Ron Paul Liberty Report - Weekly Update --- FISA Exchanges Real Liberty for Phantom Security
Aired: 2024-04-17
Duration: 04:37


=== Warrantless Surveillance Loophole (03:59) ===

[00:00:00]  Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the weekly report, FISA Exchanges Real Liberty for Phantom Security.
[00:00:10]  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.
[00:00:26]  Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign citizens.
[00:00:32]  When the FISA Act was passed, surveillance state boosters promised that 702 warrantless surveillances would never be used against American citizens.
[00:00:44]  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.
[00:01:00]  Intelligence agencies could then also conduct warrantless surveillance on any Americans who communicated with the new American target.
[00:01:11]  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.
[00:01:25]  A partisan coalition of Republican and Democratic House members worked to add a warrant requirement to the FISA bill.
[00:01:34]  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.
[00:01:48]  However, he publicly opposed the amendment, as did President Biden.
[00:01:54]  Prominent deep state operatives such as former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo also lobbied against the amendment.
[00:02:05]  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.
[00:02:21]  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.
[00:02:36]  Those claims were debunked by the heroic Edward Snowden, who made the American people aware of the extent of warrantless surveillance.
[00:02:46]  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.
[00:03:07]  A vote was held Friday afternoon on the amendment requiring a warrant before Section 702 powers would be used to spy on American citizens.
[00:03:18]  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.
[00:03:32]  The amendment would have passed had Speaker Johnson not cast a rare floor vote, speakers usually do not vote on legislation, against the amendment.
[00:03:43]  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.

=== Doubting Victory (00:37) ===

[00:03:59]  One conservative representative told me he voted for it even though he agreed with my opposition to the bill.
[00:04:07]  He told me, I can't go back home and tell my constituents I voted against the Patriot Act.
[00:04:15]  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.
[00:04:26]  It should thus inspire us to keep encouraging Congress to refuse to take away real liberty in the name of promises of phantom security.