Trump, Republicans want to expand mass surveillance of Americans
During confirmation hearings for several Trump nominees, Republicans grilled officials like Pam Bondi (nominated for Attorney General), John Radcliffe (nominated for CIA Director), and Tulsi Gabbard (nominated for Director of National Intelligence) about Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) – a law that has been used to unconstitutionally engage in the mass surveillance of millions of Americans.
Now, you’d think that the Republican-led Senate would be looking for these future members of the Trump administration to commit to supporting the Constitution — specifically the Fourth Amendment which requires government get a warrant before spying on any particular person and forbids warrantless mass surveillance — but you’d be wrong. Instead, these “defenders of the Constitution” were demanding each of these nominees to support the expansion of warrantless mass surveillance under Section 702.
Tulsi Gabbard reversed her past opposition to mass surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) after being pressured by Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn to do so; and as someone who worked in the CIA during Trump’s first term, John Radcliff was already on board with the idea.
Meanwhile, Pam Bondi (someone whose Trumpism and gun control extremism already puts her at odds with the Constitution) assured Republicans that she considered FISA 702, the law that makes mass surveillance of Americans “legal,” a “very important tool” in the toolbox of the Department of Justice (via The Federalist):
“I would like to have a strategy to deal with the ISIS threat that’s beyond just the law enforcement model,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C. said to Bondi. “Does that make sense to you, that we should use every tool in the toolbox?”
Such an approach “includes wrapping in our state and local officials” and “better cooperation” across the nation and world, Bondi replied.
“Do you support reauthorizing FISA in 2025?” asked Graham.
“I believe [section] 702 is up in 2026,” Bondi said. “We will closely be looking at FISA as a very important tool.”
“Do you agree that 702 provides important intel-gathering capability to protect our nation?” Graham asked. Bondi called it “extremely important.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also pushed Bondi on the matter. He said 60 percent of the president’s intelligence brief comes from Section 702. “It’s been called the crown jewel of U.S. intelligence,” he said. “I’d like you just confirm here on the record that you will enforce that law, and you can support the law as it is written.”
“Senator, I haven’t read the entire 702 in front of you, but I will commit to reading that and doing everything I can to keep America safe again,” Bondi replied.
Cornyn suggested concerns about Section 702 are “misinformation.” “I think there’s a lot of misinformation with regard to how Section 702 works … it is not used to spy on American people,” Cornyn said.
Cornyn referenced a memo from former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe — Trump’s pick for CIA director — allegedly saying “a warrant requirement may not achieve its intended objectives and could hinder national security efforts.” Cornyn asked Bondi if she shares that concern.
“I would read his memo, and I will speak to you after I read his memo,” Bondi said. (Emphasis mine)
FISA Section 702 allows federal agencies to collect communications of noncitizens, outside the country, without a warrant, and it allegedly bars the government from spying on Americans, a claim repeatedly made by John Cornyn. However, the CIA was caught in 2022 using the law (which the Republican-led Congress reauthorized last year) to spy on Americans thanks to Donald Trump and Republicans when they were running the show in Washington.
In a letter at the time from Democrat Sens. Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich — yes, Democrats — to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns, the CIA was accused of spying and collecting information in bulk on Americans without supervision from Congress or any other branch of government (via New York Post):
“It has done so entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, and without any of the judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight that comes with FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] collection,” the lawmakers continue.
“FISA gets all the attention because of the periodic congressional reauthorizations and the release of DOJ, ODNI and FISA Court documents,” they said. “But what these documents demonstrate is that many of the same concerns that Americans have about their privacy and civil liberties also apply to how the CIA collects and handles information under executive order and outside the FISA law.
“In particular, these documents reveal serious problems associated with warrantless backdoor searches of Americans, the same issue that has generated bipartisan concern in the FISA context.” (Emphasis mine)
One of the “periodic congressional reauthorizations” occurred in January 2018 when Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress reauthorized Section 702 of FISA through December 2023, effectively allowing government agencies like the CIA to electronically spy on anyone … anytime … anywhere.
In the months leading up to the 2020 election, Trump and his Nationalist buddies in the Republican Party were working on reauthorizing key provisions found in the PATRIOT Act and FISA with the intention of expanding government’s power to spy on us.
This is when Trump joined Mitch McConnell to create a revised version of the PATRIOT Act that included provisions empowering the FBI to collect the web-browsing and search histories of Americans without a warrant and would give the attorney general’s office complete oversight of the FISA Court to ensure “accuracy and completeness” of FBI surveillance submissions to the secret Court. In the words of Sen. Ron Wyden at the time:
“Under the McConnell amendment, Barr gets to look through the web-browsing history of any American — including journalists, politicians, and political rivals — without a warrant, just by saying it’s relevant to an investigation.”
The “backdoor searches” mentioned in the Wyden/Heinrich letter are typically conducted by spying on our smartphone and computer activity. We learned in January 2021 — thanks again to Sen. Wyden — how this had been happening when the Director of National Intelligence (you know, Tulsi Gabbard’s new gig) and the Defense Intelligence Agency were forced to admit they had abused Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to spy on us and track websites we visited.
In response to this revelation, Wyden introduced legislation that offered safeguards for U.S. citizens’ data known as the “Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act.” Seems like only yesterday that so-called conservatives like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, or Rand Paul would have offered legislation like that. done something like this.
Good times.
Do you remember the USA FREEDOM Act? It’s a law that was passed in 2015 to bring an end to spying and the bulk collection of metadata by agencies like the CIA and to rein in the FISA Court. Unfortunately, the FREEDOM Act failed, government continued spying, and the FISA Court kept its power when Trump and the Republican Party renewed FISA 702 in 2018.
Amazingly, the Democrat-controlled House has fought to protect Americans from FISA Court abuses — abuses that Trump and the Republican Party have fought to protect.
For nearly 25 years, lovers of liberty have opposed the PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because they are clearly unconstitutional, and they give government the ability to conduct the mass surveillance of Americans.
Trump’s nominations of Tulsi Gabbard, John Radcliffe, and Pam Bondi should never see the light of day, but with the current state of affairs within the Republican Party, they are as good as confirmed.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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