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Thread: Congress set for clash over surveillance reforms

  1. #1

    Exclamation Congress set for clash over surveillance reforms

    Senate and House GOP are waking up! Trump admin wants to reauthorize all this junk. Make sure your congressman or senator hears you!

    Congress is gearing up for a high-profile fight over reauthorizing a handful of controversial surveillance programs months before the 2020 elections.

    After punting late last year to give themselves more time to negotiate, lawmakers now have 15 working days to figure out whether and how to reauthorize expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act by the March 15 deadline.

    The policy battle comes as tensions are already running high in Washington after a weeks-long fight emanating from the Justice Department — which will also be at the center of the surveillance discussion — and with the November elections injecting a higher dose of politics into any discussion involving Congress and President Trump.

    Attorney General William Barr will meet with Senate Republicans during a closed-door policy lunch on Tuesday, his first face-to-face with most senators since the controversy over the department’s handling of the case involving Trump associate Roger Stone.

    But two sources confirmed to The Hill that the lunch was planned weeks before the current flare-up between the Justice Department and the White House. The topic, according to the two sources, is expected to be expiring surveillance provisions.

    “Reauthorization of these certain programs is a priority for both Leader McConnell and AG Barr,” a source said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

    Among the expiring provisions that Congress needs to make decisions on is a controversial records program, known as Section 215, that gathered metadata on domestic text messages and phone calls.

    They'll also need to make decisions on two other provisions — one authorizing “roving” wiretaps and the other on lone wolf surveillance authority.

    The biggest sticking point will be the metadata program that will put a spotlight on divisions between privacy hawks and leadership, the House and Senate, and even GOP lawmakers and the White House.

    Though the National Security Agency (NSA) shuttered the program and advised the White House to officially end it, then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats urged Congress to reauthorize it. Barr is expected to stick with that position when he speaks with senators.

    Coats noted that the NSA had suspended the program and deleted call records, saying the decision was made after “balancing the program’s relative intelligence value, associated costs, and compliance and data integrity concerns."

    "However, as technology changes, our adversaries’ tradecraft and communications habits will continue to evolve and adapt," he added. "In light of this dynamic environment, the Administration supports reauthorization of this provision."

    But Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), respectively the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, quietly introduced legislation that would end the phone metadata program — going against the administration’s request.

    In addition to terminating that program as soon as the bill is enacted, it would provide an eight-year reauthorization of the other two programs.

    The bill was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has described himself as “torn” on whether to reauthorize Section 215.

    A Democratic aide, asked if they had gotten guidance on if Judiciary or leadership would move the Burr-Warner bill in committee or on the floor by March 15, told The Hill: “Not really.”

    The panel includes privacy hawks like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Lee and Leahy are working on reforms related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). A spokesman for Lee said that “ideally” their forthcoming ideas could be included as part of the debate over reauthorizing the USA Freedom provisions.

    Surveillance debates have spotlighted fierce clashes among Senate Republicans in recent years.

    When the Senate debated the USA Freedom Act, and the Patriot Act measures that pre-dated it, in 2015, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) used the chamber’s procedural levers to force a brief lapse of the surveillance programs.

    He also successfully blocked multiple efforts by McConnell to clear a short-term extension of the Patriot Act, a tactic Paul quickly used to rack in fundraising cash for his 2016 presidential bid. McConnell has not yet taken a public position on the upcoming USA Freedom debate, something he’s likely to be quizzed on after Tuesday’s lunch.

    As Republicans are set to meet with Barr, the House Judiciary Committee has put reauthorization of the USA Freedom provisions on its business meeting agenda for Wednesday.

    House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) hasn’t yet unveiled what the committee will be voting on, and spokesmen didn't respond to multiple requests for comment. But a House Intelligence Committee aide noted that staff on the two panels are continuing to work on potential legislation.

    The aide declined to say if the forthcoming legislation would end the metadata program, even as leadership is under pressure from progressives to take a hard line.

    Twenty House progressives sent a letter to Nadler last year warning that they would oppose a reauthorization measure that does not completely repeal the call records program and also called for additional civil liberties protections to be built into the law.

    "Any meaningful reform must repeal the [call detail records] program, which is an unnecessary violation of the rights of people in the United States and a threat to our democracy," the lawmakers wrote.

    Further complicating calculations for passing a bill in roughly two weeks, some Republicans are saying they want to use the reauthorization debate to work in changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court.

    The court, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, is made up of 11 judges who serve seven-year terms and are selected by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The judges are responsible for signing off on or rejecting warrant applications submitted as part of intelligence gathering and national security operations.

    The court jumped into the spotlight late last year when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found a total of 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the applications to monitor Trump campaign aide Carter Page, taking particular issue with applications to renew the FISA warrant and chastising the FBI for a lack of satisfactory explanations for those mistakes.

    Reps. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) and Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) — the top Republicans on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, respectively — sent a letter to Nadler over the recess pitching the USA Freedom debate as a vehicle for making FISA changes.

    “Any legislation devoid of necessary reforms to address the abuse of the intelligence community against a presidential campaign and even our sitting president, including lies and fraud engaged in by top-level FBI officials, misses that mark,” they wrote.

    There have been bipartisan calls for FISA reforms after the Horowitz report, but inserting it into the middle of the surveillance debate could inject another political angle into what will already be a contentious debate.

    But Collins and Nunes argued that FISA reforms should be a bipartisan “line in the sand” and urged Nadler to “not ignore historic abuses directed against the campaign of a president you don't support.”
    https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...llance-reforms



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  3. #2
    No matter what happens publicly, I will never trust that surveillance tech is ever gone. Govco/NSA will just farm it out to private industry like Google, Facebook, AT&T, etc.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Bern View Post
    No matter what happens publicly, I will never trust that surveillance tech is ever gone. Govco/NSA will just farm it out to private industry like Google, Facebook, AT&T, etc.
    That is how I see it .
    Do something Danke

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Bern View Post
    No matter what happens publicly, I will never trust that surveillance tech is ever gone. Govco/NSA will just farm it out to private industry like Google, Facebook, AT&T, etc.
    But its fun if we can split the GOP on these matters. I think Rand will cause some sh1t

  6. #5
    My best guess is that we are still going to be spied on.
    "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration is minding my own business."

    Calvin Coolidge

  7. #6
    Looks like Trump wants reform. I wonder what it will look like in the end?

    Rand will surely take the lead on this..

    Tapping Trump’s Anger About 2016 Surveillance, White House Seeks Overhaul of Spying Law



    WASHINGTON—Senior White House officials are discussing an overhaul of the government’s surveillance program for people in the U.S. suspected of posing a national-security risk, spurred in part by President Trump’s grievances about an investigation of a 2016 campaign adviser, according to people familiar with the matter.

    The effort seeks to take advantage of the looming expiration of some spying powers next month, including portions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a Watergate-era law that Mr. Trump believes was...
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/tapping...aw-11582462800

  8. #7
    President Trump reportedly told Attorney General William Barr that he wanted to do away with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
    In a discussion last year about reauthorizing the spying law, Trump said he would rather abolish the law altogether than overhaul it, according to Axios.
    Barr told Trump reauthorization was needed, without any changes, for national security reasons. Several provisions of the law are set to expire in less than a month.
    "I trust you, Bill, but if it was up to me, we'd get rid of the whole thing,” Trump said, according to a source familiar with the conversation.
    The discussion happened several months before the Justice Department's independent watchdog released a blistering report on its investigation into alleged surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

    More at: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...sh-fisa-report
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  9. #8
    Clash my ass...just arguing over what and where and by whom we're gonna get spied on.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Clash my ass...just arguing over what and where and by whom we're gonna get spied on.
    Rand and Mike Lee are going to be active on this. I suspect they will give Barr hell tomorrow in the lunch.

  12. #10
    UPDATE:

    Go Rand/Lee !!!

    Attorney General William Barr told Senate Republicans on Tuesday that the Trump administration could support a clean extension of contentious surveillance laws set to expire next month. And Barr said he could make changes on his own to satisfy President Donald Trump and his allies who have railed against the use of the law to monitor his 2016 campaign, according to senators at a party briefing.

    But Barr also clashed with GOP critics of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has three key provisions set to lapse on March 15. And with House Democrats eyeing their own changes to the law, some Senate Republicans fear a deal to extend the law might be nearly impossible.

    Republicans emerged from the lunch meeting mostly supportive of a clean extension of the law to avoid a gap; doing so is a top priority of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

    “The attorney general just wanted to underscore again the importance of these provisions that were enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attack. They’re still relevant to our effort to go after terrorists today like they were after 9/11,” McConnell told reporters.

    But Barr also sparred with skeptics, primarily libertarian-leaning Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Barr told Lee his criticisms of surveillance law are dangerous, while Paul said Americans shouldn’t be subject to secret FISA courts, one of the people said.

    Lee followed up the lunch by tweeting a lengthy rebuttal to Barr’s arguments in the caucus meeting.

    “At the Senate GOP lunch today I made a long case against a simple reauthorization of the FISA program. Some are arguing the program needs no reform and that DOJ can put in place internal quality control mechanisms. That’s not good enough,” Lee said.

    Lee also called for ending the call-records program and requiring more evidence for the government to conduct surveillance.

    “Not everyone is in agreement that we should just leave it alone,” said an attendee at the lunch.

    That comment extends across the Capitol, where House Democrats are pushing their own version of FISA reforms. On Wednesday, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) will begin advancing a reauthorization that would end the seizure of call records and extend roving wiretap and lone wolf surveillance authorities with some reforms.

    Senate Republicans and Barr are unlikely to accept those changes anytime soon. And those dynamics have some fretting the programs will briefly expire, just as they did in 2015 when Paul and McConnell clashed over reforming the much-criticized bulk data collection program.

    “I don’t even know if we’re going to do an extension. I think this is the beginning of the conversation. I’m not sure. Letting it lapse and then revisit it? I don’t know,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). A brief expiration of the law is “possible. I think that’s probably what’s going to happen.”

    Senate Republicans prefer kicking a broad FISA debate to as late as 2022, when other pieces of the law expire. In the interim, Barr would make administrative changes to address complaints from conservatives that surveillance authorities were abused during Trump’s campaign — something the president continues to seethe over.

    “You’ve got three provisions to deal with. I think it’d be smart to keep them in place. It would give us some time to work on FISA writ large, we’ve got three years,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is preparing hearings on FISA.

    Barr “indicated his desire to do whatever he can to prevent the corruption and the abuses that we saw in the Crossfire Hurricane,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), referring to the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. “We’re not going to shoehorn a bunch of other unrelated things” into an extension before the March 15 deadline.

    But a clean extension would be no layup in the House, where progressives are eager to finally snuff out the collection of call records and metadata after more modest reforms ultimately passed in 2015 over McConnell’s objections.

    The possibility of swallowing a clean extension is something senior Democrats have only just started to seriously discuss in recent days, according to Democratic aides. And with the House not back from recess until Wednesday, Democratic leaders have been unable to take the temperature of the caucus.

    There’s internal politics on both sides to contend with: a clean extension would likely be opposed by liberal Democrats and potentially even some Republicans, all of whom have been advocating for overhauling the current law in various ways.

    And now Republicans have whiplash over the mixed messages about what the president wants — from a Wall Street Journal report over the weekend detailing White House hopes to completely overhaul the program to Barr saying Tuesday those reforms could be achieved administratively.

    The House legislation also contains provisions generally supported by members of both parties, including repealing the controversial cellphone metadata program and reforming the FISA court. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wrote to colleagues this month to say that he hopes “to bring a reauthorization to the floor during this work period” after the bill clears committee.

    But privately, Republicans are reluctant to support a measure Trump could publicly reject at any moment. And GOP lawmakers like House Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins of Georgia have panned the proposal, saying it does nothing to address the FISA abuses related to Trump campaign aide Carter Page that were outlined in a December report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

    Given those dynamics, fears are rising that nothing will happen at all before Congress goes on another recess on March 13. As Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) observed dryly: “Things aren’t happening very fast up here.”

    “A lot will happen between now and March 15. We may do a placeholder and take it past March 15. We’ve got to get this right,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “Anybody who reads the Horowitz report on misfire hurricane will understand what I’m talking about.”
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...debacle-117449

  13. #11





  14. #12
    “There are some of our members who have a different point of view about this,” McConnell said. “I personally happen to be among those who think these expiring provisions are important, and I hope we’ll be able to find a bipartisan way to extend them.”

    Among those senators with a “different point of view” is McConnell’s home-state colleague, Rand Paul.

    Paul told CQ Roll Call he would once again strenuously object to extending the surveillance law without further changes.

    “A clean extension is a big mistake, and I will oppose with all the fervor I have any kind of clean extension. A clean extension without reform is to look the other way and say we don’t really care what happened to President Trump, the abuse that was laid at his feet by the secret court that’s intended to go after foreigners,” Paul said. “People who look the other way I think are ignoring what happened to the president.”

    Paul said he needed to review what Nadler and other House Democrats were proposing, but his initial read was that “some of their reforms do have some value.”

    “I think the main thing is, from my perspective, is secret courts shouldn’t be used on Americans. If you have a secret court where you don’t get a lawyer to represent you, that lower standard could be used on foreigners that are potential enemies of the country, but they should never be used on Americans, and I think that’s the big reform that I want to see,” Paul told CQ Roll Call

    During the lunch, Cramer said no one gave Barr a difficult time, including Paul. When asked if the questioning from Paul was friendly, Cramer said, “very much so … he’s a teddy bear!”

    Paul often finds a kindred spirit when it comes to the National Security Agency in Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden.

    “The real question is whether [the president’s] loyalists are really interested in FISA reform, which includes some of the most current problems like geo-location and browsing history, or is this just some kind of referendum on Carter Page,” Wyden said Tuesday.

    “I mean, when they first came out for all these reforms, I said wow, look at all these new privacy hawks. These are all the people who opposed all the bipartisan things I've been offering for a decade,” Wyden said
    https://www.rollcall.com/2020/02/25/...authorization/
    Last edited by Warlord; 02-25-2020 at 08:19 PM.

  15. #13
    Jordan is talking a good game here. I wonder what he has in mind?


  16. #14


    Looks like Rand and Lee are up for a fight!

  17. #15


    Wonder what Nadler is up to.

    @Brian4Liberty what do you think the chance of reform is? or will they just repackage it with some fancy language and pass it..

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post


    Wonder what Nadler is up to.

    @Brian4Liberty what do you think the chance of reform is? or will they just repackage it with some fancy language and pass it..
    It’s up to Trump. Hopefully he will listen to Rand and Lee. If nothing happens, it just expires, which is the best option.

    Nadler is just playing partisan politics.

    They talked about this on Hannity last night. All of Hannity’s usual guests said to abolish the FISA Court. Hannity disagreed and said that we need it. There is your establishment/neocon perspective, typical for Hannity.
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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    It’s up to Trump. Hopefully he will listen to Rand and Lee. If nothing happens, it just expires, which is the best option.
    McConnell is relying on panicking Congress if the programs expire. They will wheel out law enforcement to say terrorists will be taking advantage. Congress usually caves but I'm sensing that the GOP is heavily split so we'll see what happens.

    This is going to be an epic battle and will expose the true colors of various members.

  21. #18
    The Judiciary Committee has postponed a high-profile meeting Wednesday after a last-minute maneuver by a top committee Democrat threatened to sink a months-long effort to revise and reauthorize surveillance authorities due to expire next month.

    Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) had been prepared Wednesday to offer five amendments that would reform the Watergate-era law, known as FISA, that senior House Democrats see as "poison pills" that would doom the bill in the House. Her push rankled top Democrats, who said her proposals would upend months of delicate negotiations that resulted in a bill backed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif).
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...renewal-117701

    Nadler and Schiff have been outmaneuvered by Lofgren and whatever they have cooked up has gone down.

  22. #19
    Democrats cancel surveillance vote over pushback to amendments


    The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday canceled a planned vote to reauthorize a set of controversial government surveillance programs over concerns that a slew of privacy-focused amendments from Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) would tank the bill in the House, sources confirmed to The Hill.

    The eleventh-hour switch up comes after staff with the Judiciary Committee negotiated with the House Intelligence Committee for months to produce a bill that reformed several expiring surveillance provisions originally spelled out in the Patriot Act. The provisions are set to sunset on March 15.

    Ultimately, the reforms in the reauthorization bill offered by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) did not go far enough to satisfy key civil liberties advocates and privacy hawks in Congress, who were hoping for more sweeping changes to the government's spying authorities.

    Lofgren, a longtime proponent of overhauling the country's intelligence-gathering efforts to better protect privacy, told the Judiciary Committee staff on Tuesday that she would offer amendments to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, court, which has come under bipartisan scrutiny over its role in the FBI's surveillance of a Trump campaign associate.

    Lofgren originally planned to introduce seven amendments, but cut those down to five after negotiations, a Democratic aide told The Hill.

    Multiple civil liberties groups were expected to support the bill only after Lofgren's amendments.

    But another Democratic aide called the amendments a "poison pill" that could undermine months of tenuous negotiations between the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees and ultimately kill the bill's ability to get through the House.

    An Intelligence Committee official said the two panel have "worked collaboratively with each other and outside stakeholders to reauthorize necessary FISA provisions that are crucial to national security and make significant reforms to enhance civil liberties and privacy protections."

    "The draft bill does both, implementing a variety of progressive reforms while ensuring we can continue to protect our national security," the official said. "We’re going to continue to work with all parties towards that goal."

    It's unclear what will happen to the bill next, but the clock is ticking toward next month’s deadline.

    Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a progressive leader who has previously called for significant reforms to the USA Freedom Act, told The Hill on Wednesday that she's continuing to work with the committee leaders to encourage them to include more privacy reforms in the bill.

    "We have been trying to get a set of reforms in, and trying to get to that place where we can have these tools for the intelligence community but also have some very strong protections," said Jayapal, who was planning to vote for Lofgren's amendments.

    Nadler and Schiff's bill would have extended all of the expiring counterintelligence investigation powers until 2023. But it also would have ended the government's authority to gain information about Americans' phone calls, which was enabled under a provision called Section 215.

    Section 215 enables the government to collect business records without a warrant and surveil targets across multiple cell phone or communications devices during terrorism investigations.

    The National Security Agency shuttered the phone records program, but the Trump administration is pushing for Congress to reauthorize its ability to reopen it at any point.
    https://thehill.com/policy/national-...-to-amendments

    Huge news.. there is now an opening to stop this nonesense.

  23. #20


    @TheCount I think you owe Rand an apology?

  24. #21

  25. #22
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    Rand Paul says Trump backs broader FISA reforms, throwing curveball at intelligence bill


    Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Thursday that President Trump backs his proposal to include reforms to the surveillance court as part of a bill reauthorizing expiring intelligence programs, complicating the path forward for the legislation.

    "The [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] reforms that I think are very necessary is that FISA warrants shouldn't be issued on Americans and any information gathered by the FISA court shouldn't used against Americans. It's for foreign intelligence. This is a big reform. ...I think it will get bipartisan support. I've talked to the president about it," Paul said.

    Paul said he would insist on a vote to get the reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court he is pushing for included in any bill to reauthorize three expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act.

    "He's supportive of my amendment," Paul added, asked about his conversation with the president.

    Trump's decision to back including reforms to the surveillance court in the intelligence bill puts him at odds with Senate GOP leadership and Attorney General Bill Barr, who told Republican senators in a closed-door lunch on Tuesday that the president would back a clean extension.

    Trump has not weighed in publicly about reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act, a 2015 bill that overhauled the post-9/11 Patriot Act. Congress has until March 15 to extend the three expiring provisions, including a controversial phone records program known as Section 215 that allows the government to request specific metadata from conversations.

    Barr, according to GOP senators, told them during the closed-door lunch that Trump would back a "clean" extension of the three programs.

    Barr also pledged to use his own rulemaking authority to make changes to the FISA courts.

    But Trump's GOP allies on Capitol Hill have argued that doesn't go far enough. They are pushing to make broad changes to the FISA courts in the wake of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on surveillance of Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

    A spokesman for Sen. Mike Lee said on that the Utah Republican, who is also pushing to use the reauthorization bill to include broad surveillance reforms, has spoken with Trump.

    "Sen. Lee has had multiple positive phone calls with President Trump on this," the aide said.
    https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...g-curveball-at
    Last edited by Warlord; 02-27-2020 at 12:54 PM.

  26. #23
    This is HUGE news.

    Let the battle begin...

    @Anti Federalist , @Bern , @Brian4Liberty , @Anti Globalist , @oyarde

    Rand will not give up until the losers in Congress submit.

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post
    @TheCount I think you owe Rand an apology?
    An apology for what?
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    An apology for what?
    You said this would never happen. That Rand is not an insider etc. Well check the updates!

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post
    You said this would never happen.
    That is a lie.


    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post
    That Rand is not an insider etc.
    Yes, while you were weaseling about with the definitions of administration and insider, I said that he is not an insider. I still maintain that he is not a part of the administration.

    Is there a reason why you're posting this without quotes in a different thread from the thread where that discussion took place? Other than being intentionally deceitful, that is.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  31. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    That is a lie.

    Yes, while you were weaseling about with the definitions of administration and insider, I said that he is not an insider. I still maintain that he is not a part of the administration.

    Is there a reason why you're posting this without quotes in a different thread from the thread where that discussion took place? Other than being intentionally deceitful, that is.
    I said there was a tug of war within the administration and in Congress. You took issue with that.

    Here's more evidence of the tug of war:

    Internally, the Trump administration also remains divided, with reports earlier this week suggesting that factions within the White House wanted reforms, but were opposed by others.
    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...sa-reform-now/

    And:

    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...ch-expiration/

    I am pleased to report that Rand is winning!

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post
    I said there was a tug of war within the administration and in Congress. You took issue with that.
    This is why multiquotes are good, because without multiquotes, people like you ignore the entire post to write something unrelated while pretending that they responded to its content.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    This is why multiquotes are good, because without multiquotes, people like you ignore the entire post to write something unrelated while pretending that they responded to its content.
    Just sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

  34. #30

    Rand Paul and Trump thrust fate of surveillance law into doubt


    The Republican senator said the president made comments contradicting his attorney general.

    President Donald Trump told Sen. Rand Paul that he does not support a clean extension of expiring surveillance authorities, throwing the future of the program into doubt ahead of a fast-approaching March 15 deadline to reup key features of the Patriot Act.

    The Kentucky Republican told reporters that Trump made the comments to him on Wednesday, just a day after Attorney General William Barr told GOP senators that Congress should extend the expiring provisions regarding roving wire taps, lone wolf actors and the most controversial provision: call data collection.

    Asked about the discrepancy between his conversation with Trump and Barr's remarks to senators, Paul said there was “misinformation that got out from some people in the administration” about the expiring surveillance authorities.

    “The president was out of the country and somebody mischaracterized his positions. I’ll leave it up to y’all to figure that out,” Paul added.

    Paul said Trump is “very supportive” of his amendment to prevent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from targeting Americans, a reflection of conservative unease over the way the Trump campaign was surveilled in 2016.

    “FISA warrants should not be issued against Americans,” Paul said on Thursday afternoon. “Americans shouldn't be spied on by a secret court. I think he agrees completely with that and that’s the amendment that I’m going to insist on. I’m not letting anything go easy without a vote on my amendment.”

    Paul’s conversation with Trump could blow up plans by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to extend those expiring authorities, which McConnell said was his preference on Tuesday. It also suggests a fresh schism between Barr and Trump after Trump weighed in on the sentencing of his longtime ally Roger Stone, a development that Barr said made his job “impossible.”

    Most Senate Republicans want Barr to stay in his job and many of them agree with his position on the FISA courts. Paul voted against Barr’s confirmation as attorney general, the only Republican to do so.

    Barr suggested to Republicans that he could make some of the changes sought by Republicans, including to blunt the ability of the FISA courts to target Americans, through new regulations. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he planned to talk about the matter on Friday and try and suggest a compromise.

    “The best thing is for me to try and find out what happened and see if we need to do more than the attorney general’s done. So maybe an extension for a period of time that allows us to come back toward the end of the year, maybe would work," Graham said.

    But that’s unlikely to satisfy Paul, who said he doesn’t care whether the provisions expire anyway since he opposes the Patriot Act to begin with.

    Barr “wants to do just his own regulatory reforms, some of which are good but are not enough. We have to fix the law,” Paul said. “His tenure could be six months and then the next attorney general changes it. This is an inflection point where we should change the law.”
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...nce-law-117940

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