to continue to illegally spy on US citizens not suspected or accused of any crime! In the House, Speaker Johnson only passed the bill with the assistance of Democrats - a move that cost his predecessor his job. Will Johnson suffer a backlash for betraying his promises?
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
I'm doing well, doing well.
We're a little late, though.
We were going to try to talk about why call your congressman and get them to, you know, vote against this bill and the FISA courts and permission to spy on Americans.
You know, it's not like they sneak and do it all the time.
Anyway, they've been doing it for years.
But now they make it legal and put it right out on the table.
So, you know, I was a little disappointed by our speaker because I sort of like him.
And I think he's very sincere.
I think he's very bright.
But it seems like the pressure of the office has put him in a situation where absolute protection of the Fourth Amendment is difficult.
So anyway, there was a vote yesterday on NDAA.
I recall it very much in the presidential campaigns because I was fascinated that when I went to college campuses, they seemed to be a step ahead of me.
They seemed to know and was excited about it a little bit before I was, but they got my attention.
We spent a lot of time on that.
Then we dealt with the legislation and how evil it has.
And here, all we've been trying to do is rein in some of the bad things on the Patriot Act along with how they get things extended.
So this was an extension.
But it is, it's bad enough that they just go ahead and do it anyway and spy on us.
Nobody should assume that the federal government doesn't spy on anybody they want.
And they did that before they had Section 702.
But there should be at least an image of the Congress and the people saying, no, this is not right.
You shouldn't be doing this.
That is not intended in the Constitution.
But nevertheless, it passed the Senate yesterday.
And we were thinking before our program started, well, we could talk about it and tell them, get involved here, call your Congressman, make sure he votes right on this.
But the vote has already occurred, and it was not a victory for the Fourth Amendment.
It was, you know, the bill was passed, which means not only the 702, that's passed all that money also.
You know, and the money, it says it's $886 billion.
You know, you could round it off to a trillion.
You say, well, that's stretching it.
No, it's minimizing it because you have to figure there'll be another bill soon and they'll eventually get money for Ukraine.
It goes on and on.
But there's always going to be an emergency.
And right now they have a lot of choices.
$111 billion they want is for Ukraine, Israel, and also Taiwan.
And so there'll be an American ship sunk or something.
And then if anybody opposes them, it would be equivalent to the unity that 9-11 brought on.
But anyway, the NDA passed, and that means some effort made it.
And they did try to curtail that.
And they had one vote there to try to strip it.
And because they had to have two-thirds vote, they almost were able to strip the 702 from there.
But that didn't happen.
And It's a shame, but I think people become numb to this.
You know, they might hear about it and say, that's terrible, terrible.
And then, you know, what am I going to do about it?
Well, some days we feel that way too.
But what we can do, the best thing we can do is try to call attention to people and say that this is not going to stop until the people say enough is enough.
And that's how things change.
And in certain things in recent years, there have been a few things where the people just say, enough is enough, and we don't want you hounding us to death.
Certainly the COVID lockdown issues, that shifted when the people woke up.
Yeah, well, let's put it up because let's read them and weep.
As you say, Dr. Paul, we plan on saying, hey, we have a chance on this because, and here's a vote, 310 to 118.
It would have taken, now my math is not great, okay?
This is this is like napkin math, but from my calculation, it would have taken 141 no's to reject it because this is a very strange way to bring up the National Defense Authorization Act.
Speaker Johnson brought it up as a suspension bill, a suspension of the rules.
And as a lot of our viewers would probably know, this is reserved for what are considered non-controversial bills, post offices, things like this.
Just kind of voice vote it and get it out of here.
Well, they're saying that Johnson brought it as a suspension because he didn't want rules committee to get a to get a cut at it.
And you talk about how you've talked in the past about how rules has a lot of power.
They can make changes.
And there might have been some people in there who didn't like 702 being in it because it wasn't supposed to be in there.
And Speaker Johnson wasn't going to put it in there, he said, but he did it anyway and he put it in there.
So Johnson did a suspension of the rules to pass it in a very unusual way.
The House Freedom Caucus went ballistic.
You know, they're basically behind getting rid of McCarthy for doing the same types of thing.
And here's what you have it.
And also, if you look at the Republican no's versus yeses, they did have to, Johnson did have to rely on Democrats to get this bill passed.
And that was one of the bill of particulars against McCarthy as well.
So Johnson, you say there's probably some bright things about him, but he's doing a lot of fumbling right now on these issues.
And it's not really that necessary.
Yeah, I think the fumbling is going to continue regardless of who's in there or what happens even in next year's election.
Things will change.
But it's the system that's collapsing.
And even some are sincere and then some are overwhelmed by the legislative difficulties and so on.
So this is not going to be solved because, you know, like in the monetary issue, there's a lot of people who know that what we have to do.
But the pain and suffering of the politics of it all is if you have to cut spending and quit printing money, it's not going to be easy.
Somebody's going to yell and scream.
And that's what happens there.
And you might say, well, who's so worried about this?
The American people aren't demanding it.
You spy on us.
Well, the big bill there is a lot of money for the special interests.
And it's very great amount because it goes so often to the military-industrial complex.
And who knows for what else they have?
There's so many subsidies in there.
The amount of that money that comes out of the NDAA that is really helping us on national defense.
You could make the case, and some of the Republicans are making the case.
Well, that's why we argue that having a little bit of a better program at our borders, maybe that would help because I think the borders, I think we've been invaded.
I think people sort of capitulated and say, yeah, come in.
We're not going to fight.
We surrender.
It's almost like a surrender, and there are no borders.
So a lot of money for that.
But you could spend and have that.
You certainly could have that much improved if that was the goal and not the goal of maintaining the empire.
The people who are really worried now is they see the cracks in the empire.
And that's good news, but it's also going to be very dangerous because a lot of people are going to be very angry.
Yeah, and this Section 702, as you suggested in your opening, this goes back to the Patriot Act.
And you remember very well that time people were awfully mad at you for being against it.
They said, come on, Ron, it's only temporary.
We're only going to use it to get the bad guys.
And we've built in sunsets.
So all this bad stuff, it's going to sunset.
It's going to be over.
Well, that's been, what, 22 years ago, 21 years ago?
It's still there.
And we're still reauthorizing it over and over again.
You say, well, they're just trying to get the bad guys.
Well, here's actually a couple of clips from Defense One.
And Defense One, I don't look at it as often as I'd like.
They often have very insightful articles in there.
It's geared toward the defense community.
But this is a good article.
And its title is Section 702 Surveillance Doesn't Belong in the NDAA.
That's a good argument.
Go to the next one.
Here's a couple of clips from that article.
And they point out that by including Section 702 extension in legislation like the NDAA that passes Congress each year, Speaker Johnson risks short-circuiting the legislative debate around this spying powder and the possibility of real bipartisan surveillance reforms.
So they're saying basically he's dusting it under the rug.
We should be talking about whether this should be extended rather than sneaking it in a bill that is a must-pass bill on the day that the House is ready to rise and go home for Christmas, throw it in at the last minute.
One more clip on this.
This is an article from the same article.
And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but it's a very good summary of 702.
They say Section 702 is an incredibly controversial surveillance tool, long criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Although the law requires the government to direct the surveillance at people outside the U.S., in practice, it routinely ensnares Americans.
It allows the government to target any foreigner abroad for warrantless surveillance.
The government's targets don't need to have any connection to criminal activity or terrorism.
They can be journalists, human rights workers, or business people communicating about foreign affairs in the U.S. In the course of this surveillance, the government vacuums up without a warrant the communication of countless Americans who have texted, called, messaged, or emailed any one of the hundreds of thousands of foreign targets.
So that's a long way of saying they can hit any foreigner.
But if you happen to talk to Aunt Millie living in Germany, forget it.
They're going to suck up all your stuff.
And none other than Ed Snowden, who doesn't often comment, he's on record on this.
Let's do a tweet from him before I throw it back to you, Dr. Paul.
This is before the vote.
He says, if Speaker Johnson abuses the NDAA to smuggle into law extension of the warrantless surveillance that the FBI exploited to spy on Americans more than 200,000 times in just a year.
He should be dumped just like McCarthy.
No excuse.
It's pretty strong.
You know, this comes in the NDAA and it talks about national security.
And that's no accident.
It just didn't accidentally get there because people who would vote against this bill, they would get strong criticism.
You don't even care about national security.
I mean, we have to defend this country.
The world is a dangerous place.
So they purposely do this.
And the big struggle is separating it.
Because if it's separated, and if you had a separate vote just on the privacy of American citizens, that you can't do this to American citizens, they probably could win a vote like that.
But when it's thrown in there and makes it more complicated, but they've been getting away with it.
Oh, well, I think this is another extension.
But we'll figure out something next go around.
And maybe they'll have to have new people in the Congress or something.
But see, that's a great point, Dr. Paul, because as you say, if they just dealt with this bill, there would be a debate, and it might not pass because Americans might say, we don't want this anymore.
And that's why they sneak it in.
Well, here's Ed Snowden did a tweet this morning after it passed, and he's obviously disgusted, if we can put it up.
He's obviously disgusted with what happened.
And here's what he said.
Congress has voted to pass the NDAA in which they deceitfully concealed an extension of the warrantless spying program, Section 702, universally opposed by the public.
Good point.
And listen to this part.
Last year, the FBI exploited 702 to spy on Americans.
And that's protesters, donors, even Congress, more than 200,000 times.
You know, if we're not careful, they might even start spying for political reasons and checking in on these other candidates and getting illegal warrants to spy.
You know, that's really when it gets bad because that's when they get the Department of Justice on their side and the courts along with just having the information.
So they have the vehicle and then they have the vehicle of the courts.
And I think the stories, you know, they tried to stop it in the last election because of the Russia gate.
And the military people came.
They say, oh, no, oh, no, this is just a hoax.
This is just fake.
They do this, and they say they have the authority.
And, you know, this, the problem, the reason why, although I want to be as optimistic as possible, this starts with kids that are so young.
I mean, we've lost the education.
We indoctrinate, you know, the young people.
And this, this, you know, and we saw witness to this, you know, this week about the argument over the Palestinians and Israel.
You know, it's a system.
To cancel that and to change attitudes, I mean, but it exists.
We do know that there are people getting education outside of that system.
And they happen to need to leave the government school system or get away from us so they understand the difference.
You know, the thing is, I mean, it's sort of personal, the 702, because in the course of my duties running the Ron Paul Institute, I mean, I do international media all the time.
I've been, you know, Australia, India, Russia.
Don't tell anyone, you know, even Iran.
So I'm on the phone with producers overseas.
Biden Speaks Out00:07:26
So that means that any of my communications anywhere could be legally sucked up by the FBI, maybe used against me in the future.
Who knows what?
But that shouldn't be as a journalist, as a representative of a policy institute.
We shouldn't be subject to the FBI listening in on our phone calls.
It just strikes me as anti-American, you know, to do such a thing.
Yeah, so that tells us how difficult this is.
But, you know, the Snowden thing, I think, is a big deal because he's been pretty quiet.
But when he expressed himself, that was one courageous idea.
He knew that he would lose access to his country and protection of the Constitution.
And that's a tough decision to make, you know.
He put it on the line and he speaks out.
He still speaks as strongly as ever.
What about these signatures?
The people that signed that letter back then and there.
But did they become, they got active again now.
They signed before and said that Russia gate was all a hoax.
The Hunter Biden laptop was a hoax.
The laptop was all a hoax.
And it probably made a difference on the election.
But they're back at it again.
Just put up that clip, by the way.
Yeah, they're back at it again.
The same group, it's not every one of them, but that group, as you say, they overthrew the election.
It wasn't the Russians who interfered.
It was they, all these former intelligence officers.
They signed a letter saying, well, in our vast experience with intelligence, we can say that the Hunter Biden laptop is classic Russian disinformation.
They just flat out lied, Dr. Paul.
And everyone knows it.
As you say, it affected the elections.
Well, normal people who are not nihilists, as you write a lot about, who are not sociopaths, they would probably shrink away and just not go public again.
They would feel some disgrace.
Not these guys.
They're back, and they signed a new letter saying, keep spying on Americans.
It's good for us.
That's how we maintain our power and our cash flow.
So the military people seem to do well.
If you can become a general and then you retire, you've taken the course to become that type of a lobbyist.
But then you have the media that are participating in it.
But we see that all the time, too.
The media participates in it.
They had to participate in the lockdown.
I mean, look at all the scare tactics that were put up by the government.
But if independent sources, if physicians or anybody tried to give a different spin on this, they'd lose their job.
They wouldn't lose their reputation.
With the good people, their reputation goes way up.
But they lose their jobs, and some of them are still recovering from it.
Yep, absolutely.
Well, I had a couple of tweets, optimistic tweets from some pretty good guys, just to kind of close out this section.
If you can put that next to him, Mike Lee, who's very good on a lot of issues, I have to say, he's one of the best senators that we have out there, if we can put that next to him.
Pardon me for coughing.
Mike Lee earlier today said it's a new day in America.
The Fourth Amendment still prohibits warrantless searches of Americans.
The FBI disregards that under FISA 702.
The NDAA would further enable the FBI's lawless abuse of 702.
Sorry, he urged the Congress to vote against it in the House.
Unfortunately, he lost.
But I do want to do one other thing, Dr. Paul, and that's put up this next one.
I've been critical of the person who's holding your seat in Congress for you until you decide to go back, Randy Weber.
I've been critical of him in the past for some things he's done, but I've got to give him a pat on the back for this.
He stuck his neck out.
He said, the NDAA includes $600 million for Ukraine.
Another reason I'm a no.
And I double-checked.
I looked at the roll call, and he indeed voted no on the NDAA.
So hats off to Randy Weber.
He's holding that seat, keeping it warm for you.
Our constituency out here might just be pleased with this.
Yeah, this is our own country.
Bring back memories.
Yeah, yeah.
So good vote on his part.
Well, I'm going to close out if you're not done.
I'm going to close out with a little poll.
Polls are fun.
This is not good news for President Biden.
Put up the next one.
We talked a couple of weeks ago how he was in four of the five battleground states he was ahead.
It's getting worse.
A new Bloomberg poll of Trump-Biden matchup in the swing states.
Trump is now ahead in all of them.
He's four points up in Arizona, six points up in Georgia, four points up in Michigan, three points in Nevada, nine points in North Carolina, two points in Pennsylvania, and four points in Wisconsin.
They're going to have to do something.
I'm not going to say what, but the numbers don't look good right now.
They're going to have to do some creative voting.
Yeah, but maybe you're stretching a little bit.
Maybe it's not that bad for him because they have the rescue team coming.
That's true.
Hillary's in town.
Hillary's in town.
So she's going to really help out.
You know, it's sort of like, we're going to indict Trump.
And his numbers go up.
But how about Hunter?
He gave a political speech the other day.
He didn't want to cow-tow to a bunch of congressmen, wanted to interrogate him because he didn't do anything wrong.
And my dad didn't do anything wrong.
So I'm not even going to bother going in your dump buildings.
So that was a little bit of politicking there.
And I think he might have had a little bit of help on the speech he gave.
But it's a mess.
But like you point out, the Democrats have to be squirming.
And, you know, I keep thinking the results of 19 would have been 68 when the Democrats got split over war spending.
And they never knew what was going on.
And they had eight years.
They never even touched anything going on in Washington.
Presidents just swamped them after that.
But it's hard for a lot of, especially the Democrats, to believe it.
But the biggest thing is to accept it.
What if it is true?
You know, that they're losing all the esteem.
And I can't understand why it hasn't happened a long time ago.
You know, the whole thing, even during the last campaign, how could they do this?
But it is, and maybe we'll see some positive things next year.
Because even though I argue that the big picture doesn't really change, but it still is a benefit if you want a baby step in the right direction and pointing out some of this tremendous nonsense, then I think that's making a difference.
I'm all done.
Okay, and I want to thank our viewers today for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
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