In a stunning betrayal of their own voters, dozens of Republicans in the House and Senate have voted to extend the illegal, warrantless government spying on Americans through the secret FISA courts through April of 2024. An inspector general report found that the FBI had illegally used this system nearly 300,000 times to spy on conservatives and Trump supporters without a warrant. Thanks to one of the “reforms” that Republicans just voted in favor of, the Deep State now has more ways to spy on your communications than ever before.
You probably know by now that telecommunications companies like Verizon and AT&T surrender your data to the feds all the time. They get requests for billions of foreign communications in addition to the “incidental collection” of the communications of Americans—all without a warrant and without us even being accused of crimes. It’s a clear-cut violation of our Fourth Amendment rights.
Under the new “reforms” that the Republicans just passed on the secret FISA rules, any small or medium-sized business that provides Wi-Fi or data storage now has to do the same thing. A landlord at an apartment complex who provides Wi-Fi to his residents has to turn the data over. So does the barista at the coffee shop where you use the Wi-Fi.
Airbnb hosts, hotel managers, big box stores, and any other location that provides Wi-Fi is now compelled to spy on Americans without a warrant on behalf of the corrupt FBI, the corrupt Department of Justice, and other corrupt federal agencies.
This is what we get for voting for Republicans? What’s the point?
The fact that the FBI abused the FISA system to spy on President Trump during the 2016 campaign should have been enough reason to gut the program. But once again, Republicans in Congress are so cowardly and out-of-touch with their own voters that they have caved to the wishes of the Deep State.
