| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Warrantless Surveillance Loophole
00:03:59
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| Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the weekly report, FISA Exchanges Real Liberty for Phantom Security. | |
| House Speaker Mike Johnson betrayed Liberty and the Constitution by making a full court press to get a clean reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act through the House. | |
| Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign citizens. | |
| When the FISA Act was passed, surveillance state boosters promised that 702 warrantless surveillances would never be used against American citizens. | |
| However, intelligence agencies have used a loophole in 702, allowing them to subject to warrantless surveillance any American who communicated with a non-U.S. citizen who was a 702 target. | |
| Intelligence agencies could then also conduct warrantless surveillance on any Americans who communicated with the new American target. | |
| This Section 702 loophole has been used to often to subject Americans to warrantless wiretapping that has been referred to as the surveillance state's crown jewel. | |
| A partisan coalition of Republican and Democratic House members worked to add a warrant requirement to the FISA bill. | |
| Speaker Johnson agreed to allow a vote on the House floor on an amendment requiring federal officials to get a warrant before subjecting any Americans to surveillance. | |
| However, he publicly opposed the amendment, as did President Biden. | |
| Prominent deep state operatives such as former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo also lobbied against the amendment. | |
| The case against adding a warrant requirement to FISA consisted of hysterical claims that forcing the surveillance state to obey the Fourth Amendment would make Americans vulnerable to terrorist attacks. | |
| Particularly, the claim was made that forcing national security operatives to get a warrant before spying on U.S. citizens would cripple the ability to respond to a ticking time bomb situation. | |
| Those claims were debunked by the heroic Edward Snowden, who made the American people aware of the extent of warrantless surveillance. | |
| Snowden, who worked as a government contractor for the National Security Agency, posted in a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the warrant amendment would not stop federal agencies from acting without a warrant in a ticking time bomb situation. | |
| A vote was held Friday afternoon on the amendment requiring a warrant before Section 702 powers would be used to spy on American citizens. | |
| Despite the fear-mongering by Mike Pompeo and others, as well as the opposition of both President Biden and Speaker Johnson, the amendment failed to pass by only one vote. | |
| The amendment would have passed had Speaker Johnson not cast a rare floor vote, speakers usually do not vote on legislation, against the amendment. | |
| When the Patriot Act was rushed to the House floor in the fall of 2001, weeks after 9-11, and voted upon before members had a chance to read it, only three Republicans voted against it. | |
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Doubting Victory
00:00:37
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| One conservative representative told me he voted for it even though he agreed with my opposition to the bill. | |
| He told me, I can't go back home and tell my constituents I voted against the Patriot Act. | |
| While the failure to pass the Warren Amendment was dispiriting, the fact that it failed by only one vote shows how much progress we have made. | |
| It should thus inspire us to keep encouraging Congress to refuse to take away real liberty in the name of promises of phantom security. | |