Blue Dogs And New Dems Team Up With The GOP To Permit Unwarranted Spying On American Citizens

Late Tuesday night, the House voted on an amendment offered by Justin Amash (R-MI) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) to an omnibus appropriations bill. The amendment failed 253-175. It was voted down by an institutionally conservative coalition that included 127 Republicans and 126 Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party— primarily New Dems, Blue Dogs and associated shitheads (like Steny Hoyer). Voting to pass the bill were almost every progressive in the House (110) of them + a motley crew of 65 Republicans. The rejected bill was meant to end unwarranted federal mass surveillance of phone calls, texts, and browsing histories of the American people (the stuff Ed Snowden exposed). Reason Magazine explained the amendment as seeking to forbid the use of any funds to submit a surveillance request under Section 702's guidelines unless the requesting organization— the National Security Agency (NSA)— certifies that the surveillance is not "to acquire the communications of a particular, known person reasonably believed to be in the United States, any acquisition of a communication as to which no participant is a person who is targeted pursuant to the authorized acquisition, or any acquisition of a communication known to be entirely domestic."

Translation: The purpose of Section 702 of FISA is intended to authorize warrantless secret surveillance of foreign targets of interest in other countries who may be plotting against the United States. In practice, we know that the NSA has been collecting significant amounts of domestic communications of American citizens, without warrants, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. This was the surveillance that Edward Snowden helped expose, and we've been arguing over it ever since.

Despite repeatedly and loudly complaining that he and his aides had been illegally surveilled under FISA as a candidate, President Donald Trump has done nothing to actually restrain these surveillance powers. Last year, given the opportunity to rethink the limits of Section 702 when it was up for renewal, Congress and Trump instead expanded its authority to snoop on Americans.

So this year, Amash and Lofgren embarked on a new effort to stop the NSA from secretly collecting Americans' communications. Amash spoke passionately in defense of his amendment on the House floor [Tuesday] evening:

We can see what's wrong with Washington right here. We have Republicans for months saying "We're worried about FISA abuse. FISA's out of control!" Here we are trying to limit FISA and they're running against it. They're saying "No, we can't limit FISA!" Democrats say, "We want to hold the president in check. Executive power is out of control." We have an amendment to hold the president in check. This is our time to stand up for the American people. I'm sick of going home and telling them that neither side wanted to defend their rights.

But it was not to be. The amendment got all of 10 minutes of debate and was defeated.

So… which team would you want to be on? One one side you have Barbara Lee (D-CA), AOC (D-NY), Justin Amash (R-MI), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Pramila Payapal (D-WA), Katie Porter (D-CA), Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), Joe Neguse (D-CO), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), David Cicilline (D-RI), Deb Haaland (D-NM), Jamie Raskin (D-MA), Jerry Nadler (D-NY)… And on the other side you have Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Devin Nunes (R-CA),  Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), Steve King (R-IA), Fred Upton (R-MI), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL), Liz Cheney (R-WY), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Sean Duffy (R-WI), Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL), David Scott (Blue Dog-GA), Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL), Ron Kind (new Dem-WI), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Tom O’Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ), Jefferson Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ), Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)…

I reached out to some Democrats who firmly believe in the concept of privacy from unreasonable searches. Remember Tim Canova, a constitutional lawyer from Florida who made a couple of spirited runs against Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of the New Dems who backs unwarranted spying on American citizens. Tim reminded me that he had “long opposed the federal government’s warrantless mass surveillance program… Wasserman Schultz has argued that federal agencies need these tools to protect us from terrorists, from those who would collude with foreign enemies, rig our elections, and destroy our system of government. It’s therefore ironic that Wasserman Schultz and her own electronic communications are now of interest to the U.S. Justice Department and various federal prosecutors. Most notable are investigations into the origins of the unverified and salacious Christopher Steele dossier and how it was used in 2016 to lie to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court to spy on the Trump campaign. It turns out that Wasserman Schultz had her Democratic National Committee (DNC) paid millions of dollars for the dirty dossier, with payments ultimately going to Steele, a former foreign Intelligence agent, and his sources inside Russian intelligence circles. As the New York Times reported, the Russians may have fed Steele the most outlandish lies about Trump as part of a Kremlin disinformation program to destabilize our political system. Paying foreigners to influence the U.S. presidential election are serious violations of federal campaign finance law. It also turns out that Wasserman Schultz laundered these payments to Steele and the others through Fusion GPS, a crony, and a high powered law firm, Perkins Coie. That’s money laundering to conceal the underlying felonies. Federal prosecutors likely have plenty of probable cause to obtain a FISA warrant to inspect Wasserman Schultz’s electronic communications from 2016. Meanwhile, Wasserman Schultz keeps voting in the House to allow federal mass surveillance without warrants. If there’s any karmic justice in this world, it won’t be warrantless mass surveillance that catches up with Wasserman Schultz, but a FISA warrant based on verified information and probable cause. RussiaGate conspiracy mongering has been great for cable TV ratings and has allowed criminal Democrats like Wasserman Schultz to distract attention from their own crimes. It is quickly proving to be a failing strategy against Donald Trump. All thanks to Dirty Debbie.”

Jon Hoadley is a state Rep running for the congressional seat held by Trump enabler Fred Upton. His position wasn’t much like Canova’s but wound up with a similar conclusion. “Voters in Southwest Michigan were disappointed to learn their 16-term congressman, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), once again landed on the wrong side of history by voting against the Lofgren-Amash amendment. This amendment would have closed the legal loopholes that enable mass government surveillance on private citizens. As a state representative, I've introduced legislation to ensure privacy for broadband users and worked to advance net neutrality. And when we turn Michigan's Sixth District blue next November, I'll vote to end mass government spying on citizens and to hold corporations accountable for abusing consumer data.

Dr. Michael Owens, a national security expert running for Congress against craven Blue Dog David Scott in a suburban district southwest of Atlanta told me that it’s unfortunate that Scott “again voted with Republicans and the Trump Administration to continue to allow the government to collect Americans' personal, private communications without a warrant. This is the second time that David Scott has voted for the warrantless collection of Americans' data that was installed hastily after 911 by President Bush as part of the overreaching Patriot Act. We must be clear, with David Scott's help, the Republicans in the House were successful in voting against the basic freedoms that every American is granted under the Fourth Amendment, he continues to be complicit in the government's mass collections of data that potentially puts  every American citizen at risk to cyber attacks and the potential exposure of any American citizen's most private information. Lastly, with this vote Congressman Scott continues to support Trump by allowing the biased targeting of migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants… I support this amendment and would’ve stood with the many progressive and decisive Democrats who voted yes. Under this amendment the government would have basic safeguards to allow the government to continue using Section 702 for its stated purpose of gathering foreign intelligence. But just as important, it would’ve stopped the abuse of the Constitution's 4th amendment with the government’s warrantless collection of Americans’ communications under FISA. This amendment would’ve also helped to reduce the billions of pieces of information that are being collected, indexed and searched against the will of the American people.”

Another reactionary Blue Dog who opposed the bipartisan amendment was Tom O’Halleran (AZ), a “former” Republican. And, like Scott, he has a strong progressive primary opponent— Eva Putzova. “The U.S. government can continue to read its citizens’ emails and text messages and surveil their internet activity Russian-style, “ she told me after the vote. “This is a tactic used to control the citizenry by totalitarian regimes and I know that, because I grew up under one of those regimes. Selling out the freedom of our people is unacceptable whether it’s done on partisan basis or not. In this case, both Republicans and Democrats showed a total disregard for personal liberties and failed their constituents.”

Dary Rezvani is the Fresno-area progressive taking on Devin Nunes (R-CA), a huge proponent of illegal domestic surveillance, isn’t happy that his own congressman is leading this charge. “The topic of surveillance,” he told me, “especially as it relates to this topic has always fascinated me for multiple reasons. The first being that Republicans try to sell themselves as the anti-big government party yet they have continually fueled and proposed legislation that allows for government overreach. As a child of 9/11, I remember vividly the arguments over the Patriot Act. At the time I thought ‘if you aren't doing anything wrong, what is the difference?’ Now, being a bit older and a bit wiser, I realize that this has little to do with protecting the public and everything to do with monitoring citizens that might be a ‘problem’ for the status quo. Privacy is a hot topic especially lately. It took a minute but the general population is starting to realize how valuable data is, specifically personal data. As our privacy becomes less and less private, the ability to organize and collectively voice our opinions against injustice becomes more and more difficult. Look at countries like China and Russia, where besides the exception of a couple of cases, the ability to protest is almost impossible. Once again, there’s something wrong with the rhetoric here. America is supposed to be the land of the free. That is what I was taught in school, my mom was taught in school and so on. The problem once again comes back to America's inability to critically think for themselves and ultimately question the government. However, when has there been a time in our history that you could openly question the government without your patriotism coming into question? As Americans, our information should be ours and ours alone. If we have created a society that the government has to monitor every letter we type, we have failed so far beyond belief that no amount on monitoring that can save it.”

Wendy Reed ran against Kevin McCarthy twice, without any help from her own party either time. Yesterday she told me that she would have gladly voted for the amendment and that fact “that McCarthy voted against it shows why he is hated by progressives and Freedom Caucus alike; he is a sellout corporatist, owing his allegiance only to money.”

Discussing this vote with Florida Democrat Alan Grayson, he told me that "After the Snowden revelations, an independent study showed that mass spying had not caught a single terrorist– although it had allowed NSA agents to spy on their girlfriends. 1984 just came a few years late. Big Brother is, indeed, watching you."