The NSA Republican Spying Program, otherwise known as the 2015 USA Freedom Act, seems to be
pretty effective if you are a Democrat and want to spy on Trump and other Republicans in order to win
an election.
But if you’re looking to the program to thwart terrorism, it doesn’t seem to be all that effective.
The USA Freedom Act is a law enacted in the summer of 2015 that dealt with several provisions of
the Patriot Act, and it was supposedly an effort to reform the government’s mass surveillance program
on American citizens.
The “reform” worked really well, didn’t it? So well that it thwarted the Obama administration’s efforts to
spy on Trump and other Republicans, right?
Oh, wait. It didn’t.
If you are like me, you probably thought that The Wizards of Smart have been listening in on terrorism
calls every day and have thwarted thousand of plots against the United States. Hundreds at least.
No.
After spending millions of dollars on the program and allowing Democrats to abuse the system, a new
declassified study by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has showed that spying on
American citizens and collecting our metadata has resulted in very little terrorism thwarting.
In fact only one of two unique leads from the program yielded a prolonged investigation from 2015 to
2019.
Only 15 investigations were aided by the program, 13 of which already were being conducted.
I think tracking terrorists on Facebook would be less expensive and more fruitful.
Looking at a March 15 deadline of the spying program, the House of Representatives recently voted
to reauthorize the USA Freedom Act and senators are looking to jump on board as well.
Even Attorney General William Barr is endorsing it. He said, “The bill contains an array of new
requirements and compliance provisions that will protect against abuse and misuse in the future while
ensuring that this critical tool is available when appropriate to protect the safety of the American
people.”
Sorry, Mr. Barr. I’m not buying it.
Evidence has shown that the program is not worth the effort and expense. And if you want to spy on
us, get a real warrant like the Constitution says. Don’t try to re-write the Constitution with your
bureaucratic agencies – and legislate rules that will never get followed.
The fact that the program is ineffective is of little consequence to most of the politicians except for
Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who are hoping that Trump will veto the bill if it makes it to the
president’s desk this weekend. Paul doesn’t want FISA warrants being used against American citizens and Mike Lee tweeted, “The House FISA deal doesn’t fix what’s wrong with FISA. It would not have stopped the spying that occurred against President Trump. I will do everything I can to oppose it in the Senate. If it passes, President Trump should veto it.”
Obviously, Paul and Lee don’t believe the “safeguards” put in the bill by the House of Representatives
are anything significant.
So it looks like if the bill passes and Trump signs it, the politicians will continue to warehouse our
phone calls and emails in order to weaponize them in the future in violation of the fourth amendment.